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Big Accident Cosmologists grant the objective existence of space/time/mass/ energy; but, they contend, it all adds up to nothing. All opposing forces within our closed universe balance out perfectly; and the net result is zero. If a perfectly balanced universe is closed, the net energy in that universe is nil. As Alan Guth puts it, "The Universe is the ultimate free lunch."¹ According to the "free lunch" interpretation of quantum physics, our universe is a delicate but accidental balance of negative and positive forces that sums up to nothing. This perfect balance is called "perfect symmetry."

1. The Universe as a Big Accident

If symmetry is perfect on a cosmic scale, the total amount of energy in the universe is actually zero. Does this mean that nothing caused the universe? If our universe is an absolute zero, absolutely nothing seems required to cause it! Is our universe such an ultimate absolute accident? Is it a nothing that is caused by nothing for no reason or purpose at all? Extreme Big Accident Cosmology answers affirmatively. This cosmology is advocated by Quantum Cosmologists like Edward P. Tryon,² Peter Atkins,³ A. Vilenkin,⁴ Victor J. Stenger,⁵ Quentin Smith,⁶ and a few others⁷ for whom the origin of our universe was indeed a stupendous accident, having no cause whatsoever.
Cosmologists who take this final step are not Antecedent Universe Cosmologists because they acknowledge no antecedents at all, no oscillating predecessors, not even Mother Spacetime and the unstable energy situation of the physical vacuum, not even really empty space itself. They view our world as an absolute accident, requiring neither necessary nor sufficient conditions for its existence. They believe that our universe was created not only from nothing but by nothing. As Edward P. Tryon put it, "Our universe is simply one of those things which happen from time to time."⁸ Tryon was only a forerunner of Big Accident Cosmology who suggested that our universe may be produced by a quantum fluctuation of "the vacuum of some larger space in which our Universe is imbedded,"⁹ so he actually presupposed the pre-existence of something after all. Renunciation of all antecedent conditions by real Accidentalists like Peter Atkins and Victor J. Stenger is much more complete. As Atkins expressed it,

In the beginning was nothing. Absolute void, not merely empty space. There was no space; nor was there time, for this was before time. The Universe was without form and void.
By chance was a fluctuation, and a set of points, emerging from nothing and taking their existence from the pattern they formed, defined a time.

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The chance formation of a pattern resulted in the emergence of time from coalesced opposites, its emergence from nothing. From absolutely nothing, absolutely without intervention, there came into being rudimentary existence.¹⁰

And as Stenger put it,

I picture the origin of the universe as follows: in the beginning there was a void more empty than a perfect vacuum, empty not only of particles and fields but of space and time as well. It had perfect symmetry and zero energy. It was as much nothing as nothing can be. A fluctuation in that void then occurred, generating our universe and perhaps countless others very different from ours.¹¹

Quentin Smith, another Big Accident Cosmologist, rejects Tryon's "vacuum fluctuation in empty space" account of the origin of the universe,¹² along with the principle of universal causation. He affirms that "The most reasonable belief is that we came from nothing, by nothing, and for nothing."¹³ That is Big Accident Cosmology in a nutshell!
Extreme quantum Big Accident Cosmology proposes that the creation of our universe is the ultimate chance happening, a totally spontaneous quantum fluctuation in, from, of, and by pure nothingness. How plausible is the view that nothing caused the Big Bang?

2. Critique of Big Accident Quantum Cosmology

The fundamental affirmations and presuppositions of Big Accident quantum cosmology are empirically vacuous and should be dismissed as utterly meaningless by empiricist standards. "Absolutely nothing caused the Big Bang" presupposes that "Absolutely nothing once existed," but no conceivable experience could ever directly verify this affirmation. Any confirming or disconfirming experience would exist and would thus falsify the claim. No examples of absolute non-existence, or of causation by non-existence, could ever be given directly in any conceivable experience. Also, we cannot reason inductively about such things since we have no instances with which to start.
Aside from being utterly unintelligible experientially and inductively, Big Accident quantum cosmology is troubled by three extreme affirmations that make it utterly implausible as an explanatory hypothesis. Big Accident theorists are committed to the preposterous claims that: A. The universe exists in such perfect symmetry that its net energy equals zero. B. Natural quantum laws exist and function in a state of absolute nothingness. C. Causality must be totally abandoned at the point of ultimate origins. But why are these claims so preposterous?

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A. Perfect Symmetry and Zero Energy

Our universe was created out of nothing by nothing, for nothing, and is nothing, according to extreme Big Accident quantum cosmologists. All the forces operating in the universe exist in such perfect balance or symmetry that the net energy of the universe is absolutely zero. Supposedly, the kinetic energy of the initial explosion is perfectly balanced by the counter-tug of gravity; positive and negative electrical charges of material particles all ultimately cancel one another out, as do matter and antimatter. Everything in the universe is so arranged that absolutely everything adds up to absolutely nothing.
Victor J. Stenger explicitly links zero energy with creation by nothing, arguing that "Since the universe has zero total energy, no energy was required in its production."¹⁴ This extreme "caused by nothing" hypothesis would be false, however, if the universe contains the slightest bit of positive energy, if symmetry is in any way imperfect. Does the empirical evidence support perfect symmetry? The average density of all positive and negative electrical charges may be zero, but assuredly we have not totaled them all. Even so, at least three important facts about our world count heavily against the theory that all manifestations of energy are so equally balanced that they sum up to zero: i. We live in an open universe; ii. Matter decisively triumphs over antimatter; and iii. The kinetic energy of the initial bang is more powerful than gravity.

i. We Live in an Open Universe

First, only a closed universe can have zero energy, but overwhelming evidence, given in Chapter Three, indicates that our universe is open. Andrei Linde refers to "The well-known fact that the total energy of a closed Universe is zero, being a sum of the positive energy of matter and the negative energy of the scale factor a."¹⁵ But Linde's "well-known fact" is not really a fact about our universe. Free-lunchers do a lot of wishful thinking! At this stage in the development of science, the most reasonable view is that our universe is open. Entities involved in the Hubble expansion have enough escape velocity to keep expanding forever; the Hubble rate of cosmic expansion is increasing, not decreasing; and gravitational and kinetic energy are decisively out of balance. After all identifiable dark matter is counted, seventy to ninety percent of the mass/energy required to close the universe is missing. Recall earlier discussions of the claim that sufficient mass exists to counterbalance the expansion of the universe. The missing mass just isn't there. Many prominent scientific cosmologists believe that the universe is open and will expand forever, precisely because not enough matter or mass exists to close it, balance it, or even slow it down.¹⁶ Some cold dark matter exists; but prospects are dim that sufficient missing mass will ever be located to close down the expansion of the universe.¹⁷ This is especially obvious now that we

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know that the rate of Hubble expansion is increasing, not decreasing. Oddly, in his most recent book, Victor J. Stenger insists that we live in an open universe, one lacking enough mass to close it;¹⁸ but he inconsistently affirms that enough invisible dark matter exists to balance exactly the kinetic and rest energies of the mass of the universe.¹⁹ Stenger concedes, significantly, that what he means by "zero energy" actually contains a small positive amount of energy!²⁰ So, where did that tiny bit come from? Stenger offers no answer.
If enough mass/energy exists to register at .99999 instead of a measly .1 to .3 of Omega at 1, the universe would still be open. Exactly at Omega, expansion would proceed very slowly forever; but the universe would never contract; a spent world would endure forever. Omega plus an additional scrap of mass/ energy is required for reversal. In the extremely unlikely event that our measurements might some day approximate these near-closure figures, margins of error would always prevent us from knowing for sure that the universe is closed. Without sufficient mass/energy, gravity loses; kinetic energy wins; and the average net results are greater than zero. Victor J. Stenger claimed in his 1988 book that the universe is balanced between open and closed;²¹ yet, an impressive seventy to ninety percent of the evidence cannot be found. Stenger concedes this in his 1995 book where he announces that the universe is open,²² but he does not acknowledge that only a closed universe could be a Big Accident. Believing in a closed universe, or even a delicately balanced one, is too much like believing in Santa Claus and Ptolemaic epicycles. Abdus Salam concedes that "At the present time, measurements do not appear to sustain" the claim that "the mass of the universe adds up to zero;" and without this, "We shall discard the whole notion of the universe arising as a quantum fluctuation."²³ Yes indeed!

ii. Matter Prevails over Antimatter

Second, our material universe exists precisely because matter and antimatter do not exist in perfect symmetry. We live in a material world because matter triumphed over antimatter near the very beginning, or because our universe was created from the outset with a massive imbalance of matter over antimatter. Stenger defends a hidden symmetry of matter and antimatter, despite the complete absence of evidence for it and substantial evidence against it. His only evidence is the non-empirical Principle of Plenitude. All possible states are actual, he insists. Symmetry is broken and matter prevails in our domain, he concedes, but in other domains (other universes, presumably composed of antimatter) in infinite Superspacetime, things balance out.²⁴ But how does he know that? We have no empirical access to any Superspacetime containing antimatter universes, much less an infinitude of it! And Superspacetime, if it exists, is not sheer nothingness.
We do not know that any, much less that all, possibilities are actualized in other domains or universes somewhere in Superspacetime. This a priori meta

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physics cannot be verified or falsified. Empirically, the claim is utterly meaningless, permanently without experiential content for us. An implausible hypothesis-creation of, by, out of, and for absolutely nothing-cannot be defended successfully by appeal to theories that are utterly senseless. In this world, the only one that we know to exist, mass/energy is definitely not zero. As A. Zee wrote in 1986,

Ever since Dirac's ideas about antimatter were experimentally confirmed, people have speculated that the Universe has an equal amount of matter and antimatter, segregated into domains. More precisely, it was asserted that all conserved quantum numbers of the Universe should be zero. In particular, since electric charge Q is known to be zero to a high degree of accuracy, it seems "aesthetically appealing" that baryon number B and lepton number L should also be zero. Unfortunately, the weight of the observational evidence is against this supposition. ²⁵

After thoroughly reviewing the empirical evidence, Gary Steigman concluded as early as 1979 that "The Universe is not symmetric and contains little, if any, antimatter."²⁶ In 1991, John D. Barrow concurred:

Although particle accelerators produce matter and antimatter in equal abundances quite routinely and there is a democratic relationship between the two, we see no antiplanets, no antistars, no antigalaxies, and there is no evidence of any antimatter in the cosmic rays that come from outside our solar system. Nor do we see any evidence of the wholesale annihilation of matter and antimatter, which would erupt anywhere in the Universe, where the two came into contact. Thus, for some mysterious reason, there exists a form of cosmic favoritism.²⁷

In 1993, after describing his research team's extensive probing during the 1970s for antimatter particles with sensitive instruments carried by high altitude balloons, George Smoot wrote that "During all the years, we found not a single convincing sign of cosmic antimatter. ²⁸
Perhaps, however, a perfect symmetry of matter and antimatter existed "in the beginning," even though little or no antimatter exists today. As Heinz R. Pagels suggests, "The present matter-antimatter asymmetry of the universe does not reflect the original state of the primal fireball, which could have perfect symmetry."²⁹ Even so, free-lunchers must explain how the original perfect symmetry of matter was broken and overcome, how enough matter to comprise our universe survived an initial perfect balance of matter and antimatter, why so little antimatter survived, and how this all adds up to nothing. A widely accepted explanation is that a surplus of matter over antimatter resulted because the earliest physical particles decayed at an irregular pace, as

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permitted by the weak force.³⁰ This answer is very problematic. Why did the weak force permit asymmetrical decay into matter instead of antimatter? Why didn't the weak force exemplify perfect symmetry? Emerging from perfect symmetry, why were these primitive particles asymmetrically inclined? Why weren't they all annihilated by their own perfectly symmetrical antiparticles? This widely accepted explanation pushes the asymmetry back one step but does not account for it. No one has ever observed the primitive particles that supposedly decayed into a surplus of matter; they are purely hypothetical explanatory constructs with no empirical status whatsoever. Most seriously, if symmetry was so perfect originally, all of the original primitive particles should have been annihilated by their own primitive anti-particles. The conventional explanation of why asymmetry exists in a perfectly symmetrical universe is unverified, incoherent, and unintelligible.
In 1998, A. G. Cohen, A. De RuJula, and S. L. Glashow indicated that primordial matter/antimatter symmetry would elevate the gamma ray background and distort the cosmic microwave background far above observable quantities. They argue that although small pockets of antimatter might exist here and there, empirical evidence excludes a patchwork universe composed of widely separated regions of matter and antimatter. After reviewing the evidence, they conclude that "A matter-antimatter symmetric universe is empirically excluded. "³¹
Even if equal quantities of matter and antimatter existed originally, this would still not prove zero net energy for the universe as a whole. When material and antimaterial particles collide and explode, they do not leave behind zero energy or absolute nothingness, as the "free lunch" Big Accident theory predicts and requires. Instead, they leave a residue of gamma radiation, which is a definite and positive form of mass/energy. ³² In fact, residues of primordial gamma radiation may now have been found; ³³ but the early mutual extinction of matter and antimatter did not result in zero mass/energy. Clearly, the primordial annihilation was asymmetrical, a fact that perfect symmetry cannot explain.

iii. The Bang Overpowers Gravity

Before concluding that the universe is really not a free lunch after all, let us consider another argument for this conclusion. If matter/antimatter symmetry does not add up to zero, perhaps matter-gravity symmetry does. In explaining Stephen Hawking's commitment to the zero-energy free lunch theory, Michael White and John Gribbin declare that "If all the matter in the Universe could be collected together at a single point, its negative gravitational energy (- mc²) would exactly cancel out all the positive mass energy ( + mc²) of all the matter."³⁴ This argument for a zero energy universe completely ignores the stupendous kinetic energy of the Big Bang itself, against which gravity is fighting a losing battle. It was written before we discovered that the rate of

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Hubble expansion is increasing. It assumes incorrectly, as Hawking does (at times), that the universe contains enough mass/energy to close it. Surprisingly, Hawking himself says in his 1988 A Brief History of Time that "The present evidence suggests that the universe will probably expand forever";³⁵ but his no boundary model of the universe as a globe that begins at the North Pole, expands to the Equator, then shrinks to the South Pole, implies that the universe will not expand forever because an open universe that expands forever would have no South Pole. Which is the real Hawking?
In Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time: A Reader's Companion, published in 1992, Hawking says, "I predict that the universe in time will come to an end at the big crunch. "³⁶ In his 1993 book, Black Holes and Baby Universes and Other Essays, Hawking defends both the openness and the closedness of the universe and concludes that he is hedging his bets "by predicting both ways. "³⁷ He concedes that observation discloses only ten percent of the mass required for closing the universe.³⁸ His argument for a closed universe is purely conjectural, theoretical, and a priori.
Peter Coles and George Ellis wrote in 1994 that "The primary reasons for the widespread belief in a critical density of matter are theoretical." They emphasize that

this is indeed an experimental question, where theory-no matter how dear it may be to us-will eventually have to bow to the experimental evidence. It may be that the theoretical prejudice in favor of the high-density models will one day be confirmed; if so that will be a great triumph for theory. However, at present the weight of evidence if anything favors a lowdensity universe. ³⁹

After examining both theoretical and empirical evidence for a closed universe, Coles and Ellis affirm that "The amount of dark matter for which there is compelling direct evidence is a long way short of closing the Universe, "⁴⁰ and that "No strongly convincing case can be made for a critical-density Universe, and on the balance of the evidence, an open Universe should be preferred." They conclude that "Those cosmologists who take it for granted that we live in a high-density Universe and there seem to be many may turn out to be profoundly mistaken."⁴¹ Consider also this argument against critical density symmetry. If ours is a critical density closed universe, it must be no older than eight billion years, some astrophysicists indicate. Yet, many galactic structures in the visible universe are older than an eight billion-year-old universe itself! Thus, if criticaldensity cosmologists are right, they must be wrong! Only an open universe allows enough time to account for the age of all its structures.⁴² Trusting experience, the most reasonable thing to believe, though not absolutely certain, is that we live in an open universe. For the net energy of the

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universe to equal zero, all forms of energy, not just a few, must cancel out, including the cosmic contests between matter and antimatter and between gravity and the residual kinetic energy of the Big Bang. They do not balance out. The universe is really something after all! Perhaps it also has a real cause, more than zero existence, and a real purpose!

B. Quantum Natural Laws Operating in Nothingness

Without realizing or admitting it, Big Accident Cosmologists actually presuppose the existence of something when they imagine the creation of the universe out of and by absolutely nothing. They presuppose the existence of definite laws of nature, specifically those of quantum mechanics, operating on absolutely nothing in a state of absolute nothingness. Our Big Bang and the resulting universe were created, they claim, by quantum fluctuations within nothingness in accord with the laws of quantum physics. According to Stephen Hawking, "It is possible in the quantum theory for the ordinary laws of science to hold everywhere, including at the beginning oftime."⁴³ Quentin Smith concedes that the Godless quantum cosmology to which he subscribes,

represents the universe as beginning about 15 billion years ago in accordance with a physical law. The universe is described as beginning from nothing in accordance with some law. Here 'nothing' does not mean the quantum-mechanical vacuum (which it often means in quantum cosmologies, such as Tryon's), but literally nothing, i.e., the absence of all concrete objects (mass, energy, spacetime).⁴⁴

Nothing existed. Yet quantum laws were there. So were quantum fluctuations allowed by these laws. Nothing to fluctuate existed, yet nothingness lawfully fluctuated! Quantum laws existed and produce spontaneous fluctuations within absolute nothingness, says Big Accident cosmology; and this supposedly accounts for the origin of our universe! ⁴⁵ But none of this makes good sense, for something (laws and fluctuations) cannot exist in or as absolutely nothing; and no physical laws exist when no physical entities exist. The position is logically incoherent, and it confuses formal with efficient causes. It confuses laws with efficacious energy.

i. The Incoherence of Something in Nothing

Big Accident Quantum Cosmology cannot be formulated coherently. The difficulties are partly with the fluctuations, partly with the laws. Supposedly, fluctuations in nothingness make bubbles of nothingness that inflate into entire universes of nothingness, one of which is ours. But how can absolutely nothing fluctuate? What could be the difference in meaning or reference between

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"Nothing fluctuated" and "There were no fluctuations"? How could nothing fluctuate at all? How could it fluctuate lawfully? How could "Nothing fluctuated" explain the origin of the universe, especially when the fluctuations themselves were nothing? Recall that less extreme inflationary theorists derive our universe from the pre-existing "empty space" of Superspacetime, and that this "empty space" has its own physical density and mass/energy. Particles and antiparticles are spontaneously generated by unpredictable fluctuations in a primitive actualized energy field, and an occasional particle that escapes annihilation supposedly inflates into a full-fledged universe. Although primeval inflation within transcendent Superspacetime is very far removed from experience, the quantum-fizzy nature of empty spacetime within our system of nature is well established; and it is not pure nothingness.
As for quantum laws in absolute non-being, Heinz Pagels acknowledged the incoherence of the idea of"laws in nothingness." He wrote,

The nothingness "before" the creation of the universe is the most complete void that we can imagine-no space, time or matter existed. It is a world without place, without duration or eternity, without number-it is what the mathematicians call "the empty set." Yet this unthinkable void converts itself into the plenum of existence-a necessary consequence of physical laws. Where are these laws written into that void? What "tells" the void that it is pregnant with a possible universe? It would seem that even the void is subject to law, a logic that exists prior to space and time.⁴⁶

If laws are there in nothingness, it is not pure nothingness!

ii. Laws Are Only Formal Causes

Most seriously, in contemporary natural science, physical laws merely describe the statistically average habituated behaviors of actual physical entities, and they change if and when these habits change. Laws are merely formal causes, not efficient causes imposing external limits on what natural entities can do. No abstract laws can exist when nothing else exists for them to describe. Where nothing exists in spacetime, there are no physical laws. No formal causes can operate when nothing has no form, where no habituated energy-laden actualities exist. The actualized energy field of"empty space" has a habitual case of jitters, and so do all the particles that emerge lawfully from it; but it is not sheer nothingness. Quantum laws are finitely probabilistic and predictive, but no finite predictive probabilities exist to be calculate in a state of absolute nothingness. Either primitive physical actualities with habits existed within Big Accident's alleged nothingness, or no quantum laws were there to permit or describe accidental probabilistic world-creating quantum fluctuations of energy-laden

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realities. If quantum laws and primitive physical actualities existed in primeval nothingness, it was not absolute nothingness. Additional important questions remain unanswered. Do the adduced preworld quantum laws and primitive physical actualities come from somewhere and thus depend on something else for their existence, or are they self-existent, eternal, and necessary beings? If so, by virtue of what do they have this metaphysical status? Why do the laws of quantum physics obtain in nothingness when so many other physical laws-like those of Newtonian mechanics, or of relativity physics alone-are logically possible? Who or what selects the relevant laws? How meaningful is the presumption that totally disembodied laws exist anywhere, much less in absolute nothingness? Big Accident Cosmology has no good answers. It is too much ado about nothingness!

C. Total Abandonment of Causation

Some cosmologists admit it, some do not; but the spontaneous creation of our universe occurred only because necessary causal conditions for its creation were met. In that sense, our universe definitely had a cause. Most Quantum Cosmologists are convinced that these necessary conditions include transcendent Mother Spacetime, the physical vacuum, the primordial fizz, an actualized primordial field of energy, and the laws of quantum mechanics.
Extreme Quantum Accidentalists repudiate all of this; they conjecture that our universe is an absolute accident that just popped into being out of pure nothingness devoid of all causal conditions whatsoever. An absolute accident has no causal conditions at all. Accidentalists deny both necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of our universe. As Stenger says, "The simplest hypothesis that so far seems to explain the data is that the universe is an accident. "⁴⁷ What caused the Big Bang? "Nothing!" answers extreme Quantum Accidentalism.
If the Big Bang that created our world was an absolute accident requiring no causal conditions at all, it was the most stupendous accident that ever happened, the greatest miracle of all time, but without a Divine miracle worker. And to think that some people have trouble with God as a miracle worker! Big Accident Cosmologists insist that their creation-by-nothing scenario is all very plausible; but upon closer examination, we see that this is not so.

i. Necessary but Not Sufficient Causal Conditions

Paul Davies claimed in 1983 that quantum physics abandons causality completely and "permits events to occur without causes in the quantum world. "⁴⁸ An element of truth is in this, but not the whole truth. Spontaneous fluctuations do occur in the quantum world; sufficient causal conditions for spontaneity do not exist. Nevertheless, quantum fluctuations always presuppose and require neces-

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sary causal conditions. Davies concedes as much: "Recent discoveries in particle physics have suggested mechanisms whereby matter can be created in empty space by the cosmic gravitational field, which only leaves the origin of spacetime itself as a mystery. "⁴⁹ So both spacetime and a gravitational (or some kind of) energy field are necessary causal conditions for the creation of matter; but how can gravity exist without physical mass? Davies finally concluded that quantum gravity "would allow spacetime to be created and destroyed spontaneously and uncaused in the same way that particles are created and destroyed spontaneously and uncaused. "⁵⁰ Still, this presupposes quantum gravity, not pure nothingness; but what would quantum gravity attract (or repel) in absolute nothingness? How could it operate in and on nothing? As Einstein insisted, no gravity exists without mass/energy and spacetime. One thing leads to another! Currently, gravity is best treated within classical relativity physics, which allows for definiteness and continuity in gravitational effects; but no workable theory of quantum gravity is available. ⁵¹ In addition to quantum laws, quantum gravity has its own necessary conditions like gravitational particles-as yet undiscovered gravitons and gravitinos that presently exist in theory only. It also requires mass and spacetime, for gravity is identical with spatiotemporal mass and curvature, according to relativity theory.
Also, in a quantum universe, gravitational particles should display their own quirky quantum effects-indefiniteness, discreteness, spontaneity, scattering, and so forth; but in well-established domains of particle physics, these quantum effects always presuppose their own conditions. When an adequate theory is developed, quantum gravity cannot and will not exclude necessary causal conditions. It will not abandon causation absolutely.

ii. Freedom Has Necessary Conditions

To turn to another problem, perhaps experience discloses occasional exceptions to the principle of universal causation-like human freedom; and maybe the origin of the universe falls under one of the exceptions. Freedom and creativity exemplify self-originated spontaneity. This means that things can and do happen without sufficient causes, but not that anything ever happens without necessary causes. This is clearly at odds with the suppositions of extreme Quantum Accidentalists. Contingent realities-things that might or might not be-never come into being when causal grounds, necessary causal conditions, are completely absent. A very decisive empirical consideration supports this: All experience illustrates it. Experience universally confirms that necessary conditions are required for the existence of every contingent entity that comes into being, everything whose non-existence is logically possible, including creativity and acts of free will.
An experienced-based philosophical perspective can make a place for freedom and spontaneity. Both at macroscopic human and microscopic quantum

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levels, creative freedom is incompatible only with sufficient but not with necessary causal conditions. Quantum theory does not dispense with necessary causal conditions, and neither does human freedom. All experience confirms that contingently existing things always have causes, including quantum effects and free choices. Spontaneous quantum fluctuations cannot and do not occur in the absence of necessary causal conditions like Mother Spacetime, or our spacetime, the physical vacuum, an actualized energy field, and quantum laws. Freely made human choices do not occur in the absence of necessary conditions like desires, interests, and some awareness of open possibilities. Without the presence of something, free choices cannot be made. So freedom is no exception to the rule that everything has a cause. Some causal conditions are necessary for the occurrence of everything that happens. Quantum physics and human freedom presuppose only that things can happen in the absence of totally sufficient causal conditions.

iii. Applying Causation to World-Origins

"Everything that comes into being has a cause" was often defended by rationalistic philosophers like Descartes and Jonathan Edwards as an intuitively certain a priori or self-evident truth. Quite recently, our knowing this principle a priori, without appeal to experience, was vigorously defended by William L. Craig⁵² and attacked (successfully in my view) by Quentin Smith.⁵³ To be sure, I, too, find it intuitively obvious that everything that comes into being has a cause; but I cannot rule out the possibility that this powerful intuition is psychological or empirical, not a priori, that it results from (is caused by) its universal confirmation in experience, the last court of appeal in factual matters. Quentin Smith presents powerful critiques of the empirical argument for the principle of causation and of its application to the creation of the world out of nothing around fifteen billion years ago. The origin of the universe was caused by absolutely nothing, he thinks, because this causal principle is not self-evident and does not apply to the origin of the universe. "Every thing that comes to be has a cause" is well confirmed by experiences of happenings within the world, he admits; but it has no relevant application to the origin of the world itself.⁵⁴ We have no experience of world-causation as such; all relevant experiences pertain only to causation within the world, Smith insists. His view resembles Kant's contention that we have no experience of causation by things in themselves; all relevant experiences pertain only to causation between appearances. Yet, Kant had to explain the existence of appearances causally. Actually, we have no direct experiences of world-origins from singularities, from "empty space," from quantum tunneling, from God, or from absolute nothingness. So Smith's argument cuts decisively against his own solution to the problem of world-origins. Admittedly, uncertainty creeps into any theistic or non-theistic account of world-creation by God or by any other transcendent

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entities like antecedent universes or Superspacetime. Smith's a-causal Accidentalism is as fatal to Antecedent Universe and Big Fizz Cosmologies as it is to Theism. Uncertainty pervades all of science and philosophy. We are never absolutely sure of the truth of the premises from which we argue; but some premises are still much more plausible than others. Without reiterating Craig's astute responses to Smith, I will offer two important objections of my own to Smith's atheistic account of world-creation from, by, and for absolutely nothing.
First, even Smith does not really believe it. He definitely presupposes the existence and operation of quantum laws, spontaneous fluctuations, quantum tunneling, and a singularity composed of infinitely compressed physical massall in alleged nothingness. Instead of a disembodied God, Smith appeals at rock bottom to the ultimate reality and causal efficacy of disembodied conceptual constructs-quantum laws, fluctuations, tunneling, and a sizeless, timeless, and imperceptible "physical" singularity. Without them, Smith has no explanation of the origin of the universe from and by nothingness. Even without his singularity, Big Accident Quantum Cosmologists always presuppose the antecedent reality of quantum laws, perturbations, tunneling, or something within absolute non-being; but they pronounce their theory only at the price of incoherence. Their nothingness is not real nothingness; it is really something after all!
Second, recall Smith's argument that our knowledge of causation, drawn from within the world, cannot be applied to the origin of the world because we have never experienced world-origins. But Smith's Accidentalist account of origins is vulnerable to exactly the same objection. In quantum physics, he claims, particles can come into existence spontaneously under conditions of quantum uncertainty, and the law of energy conservation does not apply to these circumstances. Once, such a particle inflated into our universe. But note carefully that Smith's theory of world-origins depends entirely upon an analogy with experienced quantum fields and processes within our world. As he puts it, "There is observational evidence, albeit indirect, that this uncaused emergence of energy or particles (notably virtual particles) frequently occurs."⁵⁵ This could be true only within our system of spacetime, if Smith is really serious about appealing to experience. We have no "observational evidence" of world-origins.
Smith's position is implausible for many reasons. No one has ever seen a quantum particle inflate into an entire universe. All our empirical or observational knowledge of quantum effects is based upon experiences of quantum events within our world. If knowledge of universal causation drawn from within the world cannot be applied to the origin of the world, then knowledge of quantum effects drawn from within the world cannot be so applied either. Also, physicists have proved that only a closed universe could arise through quantum tunneling,⁵⁶ the process by which virtual particles become actual; but ours is not a closed universe, as earlier demonstrated. Thus, Smith cannot make his case for thinking that our world is a quantum-induced Big Accident.

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We have no experience of world origins through spontaneous quantum fluctuations in absolute nothingness. All human experiences of quantum phenomena pertain only to minute quantum events within our system of spacetime. If we cannot extrapolate from the universality of causation within the world to world origins, neither can we extrapolate from quantum effects within the world to world origins. All experienced quantum effects, including those in virtually empty space, presuppose not only quantum laws but also our space, not transcendent Superspace, and definitely not pure nothingness. Empirically, the spontaneous origin of actualized particles under conditions of Heisenberg uncertainty occurs only under vacuum conditions within our system of spacetime, never in absolute nothingness; and few if any such particles endure for more than a fraction of a second to violate the Principle of Conservation. Smith actually concedes that all known quantum tunneling, by which, in theory, particles momentarily break the barrier separating potentiality from actuality, takes place within our system of spacetime.⁵⁷ All known tunneling and quantum effects presuppose necessary causal conditions like our spacetime, vacuum (low energy) conditions, an actualized energy field, and perhaps even observers or prehenders (not necessarily conscious). From nothing, nothing comes, even in quantum physics.
Smith's own account of world origins is incompatible with his argument against "Everything that comes to be has a cause." It presupposes and thus grants that we can extrapolate from what is known within our spacetime to the origin of the whole of it. But if we can apply what we know about quantum laws and effects to the origin of our universe, we can also apply the universally confirmed principle of causation to world origins. That rebuts Smith's No-cause Big Accident theory of the inception of the universe. Unless everything that comes into being, including the universe, has a cause (presupposes necessary conditions), no Quantum Cosmology ever gets off the ground. Big Accident's misunderstanding of quantum physics can be extended to the whole of nature only if explanatory principles drawn from the parts can be so extended; but that lets causation back in under the wire. Any account of the origin of our universe must draw upon analogies with what happens within our universe, for that is all that we know.
Stephen Hawking maintains that "It is possible in the quantum theory for the ordinary laws of science to hold everywhere, including at the beginning of time."⁵⁸ If, as Smith and Hawking suggest, the laws of quantum physics do not break down at the origin of the universe as a whole, then neither does the law of universal causation, nor the law of increasing entropy. If any explanatory principles can be extrapolated from parts to the whole, surely the universality of causation is one of them. Contra Smith, a quantum universe presupposes necessary causal conditions. But, deep down, Smith really believes that anyway. The ad hominem retort that "You do it too!" will not satisfy extreme skeptics. Still, anyone, whether an atheist or a theist, who attempts to answer the

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question, "What caused the Big Bang?" must employ concepts and principles of explanation drawn from within the universe and extend them to the origin of the whole. We could just abstain or quit trying to find a cause for the Big Bang, but the inclination to try is almost irresistible. Anyone who decrees that it simply cannot be done merely blocks the path of inquiry.
The causal principle that "Everything that comes to be has a cause," at least as necessary conditions, must be distinguished from what Victor J. Stenger calls the principle of"causal precedence," that "Cause always precedes effect." Stenger argues that at the elementary level of quantum interactions, "Cause and effect are not always distinguishable" because time is reversible. The irreversibility of time's arrow, he maintains, is an emergent property that exists only at the macroscopic level of everyday experience and common sense. ⁵⁹ The solution to the two slit experiment problem, he holds, is that a particle goes "through one slit to the detector, then back in time to the source through the second slit and finally forward in time once more through either slit to the detector."⁶⁰ He concedes that he is "in a minority" on the issue of the reversibility of time!⁶¹

That everything which comes into being has a cause would still be true even if we cannot always tell the difference between cause and effect, or if cause, effect, and time are reversed on the quantum level. Stenger, another Big Accident Cosmologist, also affirms that "everything can have come from nothing" in the beginning⁶² through quantum fluctuations in the spacetime vacuum. We now know that this actually involves the antecedent reality of necessary causal conditions like Mother Spacetime, the physical vacuum, actualized energy, habituated actualities, quantum laws, and quantum effects. In their absence, spontaneous fluctuations cannot and do not occur. All contingencies have causes.

D. No Contingency Without Causation

By definition it is true that if something exists contingently, it is causally derived from or dependent on something other than itself; but a mere definition cannot settle the substantive question of the causal dependence of the universe on God. Can a wedge be driven between the various elements that conventionally define the notion of contingent existence? Could an existing entity that endures for only a finite span of time have no cause at all even though it is possible for it not to exist? The most extreme Big Accident Cosmologists think so. They contend that the universe popped into being within the finite past as an absolute accident, requiring neither necessary nor sufficient causal conditions. If true, the universe could be contingent (having possible non-existence and finite duration), yet-in another sense-neither contingent (causally dependent) nornecessary (impossible non-existence, self-sufficient, everlasting, uncreated, and indestructible reality).

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Big Accident Cosmologists appeal to quantum theory, which really does not support their position because quantum mechanics renounces only sufficient but not necessary causal conditions. Every quantum fluctuation has necessary prerequisites like the laws of quantum physics, spacetime or Superspacetime, the minimal pure energy of a physical vacuum, and the presence of an actualized energy field. They aspire to do so, but Big Accident Cosmologists cannot avoid these necessary conditions for quantum fluctuations, primordial or not; but primordially where and how did these conditions originate? They are not metaphysically necessary beings because as wholes they are composed entirely of contingent, dependent parts. This point is well developed in Chapter Twelve, but let us now note that Big Accident Cosmology falls prey to the first two premises of the Cosmological Argument From Contingency there presented. All wholes composed of contingent beings are themselves contingent; and no necessary entities exist within our system of nature.
To summarize, extreme Big Accident Cosmology takes quantum fluctuations to their ultimate extreme and posits their reality where nothing exists to fluctuate. Our universe was created out of absolutely nothing, was caused by absolutely nothing, is absolutely nothing, and exists for absolutely no purpose. It is the Ultimate Accident. Extreme Accidentalism assumes that our universe is composed of zero energy, and that since the universe is nothing, nothing is required to create it. But a zero energy universe is very doubtful-especially ours. The kinetic energy of the primordial explosion that initiated our universe is not perfectly counterbalanced by gravity, and matter clearly prevails over antimatter in the only universe that we really know to exist. A zero-energy universe exists only in theory, but experience clearly shows that our universe is really something after all!
Extreme Accidentalists always presuppose something as a necessary ground for the universe, even if nothing more than the laws of quantum physics and spontaneous fluctuations. They fail to distinguish adequately between necessary and sufficient causal conditions. If the Big Bang lacked a sufficient cause, it does not follow that it had no necessary cause. All experience, including quantum physics, supports the causal principle that some causal conditions are necessary for everything that happens or comes to be, including the Big Bang. Scientific Cosmological Agnosticism correctly indicates that empirical science cannot identify the transcendent necessary cause of the Big Bang.
Big Accident Cosmologists have wild imaginations, but their theory is logically incoherent and cannot be squared with the facts. Like all other atheistic Quantum Cosmologists, they are driven to preposterous extremes in order to avoid God. A contingent universe cannot exist in the absence of everything; but what is the something upon which it depends for its being? What caused the Big Bang? No atheistic cosmologies examined thus far, quantum or not, give an adequate answer; but a plausible answer is forthcoming!

[Notes]

1. Alan Guth, "Starting the Universe," in Bubbles, Voids, and Bumps in Time: The New Cosmology, ed. James Cornell (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1989), p. 136.
2. Edward P. Tryon, "ls the Universe a Vacuum Fluctuation?" Nature, 246 (14 December 1973), pp. 396--397.
3. Peter Atkins, The Creation (Oxford: W. H. Freeman), 1981.
4. A. Vilenkin, "Creation of Universes from Nothing," Physical Letters, 117B (1982), pp. 25-28.
5. Victor J. Stenger, Not by Design: The Origin of the Universe (Buffalo: Prometheus Books, 1988) and The Unconscious Quantum: Metaphysics in Modern Physics and Cosmology (Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1995).
6. See Quentin Smith and William L. Craig, Theism. Atheism, and Big Bang Cosmology (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993). By permission of Oxford University Press.
7. See Steven K. Blau and Alan Guth, "Inflationary Cosmology," in Three Hundred Years of Gravitation, eds. Stephen Hawking and Werner Israel (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1987), pp. 546, 556.
8. Tryon, "Is the Universe a Vacuum Fluctuation?" p. 397.
9. Ibid.
10. Atkins, The Creation, p. 119.
11. Stenger, Not by Design, p. 173. Cf Stenger, The Unconscious Quantum, pp. 21, 229.
12. Craig and Smith, Theism. Atheism. and Big Bang Cosmology, p. 127.
13. Ibid., p. 135.
14. Stenger, Not by Design, p. 174.
15. Andrei Linde, Dmitri Linde, Arthur Mezhlumian, "From the Big Bang Theory to the Theory of a Stationary Universe," Physical Review D, 49:4 (15 February 1994), p. 1792.
16. E.g., in Cosmos, Bias, Theos, eds. Henry Margenau and Roy Abraham Varghese (La Salle, Ill.: Open Court, 1992), see Robert Jastrow (p. 46), Amo Penzias (p. 83), and Abdus Salam (p. 99). See also endnotes 44-59 in Chapter Three of this book.
17. See Kevin Krisciunas, "Science with the Keck Telescope," Sky & Telescope (September 1994 ), p. 26.
18. Stenger, The Unconscious Quantum, p. 240.
19. Ibid., p. 219.
20. Ibid., p. 220.
21. Stenger, Not By Design, p. 174.
22. Stenger, The Unconscious Quantum, p. 240.
23. Abdus Salam, "Science and Religion: Reflections on Transcendence and Secularization," in Cosmos, Bias, Theos, eds. Henry Margenau and Roy Abraham Varghese (La Salle, Ill.: Open Court, 1992), p. 99.
24. Stenger, Not By Design, pp. 175-177.
25. A. Zee, "NonconservationofBaryon Number," in Gamow Cosmology, eds. LF. Melchiorri and R. Ruffini (Amsterdam: North-Holland, 1986), p. 420.
26. Gary Steigman, "Observational Tests of Antimatter Cosmologies," Annual Reviews of Astronomy and Astrophysics 14 ( 1976), p. 355.
27. John D. Barrow, Theories of Everything: The Quest for Ultimate Explanation (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991), pp. 133-134.
28. George Smoot and Keay Davidson, Wrinkles in Time (New York: Avon Books, 1993), p. 109.
29. Heinz R. Pagels, The Cosmic Code: Quantum Physics as the Language of Nature (New York: Bantam Books. 1983), p. 284.
30. See Leon M. Ledennan and David N. Schramm, From Quarks to the Cosmos.· Tools of Discovery (New York: Scientific American Library, 1989), pp. 162-165; see also Barrow, Theories of Everything, pp. 134-135.
31. A. G. Cohen, A. De RuJula, and S. L. Glashow. "A Matter-Antimatter Universe?" Astrophysical Journal, 495:2 (10 March 1998). See also Gary Taubes. "Astrophysics: Theorists Nix Distant Antimatter Galaxies," Science, 539 ( 10 October 1997, pp. 1 ff.
32. Ledennan and Schramm, From Quarks to Cosmos, p. 163; Alan H. Guth, The Inflationary Universe: The Quest for a New Theory of Cosmic Origins (Reading, Mass.: Perseus Books, 1997), p. I 07.
33. A. Karel Velan, The Multi-Universe Cosmos: The First Complete Story of the Origin of the Universe (New York: Plenum Press, 1992), pp. 350--351.
34. Michael White and John Gribbin, Stephen Hawking, A Life in Science (New York: Penguin Books, 1992), p. 211.
35. Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time (New York: Bantam Books, 1988), p. 46.
36. Stephen Hawking, ed. Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time: A Reader's Companion (New York: Bantam Books, 1992), p. 168.
37. Stephen Hawking, Black Holes and Baby Universes and Other Essays (New York: Bantam Books, 1993), pp. 147-155.
38. Ibid., pp. 147-148.
39. Peter Coles and George Ellis, "The Case for an Open Universe," Nature, 370 (25 August 1994), p. 609.
40. Ibid., p. 612.
41. Ibid., p. 614.
42. See "Old Galaxy in a Young Universe," Sky & Telescope, 93:2 (September 1996), p. 11.
43. Hawking, A Brief History of Time, p. 133.
44. Craig and Smith, Theism, Atheism, and Big Bang Cosmology, p. 301.
45. Ibid., pp. 125-129, esp. p. 128.
46. Heinz R. Pagels, Perfect Symmetry: The Search for the Beginning of Time (New York: Bantam Books), p. 347.
47. Stenger, Not by Design, p. 12.
48. Paul Davies, God and the New Physics (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1983), p. 215.
49. Ibid.
50. Ibid.
51. Roger Penrose, "What Does the Big Bang Tell Us about Quantum Gravity?" Memorie della Societa Astronomica ltaliana, 62:3 (1991), p. 608.
52. Craig and Smith, Theism, Atheism, and Big Bang Cosmology, pp. 61--63.
53. lbid., pp. 178-191.
54. Ibid., p. 123.
55. Ibid., pp. 122-123.
56. David Atkatz, "Quantum Cosmology for Pedestrians," American Journal of Physics, 62:7 (1 July 1994), p. 662.
57. Craig and Smith, Theism, Atheism, and Big Bang Cosmology, pp. 127-128.
58. Hawking, A Brief History of Time, p. 133.
59. Stenger, The Unconscious Quantum, pp. 142, 150.
60. Ibid., pp. 205-206.
61. Ibid., p. 159.
62. Ibid., p. 21.

Conventional non-Everett quantum theory assumes that definiteness in and of the world results from wave-function collapse, and many Quantum Cosmologists try to apply such notions to the universe as a whole. Some Quantum Cosmologists affirm a very intimate relationship between physics and physicists, between observers and things observed. This intimacy is much clearer at the level of microscopic quantum events than at the cosmological level of accounting for the origin of the universe.
Quantum Observership says that if and when a physicist measures for the position of an electron, it then takes a position; if and when a physicist measures for its momentum, it then assumes momentum; since no observer can measure for both simultaneously, it cannot have both together. Sometimes sub-atomic entities behave like particles, sometimes like waves, depending on how observers perceive them. In themselves, apart from being observed, physical entities are nothing; the very concept is meaningless. They have no actuality in themselves; they are only bundles of possibilities. In Europe, Niels Bohr's "Copenhagen interpretation" of quantum mechanics closely linked observer and observed. In the United States, John A. Wheeler and Eugene Wigner endorsed Strong Anthropic theories of Quantum Observership that emphasize the role of observers in resolving quantum uncertainty and indefiniteness.¹ Many experiments in quantum physics suggest that unobserved sub-atomic particles in themselves do not exist in a single definite state and that the process of being observed somehow affects what they are.² The two slit experiment indicates that individual photons seem to pass through two (but not three) separate slits at once. Other experiments indicate that the act of observation significantly affects the physical state being observed. As the story goes, when two spinning particles are generated together, if one is observed to be spinning in one direction, the other instantly acquires the opposite spin, no matter how far away from the first it might be, or how Jong it has traveled to get there, or even if the decision about how to measure it is made after its departure. If widely separated particles that originated together are observed simultaneously (a difficult if not impossible feat), they do not have time to communicate; but they still have opposite spins. Quantum mechanics rejects as empirically meaningless the realistic position favored by Einstein that particles that originate together have opposite spins from the very outset and continue to have them while unobserved; whenever they are observed the viewer merely sees what has been there objectively all along. Instead, the correct spin supposedly comes into being because it is being observed; observation itself fixes the direction of spin of the second particle.³ In Quantum Observership, observation fixes all definiteness.
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In John A. Wheeler's theory of Quantum Observership, physical particles in themselves are nothing more than indefinite probabilistic wave function superpositions of all possible states all at once. According to Quantum Observership, quantum systems take on definiteness or "collapse" only when they are observed. Only measurement by an observer using a macroscopic measuring instrument causes collapse. Wheeler illustrates the essential role of measuring observers in quantum mechanics with this anecdote.

I like the story of the three baseball umpires relaxing over beer one afternoon and comparing notes. One umpire says, "I calls 'em as I sees 'em." The next umpire says: "I calls 'em as they really are." The third one says, "They ain't nothin until I calls 'em."⁴

According to Wheeler, in quantum mechanics "The observer is elevated from 'observer' to 'participator. "'⁵ He calls the necessity for observers in the universe the "Participatory Anthropic Principle." According to it, observers are essential for the very existence of the universe and all things within it.

1. Observers Create the Universe

Metaphysical Idealism asserts that only minds and their experiences and activities exist; it denies the objective existence of matter, claiming that material things exist only in being perceived. They do not exist in themselves but only in and as the experiences of observers.
Most physics is realistic and assumes that observers have nothing to do with the objective existence of the physical world. By contrast, Quantum Observership is idealistic and presumes that observers have everything to do with the existence of the physical world. According to this theory, unobserved atomic and sub-atomic entities in themselves bear no resemblance to tiny billiard balls. In themselves, they simply cannot be pictured. They are individuated and determinate only when observed. An unobserved world is nothing more than a set of sum-over potentials for all possible worlds and simply does not exist at all as a definite actuality. Eugene Wigner, who stresses the role of consciousness, claims that a definite world is brought into being only when its potentials are observed and measured by conscious beings.⁶ Quantum mechanics thus appears to vindicate John Stuart Mill's dictum that the physical world in itself is nothing more than a set of "permanent possibilities for perception." In quantum theory as Wheeler and Wigner interpret it, the being of physical entities consists in their being perceived. Wheeler explicitly links quantum mechanics with Bishop Berkeley's "To be is to be perceived"⁷ and says that in quantum mechanics "The universe would be nothing without observership as surely as a motor would be dead without electricity. "⁸ All empirical evidence for the Big Bang is created by observership, and so is the Big Bang itself.⁹
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Observers create the world by experiencing it and reflecting upon it. Wheeler says that "The observer is participator in genesis,"¹⁰ and "Observership brings the universe into being."¹¹ Thus, the world must be compatible with the existence of observers, for without observers there is no world. By extrapolating backwards from what we perceive to be happening now, we (and not God) create the past, the entire natural history of the universe from the very beginning. So, what caused the Big Bang? We did, says Quantum Observership!

2. Critique of Quantum Observership

Quantum Observership, as just described, has serious problems that make it extremely implausible as an ultimate explanatory hypothesis.

A. Incompatibility With Cosmic and Biological Evolution

The main problem is that Quantum Observership requires our conscious existence long before we actually exist. Conscious observers like us create the Big Bang, but the Big Bang creates all conscious observers! Fred Hallberg rightly indicates that the theory is logically incompatible with plausible scientific accounts of cosmic and biological evolution, including human origins. Hallberg explains:

Wheeler emphasizes that life and consciousness entails both biological evolution, and prebiological physical and chemical evolution ["Genesis and Observership," pp. 3, 5]. Yet all these forms of evolution involve very specific interactions among highly individuated molecules. So his story seems to require specific, individuated events and entities before consciousness is present to individuate them. ¹²

A more plausible and realistic account says that innumerable physical structures and processes, including our galaxy, solar system, and planet existed for billions of years before we or any other conscious observers came into being. Just because observation affects the definiteness of quantum-level events, it does not follow that they have no definiteness at all when not being observed. Throughout fifteen billion years of cosmic evolution, the unobserved physical world in itself was sufficiently definite to do all the things that Big Bang Cosmology says that it did. The unobserved world evolved either from an initial singularity of nothingness or from minimal Planck dimensions through exponential inflation (perhaps) to an astronomically vast cosmos, unpopulated for eons by any conscious observers. Definite physical forces like gravity, the strong nuclear force, the electromagnetic force, and the weak force, emerged from the original Grand Unification. As the universe expanded and cooled, a primordial soup of radiant energy and sub-atomic particles gave way to discrete

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atoms, at first mainly of hydrogen and helium. Under the influence of gravity clouds of these gaseous atoms consolidated to form definite galaxies, stars, and planets. Unobserved atoms of heavier elements, manufactured by nucleosynthesis in supernovas, were sufficiently determinate to produce planets. On at least one planet, earth, definite molecules of carbon dioxide, water, ammonia, methane, and so, on eventually combined to produce DNA in living cells. Unobserved living cells increased in complexity and definiteness and united with other cells to form complex multicellular organisms. After billions of years of evolution, some complex organisms became conscious observers. A few even became quantum physicists and cosmologists!
Yet, according to Quantum Observership, only with the advent of conscious observers and measurers does nature in itself acquire any definiteness at all, even with respect to the instant of its origin in the Big Bang. Without a definite world, no conscious observers exist; but without conscious observers, no definite world exists! The idealistic interpretation of quantum physics founders on this contradiction. John Wheeler recognized the problem, but he did not solve it.¹³ He only perpetuates the contradiction when he writes, "Beginning with the big bang, the universe expands and cools. After eons of dynamic development it gives rise to observership. Acts of observer-participancy in tum give tangible "reality" to the universe not only now but back to the beginning. "¹⁴ Richard Rorty says that realism, with its concerns for objective truth and objective existence, makes no practical difference, 15 but it does. Unless a highly definite universe existed objectively on its own back to the beginning, we would not be here; our being here cannot give the universe and our biochemical environment a reality that our own existence presupposes. Quantum physics is still in its infancy, but one way or another it must overcome the paradoxical antirealism of Quantum Observership. Quantum physicists disagree on whether the physical world is completely indeterminate in itself, or only partly so. The complete indefiniteness of the Quantum Observership interpretation is extreme. In a less radical Critical Realism, the physical indefiniteness of nature is only partial; the sensory modalities of conscious observers add some kinds and degrees of definiteness to things perceived, but not all of it.
Critical Realism can resolve the paradoxes and puzzles of Quantum Observership and still preserve the genuine advances of quantum physics, severed from the pretentious Idealistic Metaphysics with which it is too often associated. If physical things in themselves are individuated and definite to a high degree, but not completely so, conscious observers would not be required to structure the physical world. The sensory modalities and mechanisms of conscious observers may add something, but not everything, to what is given perceptually; observers do not create what exists in itself. A partly realistic position must try to tell us which is which-which properties are objective, and which are mind-dependent.

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Realism says that a largely determinate physical world exists in itself apart from conscious observation; we perceive certain sensory properties because physical things actually have them and cause us to perceive them. True perceptions accurately reflect objective properties, but illusions and false ones do not. True beliefs accurately describe objective realities, but false beliefs characterize them incorrectly. Realism comes in many varieties. For Naive Realism, objectively existing things have all of the properties that we perceive them to have; but a long tradition of Critical Realism dating back to the Greek Atomists, and resurrected by the originators of modem natural science in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, takes a less extreme view. Critical Realism has many contemporary defenders. ¹⁶ It traditionally asserted that "secondary" properties of perceived objects like their color, taste, odor, sound, and perceived temperature are "subjective" or mind dependent; they are added to our percepts by our own creative perceptual modalities and do not exist objectively in nature itself. However, the "primary" physical, spatial, or spatiotemporal properties of things like their size, shape, weight, position, resistance, and motion exist both in our perceptions and objectively in things perceived. Primary properties are the metric or mathematically measurable and quantifiable characteristics of physical things, both in themselves, and as perceived. Our attempts to observe o'r "measure" quantum-level occurrences always changes their properties, but this does not imply that they have no properties at all when we are not observing them.

In idealistic Quantum Observership, primary qualities are just as minddependent as secondary qualities. Idealistic interpretations of quantum mechanics may even border on Positivism, arguing that it is meaningless to postulate the objective existence of any unobserved physical entities and processes in themselves, even their primary properties, because, obviously, we can never observe or even imagine observing such things. As Werner Heisenberg indicated in his Philosophical Problems of Quantum Physics,

In modem physics, atoms possess geometrical qualities in no higher degree than color, taste, etc. The atom of modem physics can only be symbolized by a partial differential equation in an abstract multidimensional space. Only the experiment of an observer forces the atom to indicate a position, a color and a quantity of heat. All the qualities of the atom of modem physics are derived, it has no immediate and direct physical properties at all, i.e. every type of visual conception we might wish to design is eo ipso faulty. Quantum theory made the atom into something inaccessible to our senses or our imagination, unlike objects within our daily experience. An atom or, more correctly, an electron no longer displays 'in itself' ('an sich') even the simplest geometrical and mechanical properties but it shows them only to the extent to which they can be made accessible to observation by external interference. ¹⁷

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In 1954, Wolfgang Pauli attacked the "hidden variables" of Einstein's physical realism by saying that "One should no more rack one's brain about the problem of whether something one cannot know anything about exists all the same than about the ancient question of how many angels are able to sit on the point of a needle."¹⁸ Quantum Positivism regards all speculation about what things are when we cannot observe or know them as meaningless.
Actually, we should rack our brains about whether the physical stuff of the world existed objectively in relatively determinate physical states for billions of years before conscious observers evolved. This must be so, or we physical, biological, and embodied observers would not exist! Quantum Observership's metaphysical dogma that atomic and sub-atomic physical entities are nothing more than infinite sets of indeterminate possibilities until they are consciously observed must be renounced, along with Idealistic Metaphysics, if we are to have a plausible scientific account of cosmic and biological evolution. The obvious solution is that quantum entities in themselves are not just infinite sets of potentialities for definiteness. Quantum Critical Realism holds that they contain within themselves a high degree of definiteness inherited from the past, combined with a finite set of potentials or possibilities for further self-determination. Real wavicles are both relatively determinate particles as well as waves, not just totally indeterminate "wave functions" alone.

B. Idealism vs. Realism

Idealistic interpretations of quantum physics must answer this fundamental question: What causes observers to have sensory experiences? For the realistic dualist or materialist, matter does the job. For Bishop Berkeley, God, not matter, produces all our sensations. For Kant, totally unknowable things or realities in themselves (which are not supposed to cause anything because only appearances can be causes) cause our sensory experiences. For the skeptic David Hume, our sensations are of"unknown origin."
Quantum Observership cannot explain how infinitely complex sets of pure possibilities, totally lacking the power of actual beings, can act upon the sensory organs, nerve cells, and brains of living biological observers like us and cause us to perceive one definite and common world. In fact, it cannot account for the objective existence of sense organs, much less cells, and brains! How can the absolutely indeterminate bring about the partly or completely determinate? How can pure possibilities be efficient causes? How can living biological observers have definite sensory organs, nerve cells, and brains if the unobserved physical world has no definiteness in itself? Quantum Observership has no good answers. In Idealistic Metaphysics, nerve cells and brains exist only as relatively infrequent objects of perception, but not in themselves. In light of what contemporary physics has revealed, how should we conceive of the physical or material world?

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i. Critical Realism and Quantum/Relativity Matter

Quantum Observership aspires to be anti-metaphysical; but it is both epistemologically anti-realistic and metaphysically idealistic. Thoughts and macroscopic sensory experiences are everything. No actual determinate world in itself exists below the level of macroscopic observables, not even one of primary properties; and there are no objective answers or scientific truths because there are no independently existing objects. In Quantum Observership, no objectively existing world of space/time/mass/energy exists; no atoms, protons, electrons, or other particles or wavicles exist objectively in and of themselves. Since they don't exist at all in themselves, they do not have even partly definite size, shape, position, weight, resistance, velocity, and momentum (which is mass multiplied by velocity). Thus, our questions about independent realities have no correct answers. Correspondence theories of truth and perception are rejected. Concepts, propositions, and sensations have no objective referents; they merely cohere with other concepts, beliefs, and experiences over time; or they fail to do so. Being consists in being perceived, nothing more. Truth consists in coherence with other beliefs, not with correspondence to reality. Critical Realists, by contrast, think that a real world exists beyond our perceptions, and that it closely resembles the spatially extended and mathematically measurable qualities of our sensations. Scientific and cosmological beliefs refer to this real world. True empirical beliefs describe correctly an objectively existing world of space/time/mass/energy; false beliefs misdescribe it. In modern chemistry, electrons and protons in themselves are often said to lack secondary qualities of color, taste, odor, and sound; but they still have primary properties of size, shape, weight, resistance, velocity, and momentum. Yet, in critically realistic quantum physics, the objective reality of these properties cannot be exactly what they were conceived to be in pre-quantum classical physics. Before quantum theory, classical particle physics was Newtonian in spirit. The primary properties of subatomic particles were thought to be exactly like those of billiard balls, only smaller. All the way down to the smallest particles, Newtonian matter in itself possessed primary qualities in a fully definite and determinate manner. By contrast, in Quantum Critical Realism, some of the primary properties of quantum matter exist only indefinitely, indeterminately, by degrees, and relative to prehenders or measurers (who need not be conscious beings).
The Whiteheadian concept of"prehension" is fruitful and illuminating in understanding quantum matter. Prehending is the temporal process of grasping something or taking it in experientially. Prehenders are temporally experiencing or prehending subjects or momentary occasions of experience that take data from past events into themselves and actively process this received information in a variety of ways. Perishing past events causally transmit or imbue what they can of themselves into their successors, which actively receive, integrate, and

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thus prehend that data into themselves. They make their own fleeting creative contribution to ongoing reality and perish themselves, to be pretended in turn by their own temporal successors.
Consider ten important contrasts between classical and quantum matter. They differ significantly with respect to (1) definiteness/indefiniteness of spatial extension, (2) definiteness/indefiniteness of position and motion, (3) definiteness/indefiniteness of location, (4) continuity/discontinuity of existence, (5) causal determinateness/indeterminateness, (6) internal vacuousness/sensitivity, (7) local/non-local causation, (8) absolute/relative spatial properties, (9) absolute/relative temporal properties, and (10)organic holistic unrelatedness/interrelatedness.
(1) Definiteness/indefiniteness of Spatial & tension. Classical electrons, protons, and other particles had fully definite spatial extension, that is, size, shape, and position, at all times; but quantum particles have merely a fairly definite size, shape, and position-but only when they lack definite momentum and velocity, and only when some measurement or prehension (which need not be conscious) somehow takes account of just those properties. When we know a particle's pace of passage, we cannot know its place. When it has a definite place, it cannot have a definite pace. Data about pace and place cannot be prehended simultaneously. Realistically construed, they cannot exist simultaneously. How we or other non-conscious prehenders try to "measure" for them partly determines what they can be.
(2) Definiteness/indefiniteness of Position and Motion. Classical physical particles had a fully definite and discoverable velocity and momentum at all times, but quantum particles have merely a fairly definite velocity and momentum at best-but only when they lack full definiteness in size, shape, and position, and only when something prehends, takes account of, or experiences just those aspects of their motion. When we prehend a particle's place, we cannot know its pace; particles cannot be, or be prehended as, simultaneously definite in both ways. The idea is odd, but physical reality just is odd. Things are what they are only interrelationally; but these interrelations exist objectively, not merely within consciousness, says Quantum Critical Realism
(3) Definiteness/indefiniteness of Location. Classical physical particles had what Alfred North Whitehead called "simple location," a fully definite, determinate, and independent spatial position or locus at all times, but quantum physical particles behave like ''wavicles," being spread or smeared out over small but indefinite regions of space at any given time and at different times. Particle aspects of quantum-level entities that constitute societies of successive events are always accompanied and guided by wave aspects. In two-slit experiments, the waves go through both slits, even though the particles go through only one. String theorists speculate that the smallest and most basic constituents of matter are very short and small looped (in most versions) strings of energy. Every string, qua string, in every kind of particle is exactly like every other; and

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differences between kinds of particles result from differences in the vibrational frequencies and amplitudes of the tiny strings in their cores. 19 String theory, currently unverified, says that all the observed properties of the physical world can be explained if under different conditions these too-small-to-be-observed strings undulate, ball up, tie knots, disappear and reappear, resonate harmoniously (or disharmoniously) with other strings, and are otherwise sensitive to their environments. These issues need not be settled here; at present, string theory is little more than an intricate mathematical game with little or no empirical grounding. For the moment, we note simply that rapidly and constantly vibrating strings, or smeared out particles and wavicles, could never have the definite independent locus of substantively enduring pointlike classical particles. They may essentially lack other kinds of definiteness as well.

(4) Continuity/discontinuity of Existence. Classical physical particles were thought to exist without interruption and to move continuously through the infinitely divisible continua of Newtonian space and time. Electrons, for example, moved smoothly through the infinite number of points into which their supposedly perfect circular orbits are divisible. By contrast, quantum particles exist and move only discontinuously from place to place without passing through the intervening spaces, and the orbits to which they are restricted are broad shells, not perfect circles. When a photon is added to an orbiting electron, the "excited" electron prehends this addition, then jumps up to the next allowable orbit-like region without traversing the quantum-forbidden space that separates allowable orbits. Then, almost immediately, but we can't predict exactly when, it may throw off the photon and jump back down without passing continuously through the intervening space between orbit-like-shells. Something similar happens when an electron or any other particle moves forward within its own orbital shell or quantum-permitted region. Its particle features move forward as so many periodic and discontinuous pulsations of energy, unpredictably here, unpredictably there, somewhere within the tiny region of its orbit-like shell, but never in an exactly circular or linear path. Whitehead, who neglected its wave-like features, compared an electron's orbit to the travels of an automobile that appears only at milestones but nowhere in between!²⁰ Sten Oldenwald says that physical particles play "a hop-scotch game to avoid gaps where spacetime doesn't exist."²¹ Physical particles endure through time only as so many successively pulsating repetitions and ongoing prehensions of their particular kind of particle/wave/string patterns-electron forms, proton forms, photon forms, and the like.
(5) Causal Determinateness/indeterminateness. Causal determinism was believed to be complete for classical physical particles. In rigid conformity to exact and efficacious physical laws, all motions and changes made by classical physical particles followed exactly from necessary and sufficient antecedent formal and physical conditions and were in principle susceptible to absolutely precise mathematical measurement. If the positions and velocities of all particles

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were known, everything could be predicted. By contrast, quantum particles, lacking absolute positions and velocities, are not fully and predictably determined by and knowable from quantum laws and antecedent physical conditions. Every mathematically measurable quantity of physical entities is susceptible to unpredictable fluctuations or perturbations. Neither we nor an ace predictor like God can tell or predict when individual particles will change orbits, exactly where they will appear next within broad-band orbital shells, which slits they will go through, the directions in which they will fly when scattered, or exactly which ones will decay and produce atomic radiation. Quantum uncertainty, indeterminateness, and spontaneity pervade all physical reality. By their erratic behavior, vast numbers of individuated quantum-size entity/events create quantum laws, which merely summarize formally and probabilistically both their collective regularities and their individual eccentricities. Formal laws as such exert no efficient causality of their own. The laws of nature are epistemologically useful but ontologically powerless.

(6) Internal Vacuousness/sensitivity. Classical physical particles were internally inert, solid, vacuous, and fully actual; but quantum wave/particles are at best only partly determinate internally, and they are environmentally sensitive and reactive. In part, they are indeterminate sets of possibilities in process of becoming fully actual. Each of a wavicle's fleeting pulsations of energy in some unconscious way takes on or prehends a determinate form (electron, photon, and so on) inherited from immediately past pulsations, and each projects this form into the future as it perishes in time. Wave/particles are not internally inert, solid, impenetrable, and vacuous; they take their own immediate constitutions and past and future environments into account in deciding what to do or what to become next. All physical wave/particles experience and are internally sensitive to their external environments, at least unconsciously. They know what kind of wave/particles they have been in the past. As they confront the future, they internally take into account not only their own past but that of their wider environment. What wavicles are and what they do is largely constituted by their relations. Protons, neutrons, electrons, and other particles know when they are and when they are not located within atoms; they know one another's natures and whereabouts; and they behave themselves accordingly. Photons, electrons, and other wave/ particles seem to know whether or not they are surrounded by and partly composed of waves; they respond actively when photon quanta are attached to themselves; they are aware of how their twin particles are spinning. When they are confronted by the environmental prospect of going through either one slit or two, they know the difference in advance and behave accordingly.
Based on earlier work by Louis de Broglie and David Bohrn, John S. Bell offers a highly plausible realistic but relational solution to the particle-wave dualism inherent in the two slit experiment:

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A particle passing through just one of two holes in a screen could be influenced by waves propagating through both holes. And so influenced that the particle does not go where the waves cancel out, but is attracted to where they cooperate. This idea seems to me so natural and simple, to resolve the wave-particle dilemma in such a clear and ordinary way, that it is a great mystery to me that it was so generally ignored.²²

The idea that all elemental particles are accompanied and perhaps even guided by waves is now widely accepted in quantum physics, as expressed in the very concept of "wavicle." Realistic objectivists like David Bohm and B. J. Hiley completely repudiate the wave-function-collapse account of quantum-level definiteness. They contend, probably correctly, that most of the dither about definiteness resulting only from collapsing wave functions just ignores the fact that wavicles are particles as well as waves. Wave collapse conundrums assume incorrectly that in themselves wavicles are nothing more than indeterminate waves and forget that they are also particles bearing their own definiteness.²³ Bohm and Hiley contend that in a two slit experiment, the particle definitely goes through one slit, we know not which, while the accompanying wave goes through both slits.²⁴
(7) Local/non-local Causation. Classical Newtonian material particles were also externally inert, naturally at rest, utterly incapable of self-initiated motion or of being moved by distant entities. They could be moved only mechanically by other external physical entities with which they were in direct physical contact. Both Newton and Einstein were horrified by the thought of what Einstein called "spooky action at a distance."
But isn't gravity action at a distance? Not for Newton! Gravity, for Newton, was not a physical force; it was a divine force. It was a manifestation of God's direct activity in moving non-contiguous objects lawfully in relation to one another. Through gravity, God moves otherwise immovable material objects that are separated from one another by distance.²⁵ Later atheistic Newtonians conveniently ignored this feature of classical Newtonian matter/gravity. Einsteinian gravity also involves no action at a distance; it consists of curvature of space emanating directly and with continuity from mutually attracting entities. In contemporary quantum physics, wavicles are neither externally inert nor internally vacuous. They never exist in inert independence. Action at a distance is allowed, indeed required. Wavicles are definitely not internally vacuous. Information is integral to their internal existence, for they can somehow anticipate the presence of two slits before they get there. They are aware of open alternatives and in some primitive way can choose among them. In quantum non-locality (explained more later), information about what happens to one wavicle is instantaneously transmitted to and registers with another, perhaps at great distances.

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(8) Absolute/relative Spatial Properties. Classical particles existed in absolute Newtonian space and time, which were supposed to be uniformly the same throughout the whole universe. By contrast, when combined with relativity theory, quantum particles have only a relativistic locus in Einsteinian spacetime. They are constituted by their spatiotemporality. Their primary spatial properties of size, shape, resistance to change, position, and momentum vary immensely, depending on how other events prehend them and on the speed with which they and their accompanying spacetime frames are being accelerated through the universe. A spaceship accelerated to the speed of light would flatten out; its mass would increase to infinity; and it would offer infinite resistance to further increases in speed, which is why acceleration to or beyond the speed of light is so implausible. Approximations to the speed of light would be approximations to infinity. No matter what its speed, a Newtonian spaceship, by contrast, would always have exactly the same size, shape, mass, and inertia; but overwhelming evidence now indicates that ours is not a Newtonian world. Aristotle defined change or motion as "transition from potentiality to actuality," but this idea never gave rise to a single mathematical formula that empowers human beings, scientists in particular, for prediction and control. Modem mathematical physics began when Galileo replaced Aristotle's qualitative definition with a quantitative definition. Motion or velocity equals the space or distance traveled divided by the time required for the trek: v = s/t. Thus, if we travel a hundred miles in two hours, our speed or velocity is fifty miles per hour; and if we travel sixty miles in three hours, our velocity is twenty miles per hour. This formula, in which velocity varies with differences in time or distance, works perfectly well with everything except the speed of light. The speed of light in an invariant absolute in an otherwise relativistic universe.
Toward the end of the nineteenth century, physicists James Clerk Maxwell and Albert A. Michelson considered the speed of light and made some remarkable discoveries that paved the way for Einstein's insight that light is a universal constant and does not vary in speed with variations in distance and time. Because the speed of light is constant, space and time cannot be Newtonian absolutes, so Einstein proclaimed in his "Special Theory of Relativity" in 1905.
Time and temporal processes would proceed at the same pace everywhere and at every speed if Newton had been right. In fact, however, one earthborn twin traveling for an interval on a spaceship at close-to-light speed would be much younger when she returned than the twin who remained on earth. The physical clocks in her spaceship and her own biological clocks would slow down in proportion to accelerated speed. The speed of light can be constant at all speeds only if primary properties of size, shape, mass, resistance, mass, and time itself vary with speed. Classical matter possessed primary properties absolutely; but collectively if not individually, quantum matter possesses them only relative to acceleration. Time slows down and mass increases as velocity increases, and its pace is faster as mass and velocity decrease.

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Since the pace of time itself is affected by the speed with which a spacetime frame flows through the universe, are our cosmological calculations concerning the age of the universe affected? Would other observers at other speeds get more than, or less than, fifteen billion years for the age of the universe? Does the universe have this age only from our own relative vantage point? Probably so, in answer to all of these questions; but the world of nature manifests much more uniformity than popularizes of relativity often lead us to believe. We have learned in recent years that a uniform microwave background is universally accessible; and its constancy could function as a uniform frame of temporal reference for all space travelers.²⁶ Light is not the only form of energy with the constancy of the speed of light; all electromagnetic radiation travels at that speed. Quantum non-locality, which we haven't learned to put to practical use, instantly connects distant parts of the universe. The basic structures and laws of nature are the same no matter how fast anyone is going.
Any observers moving at any speed anywhere in the universe should be able to view the overall structure of the universe and determine that it came into being at some point in the finite past. Without being able to correlate their watches and their calculations perfectly, all intelligent beings within the universe should be able to discover the Big Bang and conclude that our universe was created a finite while ago.
The universe-wide instantaneous action at a distance of quantum nonlocality restores additional physical meaning to cosmic simultaneity, despite our inability to use non-locality to send instant messages to observers elsewhere in the universe. Still, all intelligent observers scattered throughout the universe should be able to discover that the Big Bang happened, though if they could communicate they might not be able to agree about precisely when it happened.
(9) Absolute/relative Temporal Properties. Classical matter possessed its spatial properties in complete independence of time. Newtonian space and time were completely independent of one another and of the material masses within them. If the temporal duration of an electron were cut infinitesimally thin, it would still fully possess its definiteness of spatial size, shape, motion, mass, and so forth. But the complete independence of time, space, and mass do not apply to quantum/relativity matter. Minimal finite temporal durations, what Whitehead called "specious presents," are required for the existence of any spatial properties at all, and minimal spatiality is required for the existence of any temporality at all. Spaces and times can be sliced infinitely thin by imagination or calculation, but no infinitesimals can actually exist. Nothing can really exist for less time than Planck time (10^-43 second) or in less than Planck space (10^-33 centimeters). To exist spatially as matter, as extended stuff, entities must also have some temporal or durational properties. In contemporary physics, time and space are inescapably interdependent, not totally independent as they were in classical physics.

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(10) Organic Holistic Unrelatedness/interrelatedness. Classical physical particles are what they are quite independently of all else. Since they exist contingently, they require causes; but they do not require anything else to be what they are. They can be isolated and studied quite independently of their relations with other things. By contrast, in quantum world-views, both microscopic and macroscopic realities are what they are by virtue of their internal relatedness with other things with which they form interdependent wholes. Nothing requires only itself to be what it is. All properties are relational properties; holistic relations to other things are internal to the constitutions of all realities. All previously identified traits of matter involve organic relational wholes in which they parts are what they are by virtue of the measuring or pretending wholes within which they exist. Smeared out quantum-level entities have only relative but not absolute definiteness of spatial extension. When measured or pretended for definiteness of position and motion they have them separately but not together. Their precise location is relationally definite by degrees. They exist discontinuously in relational spurts. They are partly caused by the externalities that they internalize and are partly self-caused. They are internally sensitive and responsive to their surroundings. They are partly what they are by virtue of local and partly by non-local causation. They are constituted by their spatial and temporal relations, and these condition all their other properties.
Thus, even matter is not what it used to be anymore! Commenting on Gilbert Ryle's characterization of mind/matter dualism as "the ghost in the machine," Paul Davies and John Gribbin tell us that "Today, on the brink of the twenty-first century, we can see that Ryle was right to dismiss the notion of the ghost in the machine-not because there is no ghost, but because there is no machine. "²⁷ Today we see clearly that matter in the classical sense just does not exist at all. A critically realistic theory of perceptual correspondence to objective reality must be adjusted to take account of quantum/relativity physics. It must emphasize both the definiteness within holistic interrelatedness of, and the partial but not total spontaneity, indefiniteness, indeterminateness, and unpredictability of, the depths of nature that physics has unearthed. Once proper adjustments have been made, matter still exists objectively and retains a great deal of definiteness in and of itself alongside its unpredictable self-creativity. Despite relativity physics and quantum measurement problems, as Victor J. Stenger notes,

Many properties of matter are fixed and, for practical purposes permanent. They can be determined without their respective measurements interfering with one another. These include rest mass, electric charge, magnetic momentum, and spin. Material bodies possess many unambiguous features that are not the slightest bit ephemeral.²⁸

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In a similar vein, Holmes Rolston, III indicates,

We must not be overwhelmed with this relativity of everything, for many things are not observer-dependent. The equations, the basic laws are invariant. Some of the physical constants of nature-the speed of light, the charge on an electron, or the number of atomic shells, the atomic table, chemical reactions, and so on-will presumably be the same for all observers, as will ordinarily be the order of succession of causally related events. Thus, there is considerable objectivity in relativity theory. 29

A partly or critically realistic interpretation of the physical world is possible if the primary properties of unobserved sub-atomic entities and processes are to some degree interrelatedly determinate apart from consciousness and transmit that determinateness to their successors, including our conscious sensory experiences. In response to those quantum experiments indicating that observation of one photon affects the spin of another photon, Roger Penrose, who declares himself to be a realist,³⁰ says,

The best suggestion that I can make at this stage would be for a picture involving some sort of partially formed, partly bifurcating spacetime, where the nature of the spacetime has not been adequately resolved until the second photon observation has taken place.³¹

If the contents of spacetime are partly formed apart from conscious observation, and if they correlate to that extent with conscious perception or prehension, partial or Critical Realism is correct. Quantum Critical Realism, adapted to quantum/relativity physics, still allows enough definiteness in objectively existing nature to account for cosmic and biological evolution. This is probably the best available argument for the truth of Critical Realism.
Most physicists have not abandoned realism for an idealistic metaphysics, despite the advances and challenges of quantum mechanics. Most cosmological theories are to some degree realistic. The Standard Model of Big Bang Cosmology assumes that an objectively existing universe of space/time/mass/energy came into being between ten and twenty billion years ago. The Inflation modification makes the same assumption but tries (successfully?) to make it more plausible. Infinite universe theories like Steady State and Plasma Cosmology affirm that an objectively existing universe of space/time/mass/energy is literally infinite-in itself-not just in our perceptions, thoughts, and theories. Antecedent Universe Cosmologies postulate objectively existing universes that preceded and caused our own. World-ensemble theories postulate an objectively existing Superspacetime that gives birth to many objectively co-existing universes, some perhaps erupting or branching from others. Most quantum and relativity physicists and scientific cosmologists agree that space/time/mass/energy are insepara-

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ble; but they do not believe that they exist only in our experiences, thoughts, and theories. Quantum Observership contends that this quasi-realistic approach is all wrong; but for many reasons like those given in the preceding discussion, most physicists think that Quantum Observership is all wrong.
A few dissenting scientists and philosophers of science have subjectivist leanings, at least in their weaker moments. In 1983, a younger Paul Davies expressed antirealism when he wrote that "The commonsense view of the world, in terms of objects that really exist 'out there' independently of our observations, totally collapses in the face of the quantum factor."³² In some of his moods, the early Albert Einstein surmised that space and time are ultimately unreal and exist only as human illusions. He came to this conclusion, not on scientific grounds, but because he subscribed to a Spinozistic metaphysics. Kantian idealism would give the same results. Later, Einstein vehemently opposed the idealistic, anti-realistic implications of Quantwn Observership.³³
Quantum Observership gives quantum mechanics a robustly anti-realistic flavor, but most masters of quantum mechanics are realists. To the suggestion that we should just follow the rules of quantum physics pragmatically without asking questions about reality or trying to form a picture of reality, Roger Penrose responds: "This seems to me to be wholly unreasonable. Physics, after all, constitutes our best way of groping for the true nature of the real world in which we find ourselves."³⁴ Bernard d'Espagnat defines Realism as "the doctrine that regularities in observed phenomena are caused by some physical reality whose existence is independent of human observers."³⁵ After thoroughly examining quantum experiments that intimate anti-realism, d'Espagnat concludes that abandoning realism

trivializes the entire scientific enterprise. Science is reduced to a set of recipes for predicting future observations from a knowledge of past ones. Any notion of science as "the study of nature" is a phantom. One can imagine a physics grounded on positivistic principles that would predict all possible correlations of events and still leave the world totally incomprehensible. Given the extreme consequences of abolishing realism, one is inclined to cling to this premise. ³⁶

Reconciling Critical Realism with quantum mechanics generates an odd picture of physical reality, as we saw in contrasting Newtonian with Quantwn concepts of matter; but Realists are willing to pay the price. Physical reality just is odd, says quantum/relativity theory.
In 1964, John S. Bell demonstrated a fundamental incompatibility between the natural order of things disclosed by quantum mechanics and Einstein's insistence on "locality,"-the belief that there can be no faster-than-light causality. Einstein called faster-than-light causality "spooky action at a distance." Bell insists, contra Einstein, that "Events at one place propagate to other places faster

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than light. This happens in a way that we cannot use for signaling. Nevertheless it is a gross violation of relativistic causality."³⁷ Many quantum theorists believe that non-local causality is the key to reconciling quantum theory with scientific Realism. Bernard d'Espagnat insists that messages really can travel faster than the speed of light.³⁸ Roger Penrose affirms both that there are faster-than-light correlations between entangled events and that photons really can be (partly) in two places at once.³⁹ David Bohm and Basil Hiley⁴⁰ defend realistic and deterministic interpretations of quantum mechanics that allow for non-local fasterthan-light connections between events. Just before sending the final version of this book to my publisher, J discovered that John A. Jungerman explains nonlocality clearly and affirms it unequivocally on the basis of now abundant experimental evidence.⁴¹
Not all realists accept non-locality. In his very thorough but somewhat technical defense of quantum realism, Henry Krips rejects non-locality in favor of hidden variables.⁴² In his very readable discussions of the topic, a skeptical Victor J. Stenger contends. "Now, after a series of precise experiments, the issue has been decided: hidden variables that are both local and real are ruled out" and "nonlocality exists only in theory" and cannot be confirmed experimentally.⁴³ The question of non-local causation does not have to be decided here, but the case for it is much stronger than Stenger suggests. There is probably something to it, and it must be considered carefully by anyone who wishes to understand the interconnectedness of things.
Realistic quantum theory emphasizes the objective reality of fields as well as of waves and particles. Fields are objectively existing, invisible, colorless, regional sets of physical habits or dispositions with ill-defined borders; they require no medium of actualized waves or particles for their causal efficacy and reality; but they bear both information and energy; and these influence the wavicles within them. They inform, give form to, their components. Specialized regions, perhaps all regions, of space itself-some more than others-bear physical and formal properties that structure particle/wave events within themselves.
Finally, a rigid causal determinism appears to reign supreme at the level of macroscopic entities encountered in everyday experience to which Newtonian physics applies; but at the level of quantum systems. both indeterminateness and indeterminism are the rules. Quantum events in themselves and in our perception of them are neither fully determinate nor fully indeterminate with respect to their primary spatial and temporal properties. They are neither fully determined by nor left completely undetermined by their causal antecedents. Quantum Critical Realists are convinced that spontaneity is objectively real, not just an expression of human ignorance. Einstein was wrong when he decreed that "God does not play dice with the universe!" The universe plays dice both with itself, and with God.

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ii. Observership and Causation

A plausible scientific account of human origins must affirm that relatively definite physical processes existed objectively for billions of years before conscious observers evolved; yet, according to Quantum Observership, conscious observers contribute all definiteness to what is observed, and nothing unobserved exists at all. Quantum Observership must avoid this logical predicament, which it cannot do; it must also explain the magical causal process by which conscious observation affects or creates physical entities and processes. Is all seemingly physical causation just another example of spooky action at a distance without a physical medium? Is energy really exchanged between observer and observed? Do conscious observers as such project photons or radiant energy onto other photons and particles to collapse their infinite potencies into definite actualities of position or momentum? If so, could the projected photons or radiation be detected? Would this energy have enough definiteness of its own when not being observed to do its work? Or, as idealist Jonathan Edwards held, does God cause everything directly, while events and beings within the world, including human observers, cause nothing? Or do human observers without God simply create photons, electrons, other particles, and the universe itself ex nihilo in the very acts of looking for and finding them? How does this happen? Do conscious observers create the Big Bang in the very act of perceiving or conceiving the evidence for it, in something like the way in which God, in some versions of fundamentalistic "Creation Science" directly creates the fossilized bones of dinosaurs that never existed? If so, is Quantum Observership any more plausible than magical Creationism?

iii. Ambiguities Involving "Observer" and "Measurement"

In Quantum Cosmology, the meanings of "observer" and "measurement" are unclear. Quantum physics appears to divide the universe decisively into (1) observers (2) measuring instruments, and (3) observed or measured quantum events; but these are not sharp distinctions. What is an observer? Must all observers be conscious entities? Are observers themselves composed of quantum events? Are their instruments composed of quantum events? In Quantum Observership, observers must be conscious-like human beings. Perhaps a conscious animal, a dog, or even Schrodinger's cat would do, but this is not always clear. What if a person instead of a cat had been in Schrodinger' s box? Why couldn't the observer be an omni-observant God who, presumably, would always confer as much definiteness upon the world as it needs? Most physicists prefer not to appeal to God's existence or to consciousness to solve physical problems. God might provide a perfect solution to the puzzles of Quantum Observership if most quantum physicists were not biased against Theism. Yet, conscious divine, human, or animal observers may not be

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necessary at all for conferring definiteness upon quantum events. We cannot simply equate "observer" with "consciousness."
In realistic interpretations of quantum theory, observers need not be conscious beings. Anything responsive to its environment will do. According to Werner Heisenberg, "It does not matter whether the observer is an apparatus or a human being."⁴⁴ John S. Bell affirms that "The only 'observer' which is essential in orthodox practical quantum theory is the inanimate apparatus which amplifies microscopic events to macroscopic consequences."⁴⁵ Observers may be unconscious measuring machines like Geiger counters or photographic plates.
Definiteness-conferring observations need be nothing more than unconscious physical processes taking account of or interacting causally and prehensively with others. Scientific instruments functioning as unconscious observers are themselves composed of quantum-level physical processes. No sharp line separates microscopic and macroscopic processes and observers, even though our senses are generally responsive only to quantum-level events en masse. Victor J. Stenger indicates that detectors "need not be limited to the sensory apparatus of human beings or their scientific instruments. The term 'detector' can also encompass the particles in the environment surrounding the system."⁴⁶ Thus, one physical process pretending or interacting responsively with another is all that is required to confer physical definiteness. If all physical processes interact sensitively with other physical processes, the universe in itself, quite apart from conscious observers, would have all of the exactitude that Critical Quantum Realism attributes to it. As Abner Shimony puts it:

When a physical variable which initially is merely potential acquires a definite value, it can be said to be actualized. So far, the only processes we have mentioned in which potentialities are actualized are measurements, but in a non-anthropocentric view of physical theory the measurement process is only a special case of the interaction of systems, of special interest to scientists because knowledge is thereby obtained, but not fundamental from the standpoint of physical theory itself.⁴⁷

Heisenberg, Bell, Stenger, Shimony, and other Quantum Critical Realists think that there is nothing special about either conscious observers or measurements. Popularizers of quantum mechanics like Paul Davies48 contend that definiteness is achieved at the level of microscopic wave-function events only as they collapse when measured by conscious observers using macroscopic measuring and recording instruments. Schrodinger's cat really is in a dual alive-dead wavefunction state until a human observer reads the Geiger counter. John Bell, by contrast, maintains that notions like "observer" and "measurement" are so obscure that they cannot be fundamental for physics, and that there is no sharp line of demarcation between the microscopic and the macroscopic.⁴⁹ Elemental

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reflection will show that Bell is right. John Wheeler himself eventually came around:

Let us not invoke either "consciousness" or "observer" as prerequisite for what in quantum mechanics we call the elementary act of observation. What counts as "observation" for the purposes of quantum mechanics is the irreversible act of amplification. It may not be clear how much amplification is required.⁵⁰

The quantum-level domain seems to confer degrees of definiteness upon itself merely through causal interactions between quantum events, occasionally at speeds as fast as light, but usually not. Physical causation is always temporalistic and prehensive, but it is not rigidly deterministic. A significant degree of both definiteness and indefiniteness could exist in quantum events if, as Process Philosophy affirms, partly indeterminate events in their present moment of immediacy prehend, take account of, and in that sense measure, immediately past events that become fully definite only as they perish and are prehended by their successors. Demarcations between eventdurations need not be as sharp as process thinkers previously assumed, as explained later. The present occasion in any causal cone of spatiotemporal events possesses a high degree of internal freedom, self-creativity, and indeterminateness, mixed with degrees of definiteness or data inherited from the past. Events acquire their fullest definiteness as they complete themselves, perish into the past, and are perceived or prehended (usually unconsciously) by their partly-self-creating successors. In physical terms, wavicles are always highly definite in themselves; but they acquire a more complete but still very similar definiteness as they perish in time and are succeeded and "observed" by their immediate temporal successors.
Quantum theorists recognize that a measurer must be something spatially distinct from the object measured, but temporal distinctness must also be emphasized. All causation from space to space is temporally ordered. Also, according to Process Philosophy, all mentality is spatially ordered and extended; and no totally disembodied mentality exists anywhere. All events at every level of existence have both mental and physical poles, but physical poles are both spatially extended as well as causally responsive and efficacious. Even God is embodied in the world, or some world, and is not a purely incorporeal disembodied spirit. If all immediately successive events are observers or prehenders of their predecessors and receive forms and data from them, the unconscious world of nature in itself has sufficient definiteness to exist in itself and to evolve complex conscious observers like us; and each relatively independent and partly selfcreative present moment at every level of complexity has sufficient indefiniteness to allow for ubiquitous freedom and creativity.

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In Process Philosophy, the partial indeterminateness of present events extends to all levels of reality, no matter what their degree of organization and complexity. Atomic and sub-atomic uncertainty is not the same thing as free will and creativity in immensely complex human subjects, but both are manifestations of a universal principle of creativity; and human creativity supervenes upon physical indefiniteness. Newtonian mechanistic determinism excluded human freedom, but quantum level uncertainty makes room for it without being identical with it. Natural processes become more and more fully determinate as decisions are made and information is synthesized in the present, as events perish into the past, and as their successors perceive or prehend them. Temporalistic entities receive as much as they can from their predecessors and transmit what they can of themselves into their successors. These transmitted forms and data give continuity, memory, and relative self-identity through time to chains or temporally ordered societies of consecutive spatiotemporal events, ranging from quark-pulsations to streams of human consciousness.
Our own conscious present moments of receptivity, partial self-creativity, relative independence, subjective immediacy, and self-enjoyment are partly indefinite, but not infinitely indefinite. Degrees of definiteness and indefiniteness are equally real at all levels of natural complexity. Photon wavicles definitely cannot collapse into electrons; electron pulsations cannot collapse into proton or neutron pulsations; and streams of human consciousness cannot degenerate directly into streams of canine or bovine consciousness. Each partly determinate particle/wave includes a very limited set of unactualized possibilities. Where will it jump to next? Where exactly will it go when scattered? Through which slit will it pass? When will it "decay" into a free particle? Events become determinate partly by inheritance, partly by decisions of the moment among open possibilities, and partly by perishing in time to be prehended by their successors. Quantum indefiniteness versus measurement is nothing more mysterious than causation between immediately past and present spatiotemporal occasions. That in itself is mysterious enough!
To summarize, Quantum Observership argues from unusual interpretations of perplexing experiments in quantum physics to an Idealistic Metaphysics that denies the objective existence of space/time/mass/energy. No physical objects exist without conscious physicists or observers of some sort, says Idealism. In itself, the physical world is merely an infinite set of indeterminate possibilities for perception; and the determinateness of the physical world consists in and is caused or created by its being perceived or observed.
Quantum Observership is incompatible with cosmic and biological evolution. It generates the unresolved paradox that observers create the Big Bang and the evolutionary process, but the evolutionary process and the Big Bang create all observers. It cannot explain the magical causal procedure by which observers confer determinateness on physical entities and processes, including those in the distant past. As in Kantian Idealism, Quantum Observership reduces space,

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time, energy, and causation to forms of experience that have nothing to do with things in themselves or objective realities. Most modem scientists reject Quantum Observership and its insistence that space/time/mass/energy exist only in human consciousness; they strongly prefer, with good reason, the partly realistic theory that the physical world exists objectively, independently, but relationally. Yet, the relations need not be with conscious observers. Finally, the notions of "observer," "instrument," and "measurement" cloak serious ambiguities. The referents of all of these concepts are partly composed of quantum-level events. If observers are allowed to be unconscious physical objects, including measuring instruments, and if no sharp divisions exist between the macroscopic and the microscopic or between minds and matter, and if measuring is merely causal interaction, the mutual interconnectedness of effects and causes, then in the absence of conscious observers, the physical world can prehend, observe, measure, and confer sufficient determinateness upon itself to account for the objective reality of the Big Bang and for the evolution of nature prior to the emergence of consciousness.
A Kantian/Copernican idealistic revolution in epistemology is just as anthropocentric as the geocentric theory that placed humankind at the geographical center of the universe. A realistic nonanthropomorphic natural science affirms that we have our being and our becoming within and as a part of a vast, natural, objectively existing, vibrant universe of interdependent, partly determinate, partly indeterminate pulsations of space/time/mass/energy. For billions of years, this independently existing system of nature possessed a high degree of definiteness in itself; ·unconscious prehensive relational responsiveness is ubiquitous. In our part of the Milky Way, no conscious observers existed before animals, including our own most primitive evolutionary ancestors, emerged from the primordial terrestrial slime. We exist within and as a part of the totality of objective spacetime. Nature does not exist merely within us as mind-dependent conscious perceptions to which nothing objective and determinate corresponds. The objective existence of highly (but not totally) determinate space/ time/mass/energy makes a very practical difference. Without it, we would not be here at all. With it, Quantum Observership is wrong.

[Notes]

1. John A. Wheeler, "Genesis and Observership," in Foundational Problems in the Special Sciences, eds. Robert E. Butts and Jaakko Hintikka(Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1977), pp. 3-33. John A. Wheeler, "Beyond the Black Hole," in Some Strangeness in the Proportion, ed. Harry Woolf (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1980), pp. 341-375.
2. See Bernard d'Espagnat, "Quantum Theory and Reality," Scientific American, 241 (November 1979), pp. 158-181; David N. Mermin, "Is the Moon There When Nobody Looks? Reality and the Quantum Theory," Physics Today, 38 (April 1985), pp. 38-47; Paul Davies, God and the New Physics (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1983), Ch. 8; Victor J. Stenger, The Unconscious Quantum (Amherst, N. Y.: Prometheus Books, 1995), Chs. 5 and 6; David Bohm and B. J. Hiley, The Undivided Universe: An Ontological Interpretation of Quantum Theory (London and New York: Routledge, 1993), Ch. 7 and elsewhere.
3. See Wheeler, "Genesis and Observership," pp. 22-25; Brian Greene, The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory (New York: W.W. Norton, & Co., 1999), pp. 97-108; Bohm and Hiley, pp. 32-35, 41-42, and elsewhere.
4. John A. Wheeler, "Bohr, Einstein, and the Strange Lesson of the Quantum," in Mind in Nature, ed. Richard Q. Elvee (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1981 ), p. 29.
5. Wheeler, "Genesis and Observership," p. 6.
6. Eugene Wigner, Symmetries and Reflections (Bloomington: Indiana University Press. 1967), p. 172.
7. Wheeler, "Genesis and Observership," p. 32.
8. Ibid., p. 21.
9. Ibid., p. 25.
10. Ibid.
11. Ibid., p. 28.
12. Fred W. Hallberg, "Barrow and Tipler's Anthropic Cosmological Principle," Zygon, 23:2 (June 1988), p. 144.
13. See Wheeler's "Genesis and Observership," p. 26.
14. Wheeler, "Beyond the Black Hole," p. 362.
15. Richard Rorty, "Does Academic Freedom Have Philosophical Presuppositions? Academic Freedom and the Future of the University," Academe, 80:6 (November/ December 1994), pp. 52--{)3.
16. See J. Leplin, ed. Scientific Realism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984 ); Arthur Peacocke, Intimations of Reality: Critical Realism in Science and Religion (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press), 1984.
17. Werner Heisenberg, Philosophical Problems of Quantum Physics (Woodbridge, Conn.: Ox Bow Press, 1979), pp. 38, 86.
18. Quoted by Mermin, "Is the Moon There When Nobody Looks?" p. 40.
19. Greene, The Elegant Universe, pp. 143-148.
20. Alfred North Whitehead, Science and the Modern World (New York: The Free Press, 1967), p. 34.
21. Sten Oldenwald, "Space-Time: The Final Frontier," Sky & Telescope, 91:2 (February 1996), p. 28.
22. John S. Bell, Speakable and Unspeakable in Quantum Mechanics (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1986), p. 191.
23. Bohm and Hiley, The Undivided Universe, pp. 104-106, 125, and elsewhere.
24. Ibid., pp. 32, 41.
25. See David R. Griffin, Religion and Scientific Naturalism (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2000), pp. 120--122.
26. George Smoot and Keay Davidson, Wrinkles in Time (New York: Avon Books, 1993), pp. 116-118.
27. Paul Davies and John Gribbin, The Matter Myth (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992), p. 309.
28. Victor J. Stenger, The Unconscious Quantum: Metaphysics in Modern Physics and Cosmology (Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1995), pp. 79, 80.
29. Holmes Rolston, III, Science and Religion (New York: Random House. 1987), p. 58.
30. Stephen Hawking and Roger Penrose, The Nature of Space and Time (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996), p. 134.
31. Roger Penrose, "Newton, Quantum Theory, and Reality," in Three Hundred Years of Gravitation, eds. Stephen Hawking and Werner Israel (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. 1987), p. 46.
32. Davies, God and the New Physics, p. 107.
33. See Mermin, "Is the Moon There When Nobody Looks?" pp. 38-39; d'Espagnat, "Quantum Theory and Reality," pp. 165, 172; 177-179; and Davies and Gribbin, The Matter Myth, pp. 221-226.
34. Penrose, "Newton, Quantum Theory, and Reality," pp. 26, 27.
35. d'Espagnat, "Quantum Theory and Reality," p. 158.
36. Ibid., p. 177.
37. Bell, Speakable and Unspeakable in Quantum Mechanics, p. 171.
38. d'Espagnat, "Quantum Theory and Reality," pp. 179-180.
39. Penrose, "Newton, Quantum Theory, and Reality," pp. 29-31. See also Roger Penrose, Shadows of the Mind (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994 ), pp. 290-296.
40. See the contributions of David Bohm, Basil Hiley, and John S. Bell to The Ghost in the Atom, eds. P. C. W. Davies and J. R. Brown (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1986). See also Bohm and Hiley, The Undivided Universe Ch. 7.
41. John A. Jungennan, World in Process: Creativity and Interconnectedness in the New Physics (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2000), pp. 86-89.
42. Henry Krips, The Metaphysics of Quantum Theory (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987).
43. Stenger, The Unconscious Quantum, p. 39. See also his Chs. 5 and 6.
44. Werner Heisenberg, Physics and Philosophy: The Revolution in Modern Science (New York: Harper & Row, 1958), p. 137.
45. Bell, Speakable and Unspeakable in Quantum Mechanics, p. 170.
46. Stenger, The Unconscious Quantum, p. 185.
47. Abner Shimony, "Events and Processes in the Quantum World," in Quantum Concepts in Space and Time, eds. R. Penrose and C. J. Isham (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986), p. 184.
48. Paul Davies, The Cosmic Blueprint: New Discoveries in Nature's Creative Ability to Order the Universe (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1989), pp. 170-174.
49. Bell, Speakable and Unspeakable in Quantum Mechanics, pp. 117-127, 173-195.
50. John Wheeler, "Not Consciousness but the Distinction Between the Probe and the Probed as Central to the Elemental Quantum Act of Observation," in The Role of Consciousness in the Physical World, ed. Robert G. Jahn (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1981), p. 97.

Quantum Cosmologies add quantum theory to relativity theory and apply them to the universe as a whole. If, as previously indicated, the laws and concepts of quantum physics apply only to tiny, definite, and discrete quanta of energy, the whole enterprise of Quantum Cosmology is doomed from the start. When compacted to the size of a quantum object like an electron, all the energy of an entire universe is just too great for quantum physics to apply; but for the sake of a lively debate, let us assume that it does apply. Even so, Quantum Cosmology in its many forms still has far too many problems to be very plausible. From the vantage points of common sense and classical Newtonian physics, quantum theory involves many oddities. Two strange quantum effects, quantum indefiniteness and quantum discreteness, may be used as evidence against initial singularities, as previously explained. A third, quantum fluctuations, is used in Big Fizz Cosmologies to account for the origin of bubble universes and for the bubbles within bubbles that give rise to galactic and supergalactic structures. A fourth, plenitude or the actualization of all possibilities, spawns infinitely many universes. A fifth, Quantum Observership, results in an Idealistic Metaphysics according to which the universe exists only because we perceive it.
Quantum Cosmologies modify Standard Big Bang Cosmology by introducing quantum oddities like indefiniteness, discreteness, fluctuations, plenitude, and observership and by applying these to the beginning of the universe. Plenitude from quantum physics spills over into astrophysics, resulting in at least two distinct world-ensemble cosmologies: (1) the Big Fizz view of John A. Wheeler, Stephen Hawking, Alan Guth, and a number of Russian and other cosmologists who proclaim that primordial Superspacetime generates multiple inflationary universes by quantum fluctuations to create all possible worlds; and (2) the Big Divide view, originating with Hugh Everett, III in 1957,¹ which affirms that every universe branches every instant into multiple parallel universes to actualize all possibilities. These world-ensemble cosmologies proliferate worlds to infinity through bizarre Big Fizz and Big Divide processes.²

1. Big Fizz Quantum Cosmology

Russian astrophysicists like A. A. Starobinsky,³ Andrei Linde,⁴ and M. A. Markov⁵ affirm and defend oscillating universes without singularities, as do other astrophysicists. They also envision other and more fundamental ways of generating universes without appealing to preceding oscillations. They locate
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their imagined worlds within an infinite Superspacetime that endlessly ejects, then reabsorbs, and ejects again, an infinite number of co-present universes that may or may not oscillate. I shall call this multi-ejection Quantum Cosmology the "Big Fizz" theory of origins. Stephen Hawking and many others are strongly attracted to the Big Fizz position. What does it have to say about the origin of our universe?

A. Mother Spacetime

Big Fizz Cosmology affirms that an infinite number of universes are created by, and co-exist within, infinite Superspacetime, which includes but infinitely transcends the finite spacetime of our own universe. Oscillation and Quantum Cosmologies are not mutually exclusive. Once co-existent universes originate in infinite Superspace through spontaneous fluctuations, they may then oscillate forever after within Supertime, say Big Fizz proponents. Even parallel universes with a finite past can have an infinite future. Oscillation variants are plagued by all the difficulties discussed in Chapter Four, but let us begin with the novel element that Quantum Cosmologies introduce-Superspacetime. Both Oscillation and Big Fizz theories are Antecedent Universe Cosmologies. Universes expand into nothingness in pure Oscillation Cosmologies, but they expand into preexisting Superspacetime in Big Fizz Cosmologies. Superspacetime, not a singularity or an antecedent cosmic epoch, is the ultimate Antecedent Universe in these theories; it produces all Big Bangs, including our own. Maternal Superspacetime is the space beyond our space and the time before, during, and after our time.
According to I. L. Rozental, for whom "metagalaxies" are independent, co-existing universes, including ours, "A multidimensional background space exists, filled with a physical vacuum subject to perturbations. These perturbations give rise to the evolution of objects like the Metagalaxy. "⁶ Rozental says that "The Universe-eternal and infinite-lives a stormy life reminiscent (metaphorically, of course) of a pot of boiling liquid. Like vapor bubbles, metagalaxies arise, expand, and finally die, giving birth to new metagalaxies. "⁷ In discussing many worlds cosmologies, John Gribbin calls this infinite multidimensional background spacetime "'super' spacetime."⁸ Katsuhiko Sato and his co-authors call it "the original 'mother' universe.''⁹ Willem B. Drees called it "Mother Spacetime."¹⁰ This maternalistic metaphor is illuminating. Mother or Super spacetime is the primordial progenitor of all particular spatiotemporal universes, an infinite number of them, so Quantum Cosmologists claim.

Pure Oscillation Cosmologies postulate a single infinitely long strand of consecutive universes, each of which gives rises to its successor after it collapses. In Big Fizz world-ensemble cosmologies, Mother Spacetime spontaneously generates an infinite number of co-existing universes, some of which may also oscillate once initiated. Mother Spacetime is infinitely creative in both
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space and time, but of what is she composed? Rozental likens her to a pot of boiling water. In more technical terms, how is she depicted? Infinitely transcendent Superspacetime is composed of: the physical vacuum or minimal mass/ density of"empty space" as an actualized energy field having a bubbly or fizzy structure that results from spontaneous quantum fluctuations.
John Hick thinks that Big Fizz Cosmology is religiously ambiguous with respect to Theism and Naturalism because "It remains no less conceivable that the super-universe, with ours as one component, is itself the ultimate uncreated reality. "¹¹ However, if the super-universe consists entirely of contingent universes, contingent Superspacetime, a contingent physical vacuum, contingent quantum fluctuations, and contingent laws of quantum mechanics, it is definitely not a necessary being, or what Hick calls "the ultimate uncreated reality." As explained in depth in Chapter Twelve, as far as experience takes us, which is all that we have to go on, any whole composed entirely of contingent parts is a contingent whole, not an ultimate necessary being. This means that as contingent wholes, our universe and any transcendent Superuniverse do not exist self-sufficiently and indestructibly. Certainly, no self-contradiction is involved in denying their existence. Our own universe was definitely created by something and is not everlasting. Contingent wholes exist dependently; their non-existence is possible, so their existence is not self-explanatory. As a contingent whole, Superspacetime itself requires an explanation, one that ultimately comes to rest in a transcendent Necessary Being; but the case for this is yet to be made.

B. The Physical Vacuum and Pure energy

Mother Spacetime includes or is a physical vacuum.¹² Do not read too much common sense into this notion. As quantum physicists understand the concept, a physical vacuum is not a state of complete nothingness or emptiness. If it were, it would be indistinguishable from a singularity, understood as empirical emptiness; and the creation of the universe from it would be identical with creation ex nihilo.
Big Fizz proponents clearly repudiate both creation ex nihilo and the identification of Superspacetime with absolute nothingness. A physical vacuum has ephemeral but still real ingredients. Alan Guth writes that "To the particle theorist, the word 'vacuum' is defined as the state of lowest possible energy density."¹³ The physical vacuum is "empty space"; but empty space is not empty! It contains no enduring particles like electrons and protons, but it does contain the actualized mass/energy/density of space as space¹⁴ which has not yet been converted to enduring particles; and it contains virtual particles¹⁵ that become actual particles for only a tiny fraction of a second before being annihilated by their antiparticles. It also may contain the "Higgs field" that interacts with electrons to give them mass.¹⁶ Charles Misner, Kip Thome, and John A. Wheeler thus describe the vacuum state:
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No point is more central than this, that empty space is not empty. It is the seat of the most violent physics. The electromagnetic field fluctuates. Virtual pairs of positive and negative electrons, in effect, are continually being created and annihilated, and likewise pairs of mu mesons, pairs of baryons, and pairs of other particles. All these fluctuations coexist with the quantum fluctuations in the geometry and topology of space.¹⁷

The physical vacuum of "empty" space is not just vacuous nothingness. "Empty" space itself is not empty; it has a fine-grained bubbly structure. It seethes with particles waiting to be born. It even has its own physical mass/ density.¹⁸ Its measurable effects can push two metal plates together after all physical particles have been siphoned away.
The Uncertainty Principle permits very short-lived suspensions of the Principle of the Conservation of Energy, so in "empty space" actual particles and antiparticles are constantly being born. Usually, they immediately lapse back into pure potentiality, or mutually annihilate one another. Occasionally, however, a particle gets away, Big Fizz theorists claim, though this has never been confirmed. Now and then, they say, one of these newly escaped particles or bubbles inflates spontaneously into an entire universe. This, too, has never been confirmed. These metaphysical claims are unabashed conjectures.

C. Forever Blowing Bubbles

Mother Spacetime also consists of bubbles or froth.¹⁹ She spawns a really big fizz, an infinite number ofbubbles, interminable primordial foam. At its deepest level, spacetime itself is foamy or granular rather than smooth; but theorists are not clear about whether the bubbles are composed merely of space, or consist in the transient virtual/actual matter/antimatter particles that constantly arise. Big Fizz Cosmologists recognize that most bubbles do not inflate into entire universes; but, randomly, innumerable bubbles do inflate at the speed of light into self-contained worlds, some of which are mini and some maxi universes. Andrei Linde calls this "chaotic inflation." According to this theory, each mini-universe may subdivide into innumerable distinct mini-universes. As Linde puts it, "Instead of one single big bang producing a single-bubble Universe, we are speaking now about inflationary bubbles producing new bubbles, producing new bubbles, ad infinitum."²⁰ In one way or another, Mother Spacetime gives birth to an infinite number of"child universes," as they are called by Alan Guth21 and Andrei Linde.²²
Progeny universes pinch off and become detached from one another, though in some instances wormhole tubes might link them, some speculate.²³ Child universes are so far apart in Mother Spacetime that they cannot act causally on one another, even at the speed of light-except possibly through wormholes.²⁴ In infinite Superspacetime, an infinite number of co-existent universes
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could all be infinitely far apart. After birth, most child universes exist in complete causal independence. Relativity theory defines simultaneous co-existence as mutual causal independence. Co-existing postnatal offspring universes live and move and have their being within the womb of Mother Spacetime, the Infinite Universe in the largest possible sense, without influencing one another. Within all-encompassing Mother Spacetime, they have spatiotemporal but not causal relations with one another. Only the Infinite Mother herself, if She is omniscient, can know their relative times and positions within infinite Superspacetime. Just be aware that all of this is wild, unconfirmed, and unconfirmable conjecture! Our universe is one such bubble-child, says the theory. Offspring universes begin with their own Bang. According to Andrei Linde, "If one wishes to reserve this name [big bang] for the first 'big bang' (if there was one), one may think about such names as a 'small bang' or 'pretty big bang. "'²⁵ Viewed from within, each child universe seems to be everything, for it cannot contact its brothers and sisters and is not at all sure that they even exist. After its spontaneous generation by Mother Spacetime, a child universe may expand, contract, expand, contract, forever. Linde describes such an oscillating universe as "an infinite chain reaction of creation and self-reproduction which has no end and which may have no beginning."²⁶ Linde emphasizes closed oscillating universes, but if Mother Spacetime actualizes all possible universes, she must also include all possible open, flat, and non-oscillating universes.

D. Spontaneous Fluctuations

Supposedly, spontaneous fluctuation is Mother Spacetime's mechanism for world-making. The Uncertainty Principle in quantum theory says that the behavior of entities at the atomic and sub-atomic quantum level is random, indeterminate, and unpredictable. Quantum-size entities (sub-atomic particles or wavicles) cannot simultaneously exemplify velocity and locus and are not bound by rigid causal bonds. Even "empty space" has a tenacious case of the jitters. Unpredictable spontaneous deviations are the rule, not the exception. No hidden variables exist to restore classical causal determinism and reduce physical indeterminacy to mere human ignorance or to uncertainties in the experimental situation. Quantum fields and particles in themselves are not fully determinate in position and velocity; they are not fully determined causally by conditions that we cannot find. Quantum entities fluctuate spontaneously and unpredictably. No one can make accurate predictions about when individual molecules of radioactive elements will spontaneously disintegrate, or when particular electrons will jump orbits without passing through the intervening space, though en masse vast numbers of individually unpredictable events give rise to statistical regularities.
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Big Fizz Cosmology avows that tiny bubbles form in the supercosmic physical vacuum through spontaneous fluctuations. Most bubbles in the primordial fizz are stillborn. Others inflate into child universes, but not all at the same time, as Mother Spacetime might apprehend sameness and time. Universeproducing bubble inflation is creative, spontaneous, random, unpredictable, acausal, and accidental.

Child universes are almost, but not quite, created by nothing as well as from nothing in moderate Big Fizz Quantum Cosmologies. More extreme Big Accident Quantum Cosmologies, later considered, will take this final step; but moderate Big Fizz Cosmologists like Linde, Rozental, and Guth do not go this far. They hold that Mother Spacetime, the ephemeral energy of the physical vacuum of empty space, spontaneous energy fluctuations, and the laws of quantum physics, are necessary causal conditions for all Big Bangs. Causes are either necessary or sufficient conditions, or both together. In the absence of necessary conditions, effects cannot come to be; in the presence of sufficient conditions, effects must come to be. In Big Fizz theory, Mother Spacetime, quantum laws, quantum fluctuations, and the pure energy of the physical vacuum are necessary causal conditions for the spontaneous generation of all universes, including our own. In their absence, neither our universe nor any other would exist. Since its birth was in part spontaneous, our universe did not have a sufficient cause (unless it was the abstract Principle of Plenitude); no antecedent physical conditions were perfectly adequate for its emergence. Given Mother Spacetime, our universe is the ultimate manifestation of spontaneous creativity; but getting an enormous and magnificent universe like ours from nearly nothing may not be quite so easy.
A. Karel V elan indicates that no actual particles or universes ever emerge spontaneously from a physical vacuum alone. Particle accelerators disclose that virtual particles become actual only in the presence of an actualized electromagnetic energy field. lf he is right, contingent actualities require additional external actualities for their being, even in a quantum multiuniverse. V elan indicates that an actualized primordial electronic radiation field must exist within the physical vacuum of Superspacetime itself if it is to spawn any universes, including our own.²⁷ This cosmic energy field, he thinks, is "the fundamental tool of divine power."²⁸
After next explaining and exploring Big Divide Cosmology, we will see that it and the Big Fizz suffer from common defects.

2. Big Divide Many Worlds Cosmology

Under the direction of John A. Wheeler, Hugh Everett, III wrote a doctoral dissertation in 1957 titled The Theory of the Universal Wave Function in which he developed the Big Divide many worlds interpretation of Quantum Cosmology. This position was later expanded and defended in several of Everett's

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published articles, and by Bryce De Witt and others.²⁹ More recent defenses and critiques are also available.³⁰
According to quantum physics, indefiniteness, discreteness, and spontaneity permeate entities at the atomic and sub-atomic levels. In many interpretations, quantum-size entities exist only in an indefinite, indeterminate wavefunction state; and they achieve definiteness only if something happens to collapse their wave-function. Prior to this collapse, all possibilities are on an equal footing. If and when its wave-function collapses, a quantum object then acquires definiteness and determination. In the theory of Quantum Observership, presented in a later chapter, wave functions collapse only when physical process are observed and measured; but in the Everett\DeWitt Big Divide theory, wave-functions never collapse.
If wave-functions never collapse, why do we experience a definite and determinate world? Everett and DeWitt gave a peculiar answer. A wave-function is merely an infinite set of potentials or possibilities; and everything, large and small, including the universe, has one. Also, potentiality is identical with actuality in this perspective; so everything' sand everyone's infinite possibilities are somehow actualized. How can all the potentialities of every conceivable particle, person, life-form, thing, and cosmos be actualized? Actualization of infinite possibilities is a time-asymmetrical process; any universe divides into an infinite number of additional universes at every moment of time and every point of space. Once created, branch universes sprout branches, which also sprout branches-to infinity. Big Divide theorists do not call attention to them, but divisions must contain dead end branches that go nowhere, since these too are logically possible.
We conscious observers experience a definite world every time we have a sensation or make a measurement or an observation. Conscious observers as such also divide endlessly at every moment into multiple copies, and these too actualize all possibilities. Everett focused primarily on infinite divisions of minds in a "many minds theory," but DeWitt emphasized infinite divisions of both minds and worlds. Every time we conscious subjects divide, the entire universe divides with us. For a fleeting moment, we observe a fleeting determinate universe; but this does not mean that the infinite potentialities of our wavefunction have collapsed into one concrete actuality within one determinate universe. Instead, it means that we have suddenly and imperceptibly sub-divided or branched into an infinite number of observing subjects in an infinite number of new universes. Definiteness emerges from infinite potentiality because infinite partitions into endless branching universes actualize all possibilities for everything, from quarks to Quakers.
Because "universe" may have more than one meaning, says Frank J. Tipler, Everett's Big Divide interpretation of quantum physics is often misunderstood. "Universe" may mean "all spatiotemporal reality;" but Everett's cosmology does not assert that all spatiotemporal reality constantly branches
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into infinitely many worlds, Tipler says. In Everett's theory, "universe" refers only to the limited domain of observer and observed; and the theory affirms that "Only the observed/observer system splits; only that restricted portion of the universe acted on by the Measurement operation M splits";³¹ but the unobserved portion of the universe does not split.
Tipler's efforts to make an infinitely counter-intuitive theory less so do not succeed, however. Suppose that an observer tries to measure or observe the universe as a whole, the totality of spacetime, instead of just a restricted part of it. Then DeWitt's more extreme interpretation of the Big Divide becomes operational. Tipler himself concedes that "if it is the radius of the Universe that is being measured, the first measurement of the universal radius will split the Universe into universes, which collectively have all possible radii."³² To avoid initial conditions, Tipler affirms that "The Universe consists of all logically possible universes";³³ but that is just what the more extreme view espoused by Bryce DeWitt, and occasionally by Paul Davies, affirms all along.
Quantum theorists disagree sharply about whether the indeterminateness found at microscopic atomic and sub-atomic levels carries over to macroscopic perceptible objects like rocks, houses, cats, and people. De Witt's variety of Big Divide Cosmology offers a peculiar solution to this problem. Schrodinger's cat illustrates both the problem and the weird solution that Big Divide many worlds cosmology adopts to account for relationships between microscopic and macroscopic worlds.

A. Schrodinger's Cat

Erwin Schrodinger proposed a notorious experiment in 1935 to demonstrate how imperceptible sub-atomic quantum events could have perceptible macroscopic effects. First, put a live cat and a bit ofradioactive material into a small box with a vial of cyanide that will be broken by a hammer if a Geiger counter detects the radioactive decay of just one atom. Assuming classical physics and a bit of common sense, if an atom decays before the cat in the chamber is examined a short time later, the experimenter will find a dead cat; but if an atom does not decay, the cat will be alive. So far, so good.
However, the indeterminateness of quantum physics creates a profound paradox. Quantum theory, as some interpret it, says that an unobserved atom like the one detected by the Geiger counter is nothing in itself except a superposition or collection of all its potentialities. If we know the sum of its possibilities, we can calculate the probability that an observer will find it in a particular determinate state; but, unobserved, it is largely, perhaps completely, nothing more than an indeterminate set of possibilities.
So, what does quantum indeterminacy predict for Schrodinger's cat? The unobserved decaying atoms to be detected by the Geiger counter are nothing more than the sum of all their possibilities. A negative possibility corresponds
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to every positive possibility. Possibly, any particular atom decays; possibly not. So, is the cat dead or alive? From the perspective of quantum physics, the macroscopic cat itself is also nothing more than a wave-function superposition of dead and alive states, both before and after the chamber is opened. Is the cat both dead and alive? Has quantum physics disproved the logical principle of non-contradiction, according to which a proposition cannot be both true and false? Has it shown, as some muddled mystics suggest, that Schrodinger's cat is both dead and not dead? Has quantum theory proved the truth of illogical irrationalism?

B. Schrodinger's Cat in Many Worlds

DeWitt's version of Big Divide Cosmology renounces illogicality for its own brand of logically consistent occultism. The Big Divide answer is that the cat is both alive and dead-in at least two different universes. When a trunk universe confronts alternatives, it branches into parallel universes to actualize all of them; so SchrOdinger's cat is alive in one universe and dead in another. The dead cat is in an infinite number of states of decay in an additional infinity ofuniverses, and the live cat is instantiated in an infinite number of life-states in yet another infinity of universes. This avoids contradiction, but the price of saving logic is very high! An infinite violation of the principles of parsimony and of the conservation of energy is required to produce an infinity of entirely new universes at every worldly impasse. Needless to say, De Witt's Big Divide Cosmology is not popular with most physicists. Richard A. Healey understates the situation: "Few working physicists take it seriously."³⁴
The paradox of Schrodinger' scat may have less drastic but still perplexing solutions. Less radical interpretations of quantum mechanics say that definiteness is achieved for microscopic events because their wave function collapses into determinateness when perceived or measured by an observer using a macroscopic measuring instrument. More radical DeWitt Big Divide Cosmology affirms that definiteness is achieved because world-division into infinitely many universes actualizes every possibility. The Quantum Observership option says that conscious measurement creates all definiteness; but before turning to it, we must consider problems that are common to both Big Fizz and Big Divide cosmological perspectives.

3. Critique of World-Ensemble Cosmologies

Difficulties for Big Fizz and Big Divide world-ensemble cosmologies focus around A. their lack of empirical foundations and B. their plenitudinal equating of actuality with possibility. These cosmologies are much more other-worldly than traditional theology. Their affirmation of other worlds and the Principle of Plenitude has no empirical basis whatsoever.
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A. Lack of Empirical Foundations and Meaning

In many respects, world-ensemble Quantum Cosmology is speculative theoretical science gone absolutely mad. Experience without theory is blind, but theory without experience is vacuous. We human beings have no direct experience of other antecedent or contemporary universes of any kind, including transcendent Mother Spacetime, the infinite froth or fizz in her womb, the co-existent universes she supposedly spawns, or the endless branches that each allegedly sprouts. No matter how ingenious they are, human scientists cannot experience infinitely extended time and space. This much is patently obvious. Big Fizz Cosmology's physical vacuum in pre-existing infinite Superspacetime is a product of pure theory and brazen speculation, but it is not delivered or confirmed by experience. Blau and Guth concede that "A false vacuum has never been observed. "³⁵ Then they confidently proceed to give a theoretical account of it, as do other Big Fizz Cosmologists. Rozental concedes that it is not possible to check the validity of the Big Fizz creation scenario: "As far as a direct experimental verification is concerned, no approach is in sight";³⁶ but he anticipates that the development of theory alone will eventually solve the problem of the birth of our metagalaxy.
This is precisely the difficulty. Big Fizz Quantum Cosmology is spun solely out of thin air, ponderous theory, intricate calculations, and audacious speculation. It touches base with experience much too infrequently, and on the most crucial issues, not at all. Theologians conjure up non-empirical cosmologies, and pure mathematicians do abstract calculations, but where is the empirical science in this Big Fizz version of Quantum Cosmology?
When considering contingently existing things, entities that might or might not exist, experience alone can distinguish between actuality and abstruse possibility. Only highly dubious theoretical conjectures support many worlds Quantum Cosmologies. Michael White and John Gribbin say that Stephen Hawking, one influential sponsor of Quantum Cosmology, has never won the Nobel Prize because candidates for the award are considered

only if a discovery can be supported by verifiable experimental or observational evidence. Hawking's work is, of course, unproved. Although the mathematics of his theories is considered beautiful and elegant, science is still unable even to prove the existence of black holes, let alone verify Hawking Radiation or any of his other theoretical proposals. ³⁷

Since this was written, the Hubble Space Telescope has located black holes, but no parallel universes. This shows the critical importance, not the unimportance, of balancing theory with experience, for both truth and meaningfulness. "Meaningful" has many meanings; and empirical meaningfulness is just one of many kinds. Meaninglessness logically correlates with meaningfulness.
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No matter what we think of Logical Positivism, some beliefs really are empirically meaningless to us because no human experiences whatsoever could ever verify or falsify them. But claims may be empirically unverifiable or unfalsifiable in at least two ways.

First, the possible referent of a proposition can be inaccessible in principle because we cannot imagine experiences in our world or elsewhere that would count for or against it. For Positivism, only sensory experiences count-not religious, moral, or aesthetic experiences. We can imagine sense experiences that would count for or against life in the Andromeda Galaxy, or even in other universes, though we have no practical way to get there; but we cannot imagine how to verify or falsify the proposition that nothing at all exists, because someone must exist to think the thought and make the relevant observation. We also can't imagine observing a thing that both is and is not itself; logic forbids it. No sensory images, the very stuff of positivistic science, correspond with many concepts widely employed in contemporary cosmology; we cannot imagine nothingness fluctuating, or what a singularity would look like. By positivistic standards, much of contemporary cosmology is utterly meaningless. The ultimate limits of imagination are not fixed, however.

Second, claims cannot be verified or falsified if the objects to which they refer are physically inaccessible to us because they allegedly belong to some other world or universe. We might be able to imagine what they would look like if they were accessible, if we were there; but since other worlds do not belong to our spacetime system, they are physically unavailable to us; no lawful causal or spatiotemporal relations link them to us. In this second sense, all propositions about other worlds, whether religious or quantum-cosmological, are unverifiable, unfalsifiable, and thus empirically meaningless to us. This second type of empirical meaninglessness is based mainly upon causal inaccessibility. No matter what we do or what experiments we perform while alive in this world, totally other worlds are inaccessible to us. This is true even if we could time travel back to the beginning or our own universe. We can imagine how statements about Heaven, Hell, other worlds, antecedent universes, co-existing world-ensembles, and Mother Spacetime could be verified or falsified if we could only take an all-inclusive God's-eye view that encompasses them all; but we mortals just cannot get there from here (alive) to take a look. We cannot go to transcendent worlds, and entities and messages from them cannot get to here from there. Statements about other worlds are not accompanied by instructions on what to observe in this world to make them either plausible or implausible. In this second sense of verifiability, Big Fizz and Big Divide world-ensemble cosmologies are perfect examples of vacuous or meaningless metaphysics gone mad. Empirically, we cannot know whether they are true or false. They literally make no sense to us. Alternate spacetime systems and their contents are physically inaccessible to us no matter what we do because they do not belong to our system of space, time, and causation; and they predict nothing about our
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world that cannot be explained in much simpler and more obvious ways. We can perform no operations, make no observations, that would give us empirical access to what goes on in other worlds.
A sturdy streak of Logical Positivism runs through most interpretations of quantum mechanics, but it is often applied with a highly selective bias. In quantum mechanics, statements about things that cannot be observed or measured no matter what we do-like hidden variables, photons spinning unobserved, and electrons having definite position and velocity-are consistently dismissed as meaningless. Yet, by their own admission, Big Fizz and Big Divide metaphysicians posit the reality of innumerable entities belonging to other worlds that are totally inaccessible to us no matter what.
Reflecting on Big Divide parallel universes, Hugh Everett, III wrote that the "total lack of effect of one branch on another also implies that no observer will ever be aware of any "splitting" process,"³⁸ and Bryce DeWitt claims that multiple worlds are "mutually unobservable but equally real."³⁹ By positivistic quantum logic, however, unobservable multiple worlds should be just as unreal or nonsensical as all other states that are totally inaccessible physically, like simultaneous position and velocity for sub-atomic particles; and statements about them really should be regarded not as lies but as gibberish. Does purely theoretical system-building count as good natural science simply because brilliant scientists are doing it? Not so, suggests Eric Lerner, who correctly affirms that "The ultimate test of scientific theories is observation," and that legitimate scientists use an empirical method. By contrast, "The other method, advocated by mainstream cosmologists and particle theorists, is the deductive method, mathematically deducing how the universe must be."⁴⁰
Theory and experience are indeed mutually supporting in good science, but many versions of Quantum Cosmology go too far beyond anything experiential. Illustrative of Lerner's point, Heinz R. Pagels says that scientists once tried to deduce the laws of nature from experiment and observation, but "Today this method has been abandoned and physicists do not directly deduce the laws from experiment. Instead they try to intuit the basic laws from mathematical reasoning. "⁴¹ Sadly, theory and intuition alone cannot construct a true and meaningful account of contingently existing empirical actuality. Quantum Cosmologists easily confuse eccentric theory with empirical reality, variable private intuitions with public truth, and abstruse possibilities with determinate actualities. Not only is infinite world-ensemble metaphysics unverifiable and unfalsifiable, but it also flagrantly violates the rational, scientific (albeit aesthetic) criterion of simplicity. As Abner Shimony says, "The continuous evolution of the total quantum state is obtained by Everett at the price of an extreme violation ofOckham's principle, the entities being entire universes."⁴² Richard A. Healey argues that the theory of many spacetime systems in Big Divide Cosmology "offers no interpretative advantages" over a theory which affirms that "all but one of the many worlds which emerge from a quantum measurement are merely

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possible worlds." According to Healey, "The intuition behind the argument is just Ockham's razor: the many-spaces version postulates a proliferation of extra entities (spaces, "copy" quantum systems) with no corresponding gain in explanatory power or conceptual clarity."⁴³ Victor J. Stenger doubts that the "luminaries" who affirm the existence of infinitely many unexperienced coexisting parallel universes actually believe it.⁴⁴ He brands the many worlds parallel universe hypothesis as a "bizarre, nontestable notion"⁴⁵ and pronounces it to be "uneconomical speculation."⁴⁶ The claim that all possibilities are actual, when only one set will do for experience, is empirically untested, untestable, unnecessary, unintelligible, incoherent, and an inexcusable violation of parsimony.

B. Possibility= Actuality, and World-Ensembles

Many Quantum Cosmologists thoroughly confuse mental constructs with reality by identifying possibility with actuality. They catapult conceptually from mere possibilities to the actual existence of infinitely many worlds. Both Big Divide and Big Fizz world-ensemble cosmologists declare that all possibilities are actualized somewhere. Philosophical theologians, influenced by Plato's Principle of Plenitude, once regularly vaulted from possibility to actuality. Today, world-ensemble cosmologists make the same jump with wild abandon. As Arthur Lovejoy indicated, Plato believed that God would be imperfect if He actually created anything less than everything that He possibly could create.⁴⁷ Equating possibility with actuality was a prominent feature of Greek and Medieval theology, and somehow it found its way into today's Quantum Cosmology. As Dennis W. Sciama expressed it in 1993, "All logically possible universes exist in an ensemble of disjoint universes,"⁴⁸ and "Everything which is not forbidden is compulsory."⁴⁹ Stephen Hawking agrees: "In quantum theory, anything that is not actually forbidden can and will happen."⁵⁰ Many serious philosophical questions must be raised about such claims. How do these speculative cosmologists know all possibilities are actualized? What is their observational evidence? Even if microscopic quantum-level events actualize all possibilities, can Plenitude then be generalized to entire macroscopic universes? Where does the energy come from to actualize infinite universes? Is this really natural science? Or is it just sloppy reasoning, wishful thinking?
Quantum physics unearthed a tenuous connection between possibility and actuality at the sub-atomic quantum level with the discovery that individual photons traveling through two nearby pinholes or slits seem to pass through both of them. From this finding, some physicists hastily concluded that physical particles do not move continuously along single paths. Instead, they take every route possible, that is, an infinite number of routes, to reach their objective. ⁵¹ Of course, if a third slit is added to the two slit experiment, the photon will not go through all three of them, so there are very strict limits after all, even at the level of quantum events;⁵² and Quantum Plenitude cannot be reconciled with the well
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established quantum truths that electrons can not take every orbit possible, that particles can not take every spin possible, and thus that everything possible can not be actual!
Furthermore, equating actuality with possibility greatly exaggerates and distorts the "sum over histories" account of quantum processes, according to which most possibilities simply cancel one another out, and only a finite number of paths are actually open to moving particles. But why don't all possibilities cancel out one another since for every "possibly so" there is always a corresponding "possibly not"? Possibilities cannot be perfectly identical with probabilities or with actualities. If they were, every coherent contingent possibility would be canceled out by its own negation-which is also logically possible. For every possible p, not p is also possible; for every live cat, a dead cat is also possible. For every live you, a dead you is possible. Clearly, not everything possible is actual in our world, so Quantum Plenitude has to postulate an actual infinity of worlds to make a place for the actualization of all possibilities. For many good reasons, we should repudiate Quantum Plenitude!
Big Fizz and Big Divide Quantum Cosmologists really do take seriously the rule that everything actually occurs that is not logically forbidden. They extend this sweeping, hasty, and erroneous generalization from the sub-microscopic level to the macroscopic level of everyday experience, ordinary sense objects, and entire universes. Rozental rejects the leap from the microscopic to the macroscopic,⁵³ but he still affirms the existence of infinitely many worlds. Leaping hastily from a sub-microscopic to a macroscopic identity of possibility with actuality, Quantum Cosmologists reason that since sub-atomic quantum level entities realize all possibilities (which is false to begin with, as just noted), then everything realizes all possibilities. All things that are logically possible are also actual, including universes. From a dubious interpretation of the mysterious behavior of photons, unbridled speculation conjures up infinitely many worlds! Theologians are left in the dust by such preposterous hasty generalizations and spectacular leaps of faith!
According to Andrei Linde,

The evolution of the inflationary universe has no end and may have no beginning. As a result, the universe becomes divided into many different domains (mini-universes) of exponentially large size, inside of which all possible (metastable) vacuum states are realized. One may say therefore that not only could God create the universe differently, but in His wisdom He created a universe which has been unceasingly producing different universes of all possible types. ⁵⁴

How many universes does it take to cover "all possible types"? Obviously, an infinite number.⁵⁵ Since possibility equals actuality, an infinite number of
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physically and qualitatively diverse universes really exist, according to Big Fizz and Big Divide infinite world-ensemble metaphysics.

C. You and I in Many Worlds

You may be thinking: "If possibility is identical with actuality, why ain't I rich?" You are, but only in another "parallel" universe, if that's any consolation. In many worlds Quantum Cosmology, new universes are spawned not only in the primordial fizz, but at every turn of events within every cosmos. The Big Divide version implies that when your past self confronted the possibility of being either rich or poor, the whole universe, yourself included, branched. The rich you entered at least one universe, and the poor you entered at least one other. If you are poor, there is a rich you, and if you are rich, there is a poor you, somewhere in another cosmos. Ain't that grand! Mother Spacetime knows! Serious problems about personal and cosmic identity abound here. If all possible universes exist that are not logically prohibited, then a real universe exists in which England won the Revolutionary War, the South won the Civil War, and Germany won both World Wars. A universe exists somewhere in which fundamentalistic creationism is true in every detail, and another universe exists in which it is false in every detail. In some universe, Hitler was a saintly born-again religious believer, and Jesus was the Devil incarnate! Surely anyone who believes this sort of thing has been sipping too much bubbly! Don't just take my word for it. In explaining the Big Divide outlook, Bryce S. DeWitt concedes that

The idea of 10¹⁰⁰⁺ slightly imperfect copies of oneself all constantly splitting into further copies, which ultimately become unrecognizable, is not easy to reconcile with common sense. Here is schizophrenia with a vengeance. 56

Yet, DeWitt does not repudiate this multiple-world multiple-personality madness! He affirms it! Quantum Cosmology is quantum mechanics gone absolutely nuts! Eric Lerner ridicules and disavows what I call Big Fizz and Big Divide Quantum Cosmologies with these words:

Some cosmologists, such as Hawking, answer with even weirder ideas: perhaps, they speculate, tiny pulsations in the space around us, even within us, are at every instant giving birth to submicroscopic universes, tiny bubbles of space-time, that then pinch off from our universe to form another universe. From every point, even the tip of one's nose, quadrillions of universes are forming every second. Ours is only one among them, formed presumably from the tip of someone's nose in another, more ancient universe. 57

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Quantum Cosmologists may not comprehend fully the absurd implications of their revitalized Principle of Plenitude that equates possibility with actuality. World-ensemble theorists repeatedly emphasize that even though an infinite number of universes exist, most are unsuitable for life of any form, especially intelligent life. The other side of this coin also needs to be emphasized. Though improbable, many logically consistent and thus possible worlds would be suitable for forms of life that far surpass the excellencies of any life-form on earth. Indeed, some such worlds would approximate, indeed achieve, perfection, no matter how conceived. World-ensemble metaphysics predicts that everyone 's concept of Heaven is actualized somewhere! So, by the way, is everyone's Hell! And every possible condition in between! And we (or copies ofus) are in all of them! We are also in none of them, since that too is logically possible. Does all of this make good sense to you?
The small problem of getting from here to there, from earth to Heaven (or Hell) is really no difficulty at all if everything possible is also actual. Possibly, souls could be transported through wormholes to proper Big Fizz Beyonds. Or, as John Hick suggested, when we die in this world, God could simply recreate us instantly in another world-like being beamed up by Scotty! Or, as Frank Tipler maintains, the immensely complex computers of the future could just emulate our virtual reality, along with that of all other logically possible entities and events. If actualities and possibilities are identical, all of the foregoing possibilities would be actual in some universe: Because possible, therefore actual! Even God(s) and the Devil(s) must exist in all worlds if all possibilities are actual! Yet, if they are contingent beings, they may not exist in many or even in any worlds, for that too is possible! Patrons of cosmic plenitude really have not thought it through very carefully!
Just how ridiculous can plenitude get? In his 1994 book, The Physics of Immortality, Frank Tipler contends that billions of years from now, the complex computers of the future will raise us (or our ciberspacetime virtual emulations) from the dead, once computer technology becomes sufficiently complex to create the virtual reality of all logically possible universes, individuals, and their relations.⁵⁸ Yet, because he accepts quantum many worlds metaphysics,⁵⁹ Tipler need not wait even a second for what he calls immortality. In Big Divide Cosmology, Heavenly and Hellacious universes, with natural Jaws and empirical conditions sufficiently different to make them truly heavenly and hellacious, are created for each of us every instant! Is this not a fitting reductio ad absurdum of all varieties of infinite world-ensemble metaphysics?
In sum, Quantum Cosmologies modify Standard Big Bang theory by postulating cosmic or supercosmic-level quantum conditions like indefiniteness, discreteness, fluctuations, the physical vacuum, and Superspacetime. Our universe was preceded by, and is included within, Infinite Superspacetime; and through quantum fluctuations in the primordial physical vacuum, the womb of infinitely many worlds, Motherspacetime endlessly proliferates bubbles and/or
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branches that inflate or divide into full fledged co-existent child universes. These child universes themselves bubble or branch indefinitely to produce infinitely many additional universes that actualize all possible worlds with and without living things.
Do Big Fizz and Big Divide Quantum Cosmologists really know what they are talking about? This is very doubtful. No one really knows that collapsed universes will exemplify quantum laws or conditions, or that tiny bubbles in transcendent Superspacetime inflate into real universes. What we do know indicates that these things are mere figments of human imagination gone wild. Other problems are also quite serious. Quantum Cosmologists confuse conceptual constructs and theories with reality. The Principle of Plenitude applied metaphysically affirms that all possibilities are actualized in an infinite number of universes; but this is scientifically groundless and logically incoherent. No empirical evidence whatsoever discloses other universes constantly being created out of a primordial supercosmic fizz, or at every tum of events within or without our own cosmos. You and I could never see it happen. Frank Tipler correctly concedes that "We cannot see the other worlds of the Many Worlds Interpretation."⁶⁰ This explicitly acknowledges that other worlds exist only in theory, and that there is no scientific, that is, empirical, evidence for them. So why mess around with them?
We experience no antecedent or co-existing universes, no prior oscillating cosmic epochs, no contemporary worlds in transcendent Mother Spacetime, and no parallel universes branching from our own world at every instant. Timothy Ferris correctly acknowledges that "We have but a single universe to examine. "⁶¹ Like the Santa Claus fable, Quantum Plenitude explains nothing for which better, simpler, more empirical, more scientific explanations are not readily available. God might be able to collect empirical evidence for or against infinite worlds metaphysics, but we cannot. Empirically, we can only be Positivists or agnostics about the other-worldly ramifications of Big Fizz and Big Divide Quantum Cosmologies. Even so, we have not come to the end of it. Additional serious difficulties for many worlds metaphysics will be discussed in later chapters, especially in connection with Anthropic Cosmology.

[Notes]

1. See: B. S. DeWitt and N. Graham, eds. The Many-Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics. A Fundamental Exposition by Hugh Everett, III, with Papers by J A. Wheeler, B. S. DeWitt, L. N. Cooper and D. Van Vechten, and N. Graham (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973).
2. Michael D. Lemonick, "Visions 21 /Science & Space: Will We Discover Another Universe?" Time (10 April 2000), pp. 82ff.
3. A. A. Starobinsky, "A New Type of lsotropic Cosmological Models Without Singularity," Physics Letters, 91B (1980), pp. 99-102.
4. Andrei Linde, "Inflation and Quantum Cosmology," in Three Hundred Years of Gravitation, eds. Stephen Hawking and Werner Israel (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1987), pp. 604--630.
5. M. A. Markov, "Problems of a Perpetually Oscillating Universe," Annals of Physics, 155 (1987), pp. 333-357. J.M. Amanand M.A. Markov, "Oscillating Universe in the State p 0," Preprint P-0290 (1983).
6. I. L. Rozental, Big Bang, Big Bounce (Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 1988), pp. 123-124.
7. Ibid., p. 124.
8. John Gribbin, In the Beginning: After COBE and Before the Big Bang (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1993, p. 244.
9. Katsuhiko Sato, Hideo Kodama. Misao Sasaki, and Kei-ichi Madea. "MultiProduction of Universes by First-Order Phase Transition ofa Vacuum," Physics Letters, l08B:2 (14 January 1982), p. 105. See also John D. Barrow, Theories of Everything: The Quest for Ultimate Explanation (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1991), p. 107.
10. Willem B. Drees, Beyond the Big Bang: Quantum Cosmologies and God (La Salle, Ill.: Open Court, 1990), p. 47, fig. 2.
11. John Hick, An Interpretation of Religion (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989), p. 87.
12. See Sato et al., "Multi-Production ofUniverses by First-Order Phase Transition ofa Vacuum," pp. 103-107; Rozental, Big Bang, Big Bounce, pp. 107-110; Charles W. Misner, Kip S. Thorne, and John A. Wheeler, Gravitation (New York: W. H. Freeman and Co., 1973), pp. 1202-1203; Milton Munitz, Cosmic Understanding: Philosophy and Science of the Universe (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986), pp. 131-13 7; Paul Davies and John Gribbin, The Matter Myth (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992), pp. 142-148, 162-164; A. Karel Velan, The Multi-Universe Cosmos: The First Complete Story of the Origin of the Universe (New York: Plenum Press, 1992), Ch. 14; Robert Matthews, "Nothing Like a Vacuum," New Scientist, (February 1995), pp. 30ff; Sten Odenwald, "Space-Time: The Final Frontier," Sky & Telescope, 91 :2 (February 1996), pp. 24-29.
13. Alan Guth, "Starting the Universe," in Bubbles, Voids, and Bumps in Time: The New Cosmology, ed. James Cornell (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1989), p. 128.
14. Rozental. Big Bang, Big Bounce, p. 109; Victor J. Stenger, Not by Design: The Origin of the Universe (Buffalo: Prometheus Books, 1988), p. 168.
15. Rozental, Big Bang, Big Bounce, p. 107.
16. Odenwald, "Space-Time: The Final Frontier," pp., 26-27.
17. Misner, Thorne, and Wheeler, Gravitation, p. 1202.
18. George Smoot and Keay Davidson, Wrinkles in Time (New York: Avon Books, 1993), p. 188.
19. See Steven K. Blau and Alan Guth, "Inflationary Cosmology," in Three Hundred Years of Gravitation, eds. Stephen Hawking and Werner Israel (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1987), pp. 542, 550-555; John Gribbin and Martin Rees, Cosmic Coincidences: Dark Matter, Mankind, and Anthropic Cosmology (New York: Bantam Books, 1989), pp. 280-283; Leon M. Lederman and David N. Schramm, From Quarks to the Cosmos: Tools of Discovery (New York: Scientific American Library, 1989), pp. 176-180; Heinz Pagels, Perfect Symmetry: The Search for the Beginning of Time (New York: Bantam Books, 1986), pp. 339 ff.
20. Andrei Linde, Dmitri Linde, Arthur Mezhlumian, "From the Big Bang Theory to the Theory of a Stationary Universe," Physical Review D, 49:4 (15 February 1994), p. 1784.
21. Blau and Guth, "Inflationary Cosmology," pp. 592, 593.
22. Linde, "Inflation and Quantum Cosmology," p. 625.
23. Ibid., p. 625, fig. 13.2.
24. See Barrow, Theories of Everything, pp. 106-111; Davies and Gribbin, The Matter Myth, pp. 273-279; Paul Halpern, Cosmic Wormholes: The Search for Interstellar Shortcuts (New York: NAL-Dutton, 1992).
25. Linde, Linde, and Mezhlumian, "From the Big Bang Theory to the Theory of a Stationary Universe," p. 1803.
26. Linde, "Inflation and Quantum Cosmology;" p. 618.
27. Velan, The Multi-Universe Cosmos, Ch. 16 and pp. 148-150, 193, 200.
28. lbid., p. 187.
29. See Hugh Everett, III in DeWitt and Graham, eds. The Many-Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, 1973.
30. See all the articles in the special edition of Noils devoted to the "Foundations of Quantum Mechanics," 18:4 (November 1984).
31. Frank J. Tipler, "The Many-Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics in Quantum Cosmology," in Quantum Concepts in Space and Time. eds. R. Penrose and C. J. Isham (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986), p. 206.
32. Ibid., p. 210.
33. Ibid., p. 208.
34. Richard A. Healey, "How Many Worlds?" in Nous, 18:4 (November 1984), p. 591.
35. Blau and Guth, "Inflationary Cosmology," p. 541.
36. Rozental, Big Bang, Big Bounce, p. 124.
37. Michael White and John Gribbin, Stephen Hawking; A Life in Science (New York: Penguin Books, 1992), p. 188.
38. Hugh Everett, III, "'Relative State' Formulation of Quantum Mechanics," Reviews of Modern Physics, 29:3 (July 1957), p. 460 n.
39. Bryce S. DeWitt, "Quantum Mechanics and Reality," Physics Today, 23:9 (September 1970), p. 30.
40. From THE BIG BANG NEVER HAPPENED by Eric Lerner, p. 5. Copyright © 1991 by Eric J. Lerner. Reprinted by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a Division of Random House Inc.
41. Heinz R. Pagels, Perfect Symmetry, The Search for the Beginning of Time (New York: Bantam Books, 1986), pp. 264-265.
42. Abner Shimony, "Role of the Observer in Quantum Theory," American Journal of Physics, 36 (1963), p. 773, n. 33.
43. Healey, "How Many Worlds?" p. 599.
44. Victor J. Stenger, The Unconscious Quantum: Metaphysics in Modern Physics and Cosmology (Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1995), p. 176.
45. Ibid., p. 198.
46. Ibid., p. 144.
47. Arthur 0. Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Being (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1961, pp. 52ff.
48. Dennis W. Sciama, "The Anthropic Principle and the Non-Uniqueness of the Universe," in The Anthropic Principle: Proceedings of the Second Venice Conference on Cosmology and Philosophy, eds. F. Bertola and U. Curi (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1993), p. 107.
49. Ibid., p. 108.
50. Stephen Hawking, Black Holes and Baby Universes and Other Essays (New York: Bantam Books, 1993), p. 95.
51. See Steven Hawking, A Brief History of Time (New York: Bantam Books, 1988), p. 134. See also his Black Holes and Baby Universes and Other Essays, pp. 45, 78-80, 92-93.
52. Thanks to my student Rob Dalton for pointing this out to me.
53. Rozental, Big Bang, Big Bounce, p. 8.
54. Linde, "Inflation and Quantum Cosmology," p. 607.
55. Ibid., p. 621. See also Rozental, Big Bang, Big Bounce, pp. ix, 91.
56. DeWitt, "Quantum Mechanics and Reality," p. 33.
57. Lerner, The Big Bang Never Happened, p. 55.
58. Frank J. Tipler, The Physics of Immortality (New York: Anchor Books, 1994), pp. 220-225.
59. Ibid., 167-173.
60. Ibid., p. 213.
61. Timothy Ferris, Coming of Age in the Milky Way (New York: William Morrow and Co., 1988), p. 369.

The Standard Model of the Big Bang assumes that the universe was created all at once out of nothing, and the question of what caused its creation is left unanswered. It does not affirm that the universe was created by nothing, only that it was created out of nothing or from a singularity, which empirically is nothing. In Steady State Cosmology, the universe as a whole is uncreated, everlasting, and spatially infinite; but individual hydrogen atoms are constantly being created out of absolutely nothing by pre-existing matter through some totally mysterious and unverified process. In Plasma Cosmology also the universe as a whole is uncreated and infinite in both time and space, but the Hubble expansion of our visible universe or metagalaxy was caused by the explosion of massive quantities of pre-existing matter and antimatter that were brought together by chance in a limited region of infinite spacetime. Assuming that the Big Bang really happened, many causal explanations of it are available in contemporary scientific cosmology.

Antecedent Universe Cosmologies affirm that the Big Bang was a rebound from the collapse (Big Crunch) of an antecedently existing universe; it was caused by an influx of energy from a preexisting world. This naturalistic account of origins was given by George Gamow's Infinite Contraction/Squeeze/ Bang/Rebound Cosmology which allows for only one contraction, one terminal squeeze, one Bang, and one rebound, and by Oscillation Cosmologies that postulate up to an infinite number of successive crunch/bang/rebounds. These two theories agree that our universe was brought into being, not by God, but by the collapse of an antecedently existing universe. In the next chapter we will explore a theory which claims that our universe was caused by indeterministic spontaneity within a pre-existing infinite Superspacetime.

Antecedent Universe theorists usually try to avoid the question of absolute origins by presupposing a naturalistic metaphysics that affirms the eternity and self-sufficiency of a system of nature that requires no God for its being, structure, or explanation. This metaphysics is not science, even if it is disguised as science. Without pretending to do natural science, throughout this chapter serious philosophical problems of intelligibility about prominent Antecedent Universe Cosmologies will be raised. If good philosophical or physical reasons are available for rejecting Antecedent Universe Metaphysics, one of many major obstacles to theistic belief has been removed.

Most Antecedent Universe Cosmologists intensely dislike creation ex nihilo and wish to avoid it because it seems to call for a Divine creation of the universe. Alan M. MacRobert, a regular contributor to Sky and Telescope, suggested in 1983 that "The idea of an oscillating universe, in which the Big Bang resulted from the recollapse of a previous phase of the universe, gained

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currency merely because it avoided the issue of creation-not because there was the slightest evidence in favor of it."¹ As I. L. Rozental said, "The only way to account for all these facts in the framework of physical concepts, without invoking a metaphysical power, is to admit the existence of an (infinitely large?) number ofuniverses."² It looks as if, having made a prior decision that there is no God, Oscillationists just postulate an infinite series of antecedent universes as a way to avoid metaphysical appeals to Divinity. Unfortunately, Antecedent Universe Cosmologies are just as metaphysical, non-empirical, unsimple, unsupported, and unscientific as Theism, if not more so. It really is more so, as discussions to follow will show. Atheistic cosmologists seem to assume that the world's existence without God is totally unproblematic, and that only God's existence is problematic. Not so!

1. Gamow's Infinite Squeeze/Bang/Rebound Universe

George Gamow thought that prior to the Big Bang an antecedent universe had been collapsing from an infinitely expanded state throughout an infinite past; our universe came into being as a rebound from the minimal-size contraction state of this antecedent universe. In 1947, Gamow wrote,

The universe is now expanding because in some previous period of its history (of which, of course, no record has been left), it contracted from infinity into a very dense state and then rebounded, as it were, propelled by the strong elastic forces inherent in compressed matter.³

Gamow never explained adequately what caused the rebound, or how to convert his concept of "elastic forces" into the formulas of physics; but he was convinced that the quantity of matter in our universe is insufficient to permit gravity to close it and bring about a second Big Squeeze. He predicted that "The distances between the neighboring galaxies are bound to increase beyond any limit, and there is no chance that the present expansion will ever stop or turn into a collapse. "⁴ Thus, his theory of origins makes a place for only one Bang, preceded by a single but infinitely prolonged collapse, and followed by an unprecedented but infinite expansion. The expansion phase of the universe in which we happen to live will proceed forever toward an infinite fizzle. It will end with a whimper, not a Bang. About that, Gamow was probably right.

2. Critique of Gamow's Cosmology

George Gamow's cosmology does not survive serious critical examination for many reasons, two in particular. A. It cannot reconcile scientific knowledge with its postulate of an infinite past, and B. it cannot explain why gravity and/or mass were so different before the Big Squeeze.

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A. Science and an Infinite Past

The central problem of Infinite Contraction/Squeeze/Bang/Rebound Universe is common to all . It affirms, presumably on "scientific" grounds, that our universe existed in some form throughout an infinite past; but this claim cannot be confirmed scientifically. According to Gamow, "Our Universe has existed for an eternity of time."⁵ He conjectured that the antecedent phase "contracted from infinity," but he hesitated to speculate about the preceding stage of the universe. He cautioned that "There is nothing that can be said about the pre-squeeze era of the universe,"⁶ because "the maximum compression of the universe, which squeezed all matter into a uniform nuclear fluid, must have completely obliterated all the records of the earlier compressive stages."⁷ But our universe, the most impressive record of all if an antecedent crunch does indeed explain it, was not obliterated.

Gamow actually said a great deal about the Squeeze Era, despite his misleading warning that absolutely nothing can be said about it. He claimed that it existed, that it was of infinite duration, that it underwent gravitational collapse, that it was composed of matter not antimatter, that this matter was gradually compressed, that in its maximal compaction state it was 30 times larger than our sun, that this state contained "elastic forces," that it rebounded or exploded, and that our phase of the universe was created from this rebound. That is quite a Jot to know to be nothing!

How did Gamow know all of these things that he was not supposed to know? If all scientific or empirical evidence was destroyed, as he conceded, then nothing that he tells us about the antecedent universe, including its existence and infinite duration, can be regarded as scientific knowledge. Good natural science must be grounded in experience as well as theory; but we experience only finite time and only one phase of the universe. We have no direct experience of infinite time, other cosmic phases, or other universes. We cannot inductively infer infinite time from finite time or many universes from one that is experientially unique. We may postulate the existence of an infinitely prolonged antecedent physical state, but no human experience could ever confirm the hypothesis directly or inductively. Belief in an infinite past is uncorroborated naturalistic metaphysics, not natural science. Naturalists complain that Theists believe in things that science cannot verify, but Naturalism suffers from exactly the same defect.

All are unscientific metaphysical guesses because they are totally unconfirmable. This failure is disastrous for theories offered in the name of science. presuppose that some universe in some form has endured perpetually through an infinite past. Yet, no empirical evidence for the infinity of space or time is available to us. Even if space and time really are infinite, we can have no scientific or empirical knowledge of it. No set of finitely enduring human scientists,

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no matter how large, can directly observe infinite space or time; and inductive logic forbids us to infer infinity from finite samples, just as it forbids us to infer white from samples of black or gold from instances of dross. As explanatory hypotheses, imply no observations that would confirm an Infinite World Metaphysics or that would falsify the hypothesis that space and time are immense but finite and created ex nihilo. Naturalists are welcome to their faith, but they cannot call it scientific knowledge. In fact, as we shall see, much of what we know scientifically and philosophically counts heavily against an infinite chain of successive universes.

B. Gravity and Mass/Energy in the Squeeze Era

Why does our present infinitely expanding phase of the universe lack sufficient mass/energy for gravity to shut it down, as Gamow believed, if the antecedent Squeeze Era contained enough mass/energy to contract and close it? How could the Squeeze Era include enough mass/energy to be closed by gravity if our present era does not have enough to shut it down eventually? Two possibilities suggest themselves. First, perhaps there actually was enough mass/energy in the Squeeze Era to close it, but much of it was destroyed in the Big Squeeze through some gross but unexplained violation of the law of the Conservation of Energy. Second, perhaps gravity was a much more powerful force during the Squeeze Era than it is now.
Neither option is very attractive for much the same reason. Both require radical changes in fundamental constituents of the universe during the Big Squeeze, and Gamow did not explain how gravity or mass/energy could make such fundamental changes. He did not even recognize the problem, but if he had it is doubtful that he could have solved it. In discussing Oscillation Cosmology, we will soon see that if Big Squeezes result in singularities, there can be no spatiotemporal or causal continuity from era to era. If Big Squeezes do not result in singularities, there is no good reason to think that basic laws, forces, and masses change dramatically from era to era, which creates additional problems. In sum, by its own logic, the Infinite Contraction/Squeeze/Bang/Rebound Universe of George Gamow lies beyond the limits of scientific knowledge. Throughout an infinite past, supposedly, an antecedent universe contracted to a point of maximal compression and minimal size thirty times larger than our sun, then exploded in a Big Bang to create our open and infinitely expanding universe; but, Gamow conceded, we can know absolutely nothing about the antecedent universe. Even if one existed, all evidence for and about it would have been destroyed in the primordial fireball. Gamow clearly affirmed scientific agnosticism but inconsistently practiced unscientific gnosticism. Science cannot establish that there was an antecedent universe, much less that it collapsed throughout an infinite past. Gamow conceded that many things cannot

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be known, then pretended to know them. He did not identify the physical forces and laws that initiated the rebound; and he did not explain why the present infinitely expanding phase of the universe lacks sufficient mass/energy for gravity to close it, despite the antecedent Squeeze Era's containing enough to shut it down. No cosmologists today defend a temporally infinite universe with only one Squeeze/Bang/Rebound; but other versions of Antecedent Universe Cosmology are vigorously affirmed.

3. Oscillation Cosmology

According to Oscillation Cosmology, an antecedent collapsing universe ending with a Big Squeeze or a Big Crunch preceded our Big Bang. Our Big Bang was caused by a massive influx of energy from this earlier era. Did only one universe precede our own, or did an infinite number of collapsing/exploding/ expanding universes antedate us? Conceivably, only a few Bangs preceded the one that initiated our universe. If so, the question of absolute origin arises with respect to the first member of this finite series. What caused the first Bang? God, chance, or what? What selected just those few closed and oscillating universes for actualization out of an infinite number of different possible universes? Many cosmologists are convinced that some energy would be used up and lost with each oscillation, so in a finite number of rebounds, all mass/energy whatsoever would be lost. Nothing would exist today; yet, here we are!

An ancient myth explains what holds up the earth-it rests on the back of a turtle! And what holds up the turtle?-another turtle; and another; and another .... If prying minds persist, the final answer is, "The turtles go all the way down!" As does this myth, Oscillation Universe Cosmologists mistakenly believe that they can avoid the question of ultimate origins if our universe was preceded by universes that go all the way back (to infinity), each of which commenced with a Bang and ended with a Crunch. All these supposed antecedent universes start with Bangs, then expand, halt, contract, collapse, and finally explode to create new universes ad infinitum.

Oscillation Cosmologists are reluctant to calculate the duration of a complete cosmic cycle from start to finish; but a few make educated guesses. A. Karel Velan maintains that our universe is presently about 18 billion years old, that it will continue to expand for another 17 .5 billion years, after which it will contract again to a point of maximal compression, bounce back, and start all over again. The whole process, he claims, takes 71 billion years from start to finish.⁸ Mark Israel it and Nathan Rosen calculate that "The period of oscillation of the universe is -1.2 x 10¹² yr,"⁹ (1.2 trillion years). The difference in these two estimates is quite remarkable!

If our own cosmos was generated by another cosmos that antedated it, and it by another, and so on endlessly into the past, what were they like? Laws of nature, physical constants, and initial conditions could have varied immensely,

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perhaps infinitely, in antecedent universes; but one commonality is certain. All of them had to be closed universes, no matter how different they were otherwise. All of them had to collapse to create succeeding universes. The Oscillationist requirement of universal closure permanently excludes an infinite number of possible laws of nature, physical constants, and initial conditions, specifically, all that would yield an open universe. Oscillationists must deny that all possible universes (open universes, for example) are actualized by and within infinity. Once they admit this, they are in deep trouble!
Let us call a single universe falling within an extended oscillating series of successive worlds a "cosmic epoch." Alfred North Whitehead used this terminology, though he was not very specific about its scope. Under the influence of early quantum theory in the 1920s,¹⁰ Whitehead thought that our own cosmic epoch is dominated by electromagnetic energy existing only in discrete quanta, and he defined a "cosmic epoch" as "the widest society of actual entities whose immediate relevance to ourselves is traceable."¹¹ Our present cosmic epoch can be traced "to an aboriginal disorder, chaotic according to our ideals,"¹² Whitehead believed; but there are other cosmic epochs "far beyond our immediate cosmic epoch" that are ordered very differently from our own.¹³

He did not know anything about Big Bang Cosmology, which was still in its infancy when these words appeared in Process and Reality in 1929; and he did not explain whether his "beyond" is to be construed spatially, temporally, or both. Mainstream Process Theology has interpreted Whitehead's wording temporally; but "widest" and "beyond" are actually spatial words, not temporal words; he did not say "oldest" or "before."

A. Singularities

Significantly, Oscillation Cosmologists disagree about whether a singularity begins and ends each cosmic epoch. This notion, very unfamiliar to most philosophers and to common sense, is very familiar to astrophysicists. A singularity is a physical state resulting from total gravitational collapse that is infinitely dense, infinitely compressed, infinitely hot, infinitely small, infinitely curved. Exactly how cosmologists interpret the reality of singularities depends upon the metaphysics they presuppose.

Would an initial singularity contain no energy at all, or would it contain a finite, or an infinite, amount of infinitely condensed energy? Exactly what cosmologists believe about the presence or absence of energy in an initial singularity varies according to whether they presuppose Oscillationism or Quantum Big Accident Cosmology (developed in Chapter Seven), which affirms that the universe arises spontaneously from absolutely nothing, not even a singularity. On the simplest interpretation of the Big Accident view, and in theistic creation ex nihilo (a world created out of nothing by God), an initial singularity is construed to be an infinitely small state of nothingness containing

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no mass, energy, space, or time at all. Many Oscillationists, by contrast, think that an initial singularity would contain all the mass/energy of an antecedent universe in an infinitely condensed state. On either view, a singularity is empirical nothingness. No one, not even God, could perceive or empirically verify claims about an entity that is infinitely small. Yet, many Oscillationists hold, a singularity is still a physically real something. Others submit that a singularity is just nothing at all, and that physical realities emerge only as a universe erupts from nothingness.

A complex view of the nature of original nothingness is defended by Quentin Smith in his debate with William L. Craig in their book titled Theism, Atheism, and Big Bang Cosmology, 1993. According to Craig, who is a creation ex nihilo Theist, the initial singularity out of which our universe erupted was just a state of physical nothingness; a singularity is an unreal and merely theoretical idealization or fiction.¹⁴ The words "infinite density" suggest the presence of something physically real; but, says Craig, "a condition of 'infinite density' is precisely equivalent to 'nothing'. There can be no object in the real world that possesses infinite density, for if it had any size at all, it would not be infinitely dense."¹⁵

By contrast, Smith, a Big Accident Atheist, contends that "Big Bang cosmology represents the singularity as a unique sort of reality, a physical reality, but it is represented as real none the less. "¹⁶ The initial singularity somehow contained matter or mass, Smith insists, "not ordinary mass, threedimensional mass, but infinitely compressed mass."¹⁷ Smith does not succeed in giving empirical meaning to the notion of something that is physically real but totally devoid of physical, spatiotemporal properties. Says Smith, the physical reality of an initial singularity means three things. First, if we extrapolate the physical quantities of our universe backwards in time, we reach a point "arbitrarily close" to the singularity in which these physical quantities "have arbitrarily high finite values".¹⁸ Second, "When the singularity is reached the values become infinite."¹⁹ Third, the initial singularity has the topology of a dimensionless point, but "It assumes, at a subsequent time, the topology of a finite three-dimensional space."²⁰

Smith's first two points show only that the concept of "singularity" is equivalent to the notion of the ultimate limits of measurable physical quantities, but not that a singularity actually contains or consists of some mysterious, immeasurable, imperceptible, and non-extended physical mass. By definition, nothing could be a body, something physical, without being spatially or spatiotemporally extended. Smith never explains how his third state could be achieved, how an infinitely small singularity could be transformed into a finite spatiality, how a timeless state could do or become anything at a later time, or exactly what the difference is between a dimensionless point's becoming dimensioned and something's being created out of nothing. Oscillation Cosmology shares all of these problems.

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In Oscillation Cosmology, cosmic epochs are worlds that fall between Bangs in an infinite temporal series. Does each cosmic epoch begin with a dimensionless singularity of infinitely condensed mass, then expand to a maximum at which gravity overcomes the residual kinetic energy of the initial explosion, and finally recontract into another infinitely condensed singularity? Astrophysical cosmologists frequently discuss singularities that supposedly separate successive universes; but finding cosmologists who actually believe in them is very difficult. The notion that oscillating universes could be separated by singularities was first introduced and discussed by Richard C. Tolman in 1934; but it is not at all clear that Tolman himself actually believed this.²¹ John A. Wheeler once accepted a form of Oscillation Cosmology in which cosmic epochs are divided by intervening singularities, ²² and John Gribbin²³ still affirms this in combination with a wider quantum World-ensemble Metaphysics.²⁴ In 1970, Roger Penrose and Stephen W. Hawking published a definitive proof that the theory of relativity, applied to closed universes, necessitates that they begin and end with singularities.²⁵ Now Hawking²⁶ seems (to some interpreters) to champion oscillating universes that avoid intermediate singularities through quantum effects that reverse cosmic contractions before universes totally collapse into nothingness. His view, which has other interpretations, will be explained later in more detail.

B. Quantum Effects and Singularities

For many reasons, a defensible Oscillation Cosmology must circumvent singularities. The existence of an antecedent universe cannot be inferred from known laws of nature if these laws break down completely at or in singularities; nor can they explain what causes an initial singularity to explode into a Big Bang. Roger Penrose says that, "A space-time singularity is, almost by definition, 'a place where the known laws of physics break down. "'²⁷
Can quantum theory rescue Oscillation Cosmology from singularities? Quantum theory embraces many oddities called "quantum effects." Two of them, quantum indefiniteness and quantum discreteness, may help Oscillationists evade initial singularities.²⁸

Oscillationism can make a place for spatiotemporal and causal continuity between cosmic epochs if no singularities intervene, if earlier collapsing universes round off and undergo Big Bounces before they totally collapse. Quantum theory will support Oscillation Cosmologies if it can (1) eliminate initial singularities and (2) explain how all entropy or memory of preceding disorder can be lost between epochs. Two quantum effects, indefiniteness and discreteness, seem to be incompatible with initial singularities; but entropy, persisting from epoch to epoch, is a stubborn problem.

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i. Quantum Indefiniteness

According to Werner Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, quantum-size atomic and sub-atomic entities do not have definite simultaneous positions and velocities. It is not simply that we cannot find them together; they just never exist together. Real uncertainty, indeterminateness, and unpredictability obtain at the quantum level of physical reality, but not merely as expressions of human ignorance or of the limits of experimental investigation. Einstein defended "hidden variables" that would reconcile quantum with classical physics; but most quantum physicists agree with Heisenberg's repudiation of absolutely inaccessible physical unknowns; and many experiments in quantum mechanics now count decisively against hidden variables. Sub-microscopic quantum realities are very different in many respects from the macroscopic realities of ordinary perceptual experience.

In quantum theory, sub-atomic particles are thought to be more like waves than like billiard balls. Their existence is spread out indefinitely over a fuzzy region of spacetime, and they lack what Alfred North Whitehead called "simple location." As Stephen Hawking put it, "Particles do not have precisely defined positions and velocities but are 'smeared out' over a small region by the uncertainty principle of quantum mechanics."²⁹ Existing sub-atomic particles are so peculiar that we really cannot envision them. But we can try!
Applied to the universe as a whole, quantum indefiniteness implies that when a cosmic epoch contracts to the size of a quantum particle or wavicle, it cannot be squeezed down any further into a singularity because this would require it to have a definiteness that entities of that magnitude cannot and do not have. If collapse could progress indefinitely with uninterrupted continuity toward a singularity, at some point no room would be left for indefiniteness. Yet, indefiniteness is inescapable in a quantum universe. Stephen Hawking has something like quantum indefiniteness in mind when he asks, "Does time really have a beginning and, possibly, an end, as predicted by classical general relativity, or are the singularities in the big bang and the Big Crunch smeared out in some ways by quantum effects?"³⁰

In several ways, quantum effects might prevent a contracting cosmic epoch from coalescing into a singularity.

First, if a universe expands asymmetrically due to quantum fluctuations and gravitationally retarded expansions in the loci of galaxies and superclusters, it will also contract asymmetrically; if riddled with black holes, some might explode or radiate themselves back into expansion while others are still contracting. Not all parts of a non-synchronous universe could ever meet again at a singularity. Its parts would not contract synchronously; some parts would bypass others; some would go in one direction and some in another; some would contract while others expand; and some might contract at one rate and others at other rates. It is like, "You are never going to get it all back in there again!"

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Technically, this is called "differential collapse."³¹ Such an uneven collapse would make impossible the collapse of an entire universe to either a singularity or to Planck dimensions.

Second, even if all parts of a given universe do contract concurrently, they could never coalesce into a singularity because of quantum indefiniteness. If singularities are impossible or unintelligible, Oscillation Cosmologists must endorse Big Bounce universes that avoid singularities through quantum effects. A Big Bounce is a rebound from a state of minimal size and maximal compression that is larger than a singularity. Through Big Bounce strategies, Oscillation Cosmologists can avoid singularities and all their concomitant difficulties, but Oscillationism may still have other serious problems.

ii. Quantum Discreteness

Quantum theory affirms that mass/energy can exist and can be transferred only in discrete, discontinuous, minimal units or quanta. Quantum theory began in 1900 when Max Planck realized that blackbody objects, those saturated with radiant energy, release so little high frequency radiation only because energy is emitted in discrete atomistic packets or quanta, not in infinitely divisible continuous gradations. Actually existing mass/energy is not infinitely divisible into smaller and smaller real units, although it may be so divisible in our imaginations. In the twentieth century, quantum physicists learned many amazing but now well-established things about the domain of very small physical particles. Electrons can assume some orbits around atomic nuclei but not others because some potential orbits or orbital shells are forbidden by nature. The spin of quantum particles takes only certain discrete values but not others. The physical world is not an infinitely divisible continuum, except in our imaginations. Physical units are required to have definite, finite, minimal magnitudes in order to exist at all, and in order to be transferred and absorbed. Mother Nature does not permit intermediate degrees between discrete quantities.³²

Quantum physics clearly excludes the actualization of all possibilities. Mother Nature tolerates only discrete quantities in multiples of Planck dimensions. Planck numbers are invariant physical constants. Many numbers that are logically possible are forbidden in physics and chemistry; others are privileged, not just in quantum theory, but presumably also within the underlying reality that the science of physics reflects.

Cosmologists who combine Oscillation ism with quantum theory think that Planck spacetime ( 10^-43 of a second in age and 10^-33 centimeters in diameter) is the ultimate minimal unit for anything physical to be at all. (See endnote 74.) If they are right, no mass/energy, and no space or time can exist that is smaller or earlier than Planck dimensions. Quantum physicists are not perfectly consistent in eschewing dimensionless entities, for quarks, electrons, and other sub-atomic particles are sometimes said to be the size of Euclidean points, which is no size

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at all;³³ but this embarrassment is avoided if small physical particles are regarded as tiny blotches of mass/energy or as vibrating strings with definite Planck length and magnitude.³⁴

Quantum theory discloses that spacetime and mass/energy exist only in atomized quanta and are not physically or metaphysically divisible into infinitesimally small real units, though they are thus divisible by mathematical imagination. If they were infinitely divisible in reality, something real, something intermediate, could exist between Planck dimensions and the zero dimensions of a singularity; and a collapsing quantum universe could gradually and continuously shrink to nothing. In a quantum universe, a physical continuum is forbidden; and gravitational collapse to a singularity existing below Planck dimensions is physically impossible.

Additionally, quantum gravity may prevent a contracting universe from collapsing to a singularity. According to some theories, gravity becomes a negative or repulsive force under certain pressure conditions; and if this happens in the final stages of gravitational collapse, a universe could shrink just so far but no further before negative gravity sets in and terminates its contraction. Negative gravity may (or may not) be operable at Planck dimensions, for the theory has not been tested and confirmed. Better established is that the degeneracy pressure of compacted electrons and neutrons will prevent a universe from shrinking to a singularity, but only if, unlike our own, that universe has less than one and a half times the mass of our sun.³⁵ Another possibility is that if the Big Crunch is a vortex spinning all the matter in the universe at unimaginably great speeds, the powerful centrifugal force of the spin itself may forestall an ultimate collapse into a singularity.³⁶

Quantum theory applied to the origin of the universe says that nothing can exist earlier than Planck time or with a volume smaller than Planck space. Thus, the universe was 10^-43 of a second old and 10^-33 centimeters in diameter when it was anything physical at all. No laws of physics could apply antecedently since nothing could exist to which physical laws apply. Planck dimensions are called "Planck's Wall," the beginning and end of all scientific knowledge, in Quantum Cosmology.

An initial singularity is inferred in non-quantum Oscillationism by extrapolating from the observed universe back to T = 0 in accord with non-quantum laws of physics. From quantum laws we cannot extrapolate back to an initial singularity because these and all other physical laws become inapplicable below Planck dimensions. Some Quantum Cosmologists disagree and suggest that the laws of quantum physics do not breakdown at or below Planck dimensions, but if they do we obviously cannot use these laws to extrapolate back either to an initial singularity, or to an antecedent universe.
Stephen Hawking does not specify exactly which quantum effects are relevant, but he may have had quantum indefiniteness and discreteness in mind in 1988 when he announced that he had changed his mind about singularities

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and was trying to persuade other physicists that "There was in fact no singularity at the beginning of the universe," that "It can disappear once quantum effects are taken into account. "³⁷ Hawking seems to think that, like the surface of the earth at the North Pole, our universe began in a rounded-off, smeared-out, quantum state that precluded an initial singularity.

So what lies at the bottom of a black hole? Not an infinitely compressed singularity, we would expect Hawking and other Quantum Cosmologists to say, merely a great mass compressed to finite Planck dimensions. But Hawking and others are not consistent about this.

The preceding arguments from quantum effects against singularities are exceptionally powerful, but cosmologists like Hawking who rely upon them really do not consistently believe them! Hawking frequently changes his mind on many issues and is very difficult to pin down. First, considering only relativity theory apart from quantum theory, he and Roger Penrose proved that closed universes must begin with initial singularities. Then in A Brief History of Time, Hawking repudiated initial singularities by appealing to quantum effects, presumably indefiniteness and discreteness, and to quantum gravity. In his very recent debate with Penrose in The Nature of Space and Time, 1996, Hawking switched again; expressly repudiating quantum discreteness, Hawking says that he sees "no reason to abandon the continuum theories that have been so successful; "³⁸ and he affirms again that the Big Bang emerged from a singularity.³⁹ Hawking and Penrose both believe that black holes, collapsing neutron stars, and collapsing universes regularly coalesce into real singularities below Planck dimensions. They agree that "cosmic censorship" hides the singularities in black holes and neutron stars from our view because they are cloaked to outside observers by their surrounding event horizon;⁴⁰ but the singularity of the Big Bang is "naked" and exposed to us. In The Nature of Space and Time, Hawking says that "Cosmic censorship may shield us from black hole singularities but we see the big bang in full frontal nakedness."⁴¹

One of Hawking's hands does not seem to know what the other hand is doing! Hawking appears to accept arguments from quantum effects against singularities when convenient, and to reject them when convenient! But we must allow him to change his mind. Penrose, by contrast, has never ruled out an initial singularity or appealed to quantum effects like discreteness and indefiniteness to exclude it. Penrose persuaded Hawking that the distinctness of an initial Big Bang involves a different kind of quantum effect, a peculiar sort of spatial curvature, based ultimately on quantum gravity.⁴² As Penrose explains, there is a fundamental difference between an initial world-creating singularity and the terminal singularities that appear in black holes or a collapsed universe, but it does not involve such quantum effects as indefiniteness and discreteness. The difference is in the kind of spatial curvature that each requires and manifests. Astrophysics distinguishes two fundamental kinds of spatial curvature, first, that involved in the increasing volume of a small

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sphere being influenced by gravity (called "Ricci curvature"), next, that involved in tidal distortions of this sphere (called "Wey! curvature").⁴³ In the initial world-making singularity, "The Wey! tensor was exactly zero at the big bang itself, while the Ricci curvature diverged to infinity."⁴⁴ By contrast, in the singularity of a terminal black hole or collapsed universe, the reverse is true: Wey! curvature is infinite and dominates over Ricci curvature. This explains why entropy or disorder is low in an initial Big Bang singularity and high in a Big Crunch singularity, and why time and the Second Law of Thermodynamics would not be reversed in a closed collapsing universe.⁴⁵ An initial singularity is infinitely ordered, completely free from quantum distortions or irregularities in space-time geometry with respect to Wey! curvature; and a terminal singularity is infinitely disordered in this respect, if Penrose is right. Both Penrose and Hawking now believe that ripples that would tear everything apart would pervade the contracting phase of a collapsing universe. This is how its entropy would continue to increase. Quantum effects like indefiniteness and discreteness begin only when an initial singularity expands to Planck dimensions.⁴⁶ Despite quantum effects, our universe, the only one we know to exist, really could have begun in an initial singularity ofnothingness. If Penrose is right, an initial singularity is different, improbable, but not impossible; but it could not be the product of an antecedent collapsing universe with ever-increasing entropy. Singularities still have serious shortcomings. Quantum effects like discreteness and indefiniteness together with Wey! curvature should rule out singularities in collapsed universes ifnot also in black holes and dimensionless particles. Hawking, who affirms them, assumes at times that they do not rule out singularities as such. The Hawking who thinks that quantum effects would rule out an initial singularity still affirms singularities in gravitationally collapsed black holes and collapsed neutron stars. In them, presumably, mass/energy could retain sufficient definiteness, continuity, and freedom from distortion to collapse to zero size, despite any and all quantum effects. In them, mass/energy could gradually shrink continuously below Planck dimensions. In them, singularities are physically attainable, so the laws of both classical and quantum physics could apply all the way back to T = 0.
Why, then, are initial singularities impossible? Large exceptions should make one suspicious. Singularities may be impossible only when some cosmologists do not want to find them! If black holes and gravitationally collapsing neutron stars can shrink smaller and smaller to singularities, then quantum effects like indefiniteness and discreteness do not rule out singularities as such. According to Penrose, the absence of Wey! curvature from an initial singularity is what makes it infinitely ordered and free from entropy; its presence in a terminal singularity makes it infinitely disordered and riddled with entropy. But this should rule out Oscillationism, for antecedent universes all end with overwhelming entropy.

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Hawking's arbitrariness in rejecting initial singularities, at least for a time, may be seen in his best selling book, A Brief History of Time. In explaining his position, Hawking makes the following contradictory claims about singularities.
1. "There was in fact no singularity at the beginning of the universe. "⁴⁷
2. "Only if we could picture the universe in terms of imaginary time would there be no singularities."⁴⁸
3. "When one goes back to the real time in which we live, however, there will still appear to be singularities. The poor astronaut who falls into a black hole will still come to a sticky end; only ifhe lived in imaginary time would he encounter no singularities."⁴⁹

Since 1. is presumably about the real time in which we live, it contradicts 3. Hawking's discussions often fail to clarify the role of quantum mechanics in permitting or excluding singularities, whether initial or terminal. His occasional retreat into an instrumentalist position, according to which physical theories are merely mathematical models that exist only in our minds but tell us nothing about reality,⁵⁰ also contributes nothing to the clarity of his views. His renewed discussion of real versus imaginary time in his 1993 book Black Holes and Baby Universes and Other Essays did little to elucidate his position.⁵¹

A boundary condition is a state out of which another state arises, normally, a cause. Hawking's peculiar brand of Quantum Cosmology affirms that the ultimate boundary condition for the universe is that there is no ultimate boundary condition; but the meaning of this is extremely obscure.⁵² Carl Sagan took it to mean that the universe has no cause, hence there is nothing for a Creator God to do.⁵³ Neither Sagan nor anyone else noticed, but this also means that there is nothing for an antecedent universe to do! In one place, writing of a universe "without boundaries or singularities,"⁵⁴ Hawking seems to regard the terms as synonymns. So regarded, a universe without boundaries is just a universe that does not begin with a singularity, which is perfectly compatible with that variety of quantum oscillationism that dispenses with singularities but not with antecedent universes. Thus, our universe could be bounded by a collapsing temporally antecedent universe from which it bounced, one that crunched only to finite quantum dimensions but not to infinite singularity dimensions, while not being bounded by a singularity. It could be singularity unbounded but temporally bounded-in an extended sense of time that transcends our cosmic epoch.

Robert Jastrow interprets Hawking's no boundary condition to be just another version of Oscillation Cosmology. Any quantum Big Bounce Oscillation Cosmology with an infinite number of cosmic epochs not separated by singularities lacks ultimate boundary conditions (singularities) while having ultimate boundary conditions (causally efficacious antecedent universes). According to Jastrow, Hawking's "universe without a boundary means a 'closed' universe-one which oscillates between expansion and contraction, instead of expanding forever."⁵⁵ Jastrow's interpretation of Hawking is not

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entirely baseless. In comparing the Big Bang to a black hole in his Black Holes and Baby Universes and Other Essays, Hawking says that "It may be that there was an earlier phase of the universe in which matter collapsed, to be re-created in the big bang;"⁵⁶ and many things that Hawking says in 1996 in his and Penrose' s The Nature of Space and Time about the Big Crunch and a closed universe sound very much like Oscillationism.⁵⁷ An important analogy between black holes and the Big Bang is that black holes might sometimes explode! They don't always just radiate and slowly fade away.⁵⁸ However, as caution warns, in no instance has anyone ever observed the explosion of a singularity; and if no laws of physics apply to them, we cannot appeal to the physical laws we know to explain how singularities ever could explode.

In developing his own view that the universe has no ultimate boundary, Stephen Hawking compares spacetime to the spherical surface of the earth, but the analogy is not very illuminating. In this comparison, spacetime begins at the North Pole, expands to its maximum at the equator, and then shrinks toward the South Pole.⁵⁹ There, presumably, the process reverses and is repeated over and over again, though this is not perfectly clear. Hawking says that he agrees with St. Augustine that time begins with the creation of the universe, and that it makes no sense to ask what happened before that.⁶⁰

Yet, if the North to South-South to North-phases repeat themselves, the whole of time cannot be contained entirely within a single North to South sweep, unless North represents the absolute boundary condition of the creation of the universe ex nihilo, as it did for St. Augustine. This would rule out not just singularities but also temporally antecedent universes. Without an absolute temporal boundary, a South to North sweep could come before a North to South sweep; and the indefinitely large South Pole of one sweep could be identical with the North Pole of its successor; if so, time as such cannot begin absolutely at any given North Pole, and Hawking is an Oscillationist, as Jastrow claims. No ultimate temporal boundary condition is real if time already existed before our time, our sweep, began. Thus, if there was no time before our time began-which Hawking sometimes affirms, there was a time before our time began-which he also sometimes affirms; and an ultimate boundary condition exists after all! Hawking's position is puzzling if not riddled with flip-flops and contradictions. Like Hawking, many cosmologists cannot make up their minds, equivocate on the meaning of basic concepts ("singularity" versus "temporality" as the meaning of"boundary condition"), often change their minds, and occasionally argue for incompatible positions. Given the complexity of their subject matter, this is easily understandable.

Hawking may or may not be a real Oscillationist. Perhaps his universe without boundary conditions does not oscillate because time is unreal. At times, Hawking seriously doubts the reality of time, something that a true Oscillationist cannot do. Perhaps he confuses the absence of a singularity boundary with the absence of a temporal boundary; but perhaps he wishes to deny the reality of

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time altogether. Imaginary time, favored by Hawking, is really a spatialization of time which, by a mathematical trick, converts time to a fourth spatial dimension. Just what this means is extremely obscure. Hawking explains that imaginary time is "at right angles" to real time; but it is difficult to see how something that is not spatial could be "at right angles" to anything, or how there can be a singularity at the beginning of real time but no singularity in the imaginary time that is also somehow real and at right angles to it. Also, a fourth spatial dimension gets lost in Hawking's analogy with an expanding and contracting globe because these expansions and their cosmic evolutions are temporal.

In purely spatial terms, the North Pole, no matter how inexact, definitely represents a boundary between the earth and its atmosphere; so Hawking's analogy does not adequately illustrate the notion of finite but unbounded time; perhaps no analogy could succeed. If time really can be spatialized, Hawking's initial temporal singularity is avoided by eliminating time altogether. Once time is abolished, the whole universe is timeless; and our experience of time is an illusion. But why isn't space also an illusion? A purely spatial but timeless Hawking universe is no longer our universe, no longer a quantum universe in which time and space are inseparable but not identical. Hawking pays a very high price for avoiding an initial singularity. His theory becomes irrelevant to our world. As Benjamin Franklin said, "Time is the stuff life is made of." The real world of nature is temporal through and through. Contemporary physics does not spatialize time; it temporalizes space, despite many claims to the contrary.⁶¹

4. Critique of Oscillation Cosmology

Oscillation Cosmologies have troublesome defects. Their most serious flaws must be identified and considered. The greatest difficulties for all Antecedent Universe Cosmologies, including Oscillation Cosmology, are that we do not and cannot directly experience antecedent worlds; we have no inductive empirical access to them because inductive logic is inapplicable where we know only one of a kind; and the laws used to reason back to antecedent worlds break down before they take us that far. Science cannot establish their existence or know their essence. Other difficulties for Oscillation Cosmologies center upon A. their affirmation that space is finite with sufficient mass/energy to open and close it an infinite number of times, B. their treatment of singularities, C. their affirmation of universal causation, D. their appeal to quantum effects, and E. their approach to thermodynamics.

A. An Infinite Number of Closed Universes

Oscillation Cosmologists do not agree with Plasma Cosmology that space is infinite, but they share its view that time is infinite. Only a finite quantity of

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spatially extended stuff expands and contracts forever in oscillating universes. If singularities are rejected, oscillating universes have a finite mass/energy density and both a minimum and a maximum magnitude that are finite. When maximum allowable magnitude is reached, expansion ceases; and a Big Squeeze commences. When the allowed minimum is reached, contraction ceases, and another Big Bang begins. And this goes on forever.

Unlike Gamow's One-Bang theory, Oscillation Cosmologies assume that enough mass/energy existed in an infinite number of spatially finite consecutive universes to close them all and prevent them from expanding forever, no matter how much they differ otherwise with respect to laws, physical constants, and initial conditions. The requirement that all antecedent universes be closed places severe limits on admissible laws, constants, and initial conditions for all oscillating universes. It excludes an immense number of possible laws, constants, and initial conditions-all those that would engender flatness or openness. If only one universe in an oscillating series is flat or open, the series breaks and absolutely terminates. Oscillationists cannot explain why an immense number of logically possible open or flat universes are metaphysically impossible, or why an infinite number of only closed universes can or must exist.

Open and flat universes never collapse and can have no Big Crunch successors. If a prior universe in our own presumed series had been open or flat, our world would have been impossible. For Oscillationism, necessary conditions for the origin and existence of our universe are fulfilled only if all earlier cosmic epochs were closed.

Consider this very forceful argument against an infinite series of oscillating universes. Many cosmologists are convinced that a Big Crunch will so diversify initial conditions for its successor that eventually, given enough time, an open universe or epoch having no successors will inevitably occur. John Barrow and M. P. Dabrowski think that they understand the mechanism by which some if not all series of oscillating universes will eventually end in openness: the maximum size of each epoch increases with increasing entropy; and eventually they become so large that oscillations cease and expansion continues forever. ⁶² If this is possible at all, then no oscillating set of universes could be eternal, especially if, as some hold, all possibilities are actual. By definition, no open or flat universe ends with a Big Crunch; thus, no open or flat universe can have a successor universe that rebounds from its Big Crunch. Mechanisms may exist by which any and every infinite set of universes will eventually produce and thus terminate with an open or flat universe. This would definitely happen if every temporally ordered infinite set of worlds diversifies to actualize every possible universe, as Atheistic and Finalistic Anthropic Cosmologists propose.
If an open or flat universe will come along eventually by accident in an infinite set of cosmic epochs actualizing all possible worlds, then every world in such a set must be open, for every member has an infinite number of prede-

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cessors. The predecessors of every universe in an infinitely prolonged set collectively endure for an infinite amount of time, which is quite long enough to engender openness, given the presumption of infinite diversification within infinite time. Thus every infinite oscillating series of universes must end with an open or flat universe; indeed, every individual universe will be open or flat because in an infinite series each would have an infinite number of predecessors; so the very idea of oscillationism is nonsense! Closed universes must be finite in space and mass/energy. Robert J. Russell suggests that an open universe is actually infinite in size and mass/ energy,⁶³ but in an important sense this is not true. If spatially infinite when maximally expanded, an oscillating universe that contracts at a finite temporal rate would never totally collapse because finitude cannot use up infinity. Similarly, and for the same basic reason, a universe that is initially finite and expands at a finite rate could never achieve spatial infinity.
Both closed and open universes must be actually finite, but open universes have an indefinitely large potential for expansion. In this sense they are finite but unbounded; their actuality is finite, but they are unbounded with respect to their potentiality for expansion. If an open universe begins with finite space/ energy and expands at a finite rate, it will still be finite after fifteen billion years-and after fifteen billion billion years; only its potential for future expansion is infinite, never its actuality. Oscillation Cosmologists must insist that in an infinite number of actual universes, including our own, Omega (total density) is greater than I (perfect balance, or critical density). Obviously, this cannot be verified; and our universe with an increasing rate of Hubble expansion, and with total density of from .1 to .3 or .4 at most, appears to be open. Even a flat universe with an Omega density of exactly l is incompatible with Oscillationism because, like open universes, flat universes never collapse and never have successors.
Recall that the case against the existence of an enormous quantity of dark or hidden cosmic mass that cannot be located is very strong. Astronomers can find only ten to thirty percent or so of the mass/energy required to close the universe, despite their best efforts. After devoting much of his book on The Dark Side of the Universe to examining the case for and against dark matter, James Trefel concluded:

It used to be customary in discussions of this sort to entertain the idea that the universe was cyclical-that the Big Bang would be followed by a collapse (the Big Crunch) and another expansion (the Big Bounce). But if our current ideas are true, this will not happen. The Universe has one shot at existence-one explosion followed by an expansion that slows down for an infinite length of time.⁶⁴

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Yes, some dramatic discovery tomorrow might reveal the existence of the missing mass; scientists are constantly stumbling upon the unexpected, especially with the aid of the Hubble Space Telescope. New sources of both luminous and cold dark matter are regularly identified; but will we ever locate seventy to ninety percent more? Will astronomers or particle physicist ever find enough ordinary matter or previously undetected cold dark matter to close the universe? Maybe so. Maybe not. The existence of enough mass to close the universe is merely a "Philosophical Maybe," an abstruse possibility lacking probability, given our vantage point in history. To every "Philosophical Maybe," corresponds a "Maybe Not." In the realm of pure possibilities, "possibly so" is always checkmated by "possibly not." We should not be intimidated by mere possibilities, and we should never confuse possibilities with probabilities. Given the present state of human knowledge, it is reasonable to think that enough mass/energy probably does not exist to close the universe even once, much less an infinite number of previous times. From seventy to ninety percent is missing; the odds against finding enough are just too great; and the expanding rate of cosmic expansion seems to rule it out definitively.
As explained in Chapter Three, the recent discovery that the rate of cosmic expansion is increasing, not slowing, as earlier assumed (for example, by Trefel above), counts overwhelmingly against a closed universe. Too little mass exists in the universe to slow down its expansion rate, much less to stop it. Yet, oscillating universes must be closed and reopened an infinite number of times, no matter how different other epochs are from our own. For exceptionally good reasons, we should reject the oscillation hypothesis. We really do not know that an antecedent Big Crunch happened even once, much less an infinite number of times. What we do know suggests that it never happened at all. We will return later to the problem of the missing mass.

B. Singularities vs. Finite Size Maximal Compression States

A few Oscillation Cosmologists like a younger John A. Wheeler and a contemporary John Gribbin maintain that each cosmic epoch begins and ends with a singularity, a state of infinite compression, infinite density, infinite heat, infinitesimal size, and infinite curvature. Other Oscillation Cosmologists like Mark Israelit and Nathan Rosen⁶⁵ repudiate infinitesimally small initial singularities and contend that the maximal compression state of the antecedent universe was finite in size or volume. Let us further considers rebounds with and without singularities.

i. Rebounds from Singularities?

The reality of an initial singularity from which an oscillating universe could rebound may be doubted for a variety of reasons. For one thing, there are

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serious problems about its empirical status. I. L. Rozental says that "The singularity situation in cosmology is in contradiction to all accumulated physical experience.''⁶⁶ According to Rozental, singularities cannot be created in the laboratory because "under terrestrial conditions" a phase transition always occurs as pressure approaches infinity, and "the singular state is not achieved. "⁶⁷ The idea that all sensory experience counts against singularities can be further expanded. It is absolutely impossible for our physical senses to perceive directly anything that has no size or spatial magnitude whatsoever. Conceptually constructed Euclidean points and spatiotemporal singularities are so small that they are indeed empirically nothing, and the claim that our universe was created out of an initial singularity is empirically indistinguishable from the claim that it was created ex nihilo.

An initial singularity for our universe could not have been perceived directly if we had been there, but confidence in an initial singularity may be inductively grounded in some other way. Ignoring quantum effects for the moment, perhaps an initial singularity can be extrapolated mathematically from observable processes such as increasing entropy, the redshift, and the Hubble expansion. If these processes are reversed and traced far enough into the past, in ten to twenty billion years, the results equal 0. This assumes that the laws and basic structures of nature do not break down before zero diameter or magnitude is reached, that abstract calculations can accurately reflect physical processes that contract all the way down to zero and not just up to the edge of it, and that quantum physics does not block the descent to nothingness.
If, as most quantum physicists believe, the laws of nature do not break down at Planck spacetime but nevertheless become inapplicable below Planck dimensions, it would definitely not be rational to believe that our universe began in a singularity at T = 0. Quantum Cosmology indicates that the laws and the most basic concepts that we apply to nature do become inapplicable to spacetime below Planck's Wall because nothing physical whatsoever can exist on its other side. Scientifically, we can trace origins back no further than when the universe was 10^-43 (1/10⁴³) of a second old and its size was 10^-33 (1/10³³) of a centimeter in diameter. Quantum Cosmologists like I. L. Rozental and Stephen Hawking (at times) are convinced that quantum effects make collapses to initial singularities impossible (despite the fact that Hawking still believes in black holes with singularities at their core). We will soon see that Quantum Cosmologies have serious problems of their own.

Because they suggest creation ex nihilo, singularities create an interesting philosophical problem for Oscillationism and all other naturalistic Antecedent Universe Cosmologies. Theistic creation ex nihilo affirms the known existence of only one universe and is not vulnerable to this difficulty. Its proponents would be quite happy if modem science discovers that the universe was created out of nothing in the finite past!

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The philosophical difficulty is this. Naturalistic metaphysics maintains that our universe has existed throughout an infinite past; but the notion of "our universe" is not easily stretched to infinity, despite Oscillation Cosmology. The problem of personal identity through time has as its counterpart the problem of cosmic identity through time. Our cosmic epoch, which began around fifteen billion years ago, could not belong to the same universe as its predecessors if it is separated from them by even one singularity, much less by an infinite number of them. Conceptually, singularities involve the total eradication of space, time, physical causation, continuity, and all laws of nature; so no universe derived from a singularity, including our own, could have any temporal predecessors or physical causal progenitors.

If antecedent Cosmic Epoch A and subsequent Cosmic Epoch B are spatiotemporally and causally linked through a singularity, that is, by causal and spatiotemporal nothingness, then they are not linked at all. Two regions belong to the same universe only if they belong to the same spacetime system, that is, if it is at least theoretically possible to get from one to the other by traveling through space or time; all members of the spacetime system have physical causal relations with-are either the physical cause or effect of-some other members of that system; and all members function statistically in accord with an all-pervasive set of physical laws. "Sameness of universe" thus involves continuity of (1) space, (2) time, (3) physical causation, and (4) natural laws. Our universe is the totality of the spacetime system to which we belong, including all the laws, mass/energy, and cones of physical causation within it. To belong to the same spacetime system, any two things must be bound together lawfully by spatiotemporal continuities, contiguities, and causal processes. Entities belong to our system of spacetime only if spatiotemporal continuities and physical causal bonds link them lawfully to us directly or indirectly.

No lawful spatiotemporal and causal continuities whatsoever obtain between universes separated by singularities, where all of the above break down and disappear. Without something physical ( spatiotemporal) there is no physical causation. Since physical causation and the laws of nature break down in a singularity, no universe separated from another by a singularity could be its physical cause or project its mass/energy and its laws into its successor. An antecedent universe that crunched to a singularity could not be the cause of our Big Bang.
In fact, it could not even be antecedent! Our world could not be part of an eternal universe, as Naturalists hold, if it began fifteen billion years ago and is separated from its antecedents by singularities. Singularities eliminate temporal as well as causal continuity and succession, so speaking of antecedent universes separated by singularities makes no sense. No temporal relations can exist between two cosmic epochs separated by utter nontemporality.
Nothing can be earlier than the first moment of time. If our universe begins and ends with a singularity, nothing could precede it or follow it. The Big Bang
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would be the beginning of time itself; nothing could antedate it. One universe can precede another only if they belong to the same spatiotemporal series. If singularities separate them, the spatiotemporal series is unconditionally interrupted; and the notion of "antecedent universes" becomes inapplicable and unintelligible. Antecedent Universe Cosmologies that affirm singularities are logically incoherent, and Oscillation Cosmologists must avoid them.

A naturalistic metaphysics that accepts singularities between cosmic epochs is itself incoherent. Our universe cannot be separated from its predecessor by a singularity because applying the concept of "predecessor" to such a relationship is unintelligible. Big Bang Cosmology shows that our universe is not eternal, contrary to the assumptions of Naturalism. If some universes are eternal, they can have no spatiotemporal or causal continuity with our own through singularities; and we can never know of their existence on lawful, inductive, or scientific grounds.

On non-scientific grounds, many theologians postulate Heaven and Hell as completely independent spacetime systems, that is, as Other Worlds, that have no direct spatiotemporal or causal relations with our own. Naturalists who accept singularities incoherently embrace disconnected, transcendent, OtherWorldly spacetime systems-the very things that they repudiate so vehement when quarreling with theologians about Heaven and Hell! Our world is not eternal and could not be connected to an everlasting series of worlds if it began fifteen billion years ago in a singularity of nothingness.
If and when a singularity forms at the end of a "Big Crunch," why doesn't it just stay there forever? We actually have neither empirical nor theoretical evidence that they ever explode, and this is absolutely devastating to any Oscillationism that separates universes by singularities or derives them from singularities. In no instance has a singularity ever been observed to explode. Even theoretically, no one knows what would cause a singularity to explode since no known laws of physics apply to them. According to Alan H. Guth, Oscillationism is now very unpopular with most scientific-minded cosmologists for this very reason. Guth indicates that what we know of gravity in relativity theory "does not allow a crunching universe to bounce into a big bang," but, he insists,

This is not a fatal objection, however, since general relativity presumably breaks down at the extraordinarily high densities encountered in a big crunch. Nonetheless, since there is no reliable theory that describes how a universe might bounce, the basis of the oscillating universe theory relies solely on speculation.⁶⁸

Since all natural laws break down in singularities, no known or knowable laws of nature could permit them to explode. Something very similar is true with respect to big bounces from finite compaction states. Given our ignorance with

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respect to high density physics, no known laws of physics could permit them to explode. As Martin Rees indicates, "Physical conditions in the 'bounce' would transcend the physics we understand, so that nothing could be said about the possibility of a rebound into a new cycle-still less about what memory would be preserved of what had gone before. "⁶⁹ With or without singularities, quantum fluctuations really could not do the job, for we really know almost nothing about quantum fluctuations in high density physics. Inflation Cosmology does not derive its many worlds from exploding singularities or immensely compressed antecedent universes. Inflation, which does not appeal to explosions at all, requires just the right kind of diluted quantum-foamy "empty space"; and crunched-up antecedent universes just aren't the right stuff!

ii. Big Bounces Without Singularities

Singularities are not easily circumvented, but Oscillation Cosmology can be developed without them. If antecedent cosmic epochs are not infinitely compacted into singularities as they crunch to an end, if they rebound from finite size maximal compression states, some of the foregoing difficulties can be avoided, but at a price. If the laws of nature as we know them apply to high density situations, corridors of no more than Planck dimensions might link universes causally, spatially, and temporally and provide for the continuation of natural laws from epoch to epoch.
Some Antecedent Universe Cosmologists explicitly reject singularities and conjecture that antecedent universes rebound while still finite in diameter, curvature, density, and temperature, thus avoiding the embarrassing infinities and breakdowns of singularities. These minimal-size-maximal-compression states may be quite large. Georges Lemaitre initiated Oscillation Cosmology with his image of the Phoenix that dies a fiery death, then rises again from its own ashes. His "primeval atom" was two hundred million miles in diameter when it exploded.⁷⁰ George Gamow speculated that when the previous universe crunched to its maximal pre-expansion density, all of the matter within the reach of a 200-inch telescope "must have occupied a sphere only thirty times as large as the sun."⁷¹ Eric Lerner's Mini-Bang occurred when an antecedent metagalaxy collapsed to a hundred million light years across. ⁷² A. Karel Velan thinks that before a Big Bang explosion, a collapsed universe has a radius of 1.17 x 10¹⁴ cm,73 that is, 1.17 trillion centimeters. Most Antecedent Universe Cosmologists actually prefer sub-microscopic but still finite dimensions as minimal-size, maximal-compression states for collapsing/erupting universes, partly because they think that at lesser volumes and densities, thermonuclear reactions would not be sufficiently hot and compact to destroy heavy elements and replenish the universe's supplies of hydrogen and helium. Defenders of large finite maximal-compression rebounds may find it difficult to explain the physics of hydrogen renewal.

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Tiny Planck spacetime is the most popular minimal-size-maximal-compression dimension for contracting/rebounding universes, or for any physical realities at all.⁷⁴ Contracting universes may proceed almost to zero, but not quite, before a Big Bounce erupts to recreate another world.
Oscillationists must answer this question: What initiates the explosion? What makes a contracting universe bounce? Quantum fluctuations might make Big Bounces inevitable, but only if the laws of quantum physics obtain in all antecedent universes and at the junctures between universes, and only if all logically possible non-quantum universes are inexplicably non-existent. With Big Bounces, Planck size threads could connect cosmic epochs; but these are so minute that one still wonders if anything is left of the notion of same universe. All ordinary sameness is left far behind long before we arrive at Planck's Wall. From a commonsense standpoint, a Big Bang universe would be a distinct universe whether or not it issues from a singularity or a Planck size quantum corridor. Yet, some Oscillationists submit, the connecting link might not be implausibly thin.

C. Singularities and Universal Physical Causation

Perhaps singularities are ruled out because they are incompatible with Naturalism's metaphysical causal principle: "All events have natural causes." In I 965, the year that the omnipresent background radiation was discovered, Milton Munitz rejected an initial singularity for our universe for this reason; but his arguments confused scientific methodology with Naturalism's principle of physical causation.
Accounts of origins must transcend finite limits like those set by an initial singularity, according to Munitz, because scientific method presupposes that a// spatiotemporal events are caused by other spatiotemporal events. An original event proceeding from the nothingness of a singularity would violate this methodological rule, (which is really a metaphysical rule in disguise), so science itself is incompatible with an initial singularity. According to Munitz, it is always possible to find "some more refined theory, in which inferences would be made to events even earlier than the one identified as "the beginning" in the theory of coarser grain."⁷⁵ As he expressed this argument in The Mystery of Existence,

Science is grounded in the use of the Principle of Sufficient Reason and, therefore, always leaves open the possibility of finding the explanation of any event. To say there is some unique event, marking the beginning of the universe for which no explanation can be given, is to say something contrary to the method of science. It is for this reason, I should argue, that any conception of the beginning of the universe, when defended under the aegis of some supposedly scientific cosmology, is an indefensible notion.⁷⁶

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Here Munitz clearly identifies the Principle of Sufficient Reason with the naturalistic metaphysical principle that" All natural events have natural causes;" otherwise. the door would be open for the Theist who thinks that God's original act of creation is the sufficient reason for the existence of the world. A natural cause belongs to the same system of spacetime as its natural effect; but God presumably transcends the spacetime of our world; and so do all antecedent universes. Munitz has natural causes in mind when he says that "All events investigated by science are ones for which it is relevant to inquire into their causal conditions" and that "On scientific grounds, one could never hope to establish that the universe had an absolute origin, or came into existence."⁷⁷ Here Munitz assumes that a scientific inquiry into natural causes will always find them-ad infinitum; for this reason, he assumes, science could never discover absolute origination. Munitz is mistaken in thinking that science could never discover an absolute origin for the universe merely because it must always inquire about the natural causal conditions for everything that it investigates. Methodology is confused with metaphysics. Scientific methodology always inquires about natural causes, but only a non-empirical Naturalistic metaphysics guarantees that inquirers will always find that for which they are looking. Scientific methodology needs only the imperative: "Look for natural causes!" It does not require an a priori metaphysical guarantee of success.
When divorced from naturalistic metaphysics, science can conclude that scientific method reaches its iimits with an initial cosmic singularity, if this is indeed where time, space, natural laws, and physical causation commense, the point beyond which they can be traced and applied no further, the end of scientific explanation. As Robert Jastrow indicated, "Science has its own religion. That religion is founded on faith in natural law and in cause and effect. Science has succeeded in posing, on its own terms, questions not answerable within the domain of science. "⁷⁸ Jastrow could be wrong in thinking that scientific knowledge ends when it stumbles upon an initial singularity; but he correctly judges that any confusion of methodology with metaphysics, like Munitz's, is religiously grounded in a blind faith in absolute natural causation, a faith that empirical scientific methodology alone cannot substantiate. Even quantum physics calls universal causal absolutism into question, as we will see. That an initial singularity would be incompatible with scientific method and universal physical causation is only a minor obstacle for Oscillation Cosmology, but other difficulties are more serious. D. Quantum Effects Near Singularities We should be very cautious about accepting Quantum Cosmology's supposition that when the whole universe is squeezed down to the size of sub-atomic quan-

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tum objects, it will begin to obey the laws of quantum physics and manifest quantum effects like indefiniteness, discreteness, and spontaneity-if for no other reason than that Quantum Cosmologists seem to believe this only when it is convenient. Stephen Hawking suggests that size is the relevant consideration for appealing to quantum effects when he writes that "There must have been a time in the very early universe when the universe was so small, that one could no longer ignore the small-scale effects of quantum mechanics.⁷⁹ Other interpreters also treat size as the only relevant consideration in applying quantum physics to the universe as a whole.⁸⁰
The real difficulty is that quantum demeanor may depend on more than or something other than just size. It may depend heavily on degree and kind of curvature, compression, density, temperature, or quantity of energy involved. An entire universe compressed to the size of an electron or quark may be too curved, compressed, dense, or hot to obey quantum laws; or the quantity of energy may be too great. Roger Penrose, who doubts that size and distance mark the boundary between quantum level and classical level events, suggests that all quantum level events involve "very tiny differences in energy."⁸¹ If so, an entire universe of energy concentrated to the size of a photon just might be too much for quantum effects!
Without agreeing with them completely, Heinz R. Pagels notes that according to cautious critics, "Theorists exploring, on paper, the very early universe have gone too far. Extrapolating from theories that work in the relatively low-energy domain examined by terrestrial accelerators to such ultrahigh energies is a dubious enterprise. "⁸² Martin Rees recognizes that" ... Physics at ultrahigh energies ... is almost completely unknown."⁸³ John Gribbin and Rees warn that "Because the physics of the ultracompressed, high-density stages is speculative, we have no firm understanding of exactly where the fluctuations come from."⁸⁴ This is precisely the difficulty. The physics ofultracompressed highdensity states is largely untested and unknown. As Mark lsraelit and Nathan Rosen affirm, "We lack any knowledge whatsoever of the constitution of matter under such extreme conditions";⁸⁵ yet they make many assumptions about it. Jonathan J. Halliwell recognizes that "Quantum mechanics was developed to describe atomic-scale phenomena," and he recognizes the enormous contentiousness of"the most extravagant extrapolation possible: that quantum mechanics applies to the entire universe at all times and to everything in it."⁸⁶
None of the sub-atomic particles that we know to be affected by quantum indefiniteness, discreteness, and spontaneity are experienced and tested at anything close to what the curvature, compression, density, temperature, and energy quantity of the universe as a whole would be if compacted to the volume of an atom, electron, photon, quark, or something even smaller. The differences in proportions are truly astronomical, and these enormous differences could easily distort or even completely negate quantum effects. In the absence of experimental confirmation, there is room for serious doubt that the whole

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universe obeys the laws of quantum physics when compressed to Planck (or smaller) dimensions. Every law of nature that takes us back to "the beginning" may be inapplicable sufficiently close to T = 0, which is why Scientific Cosmological Agnostics proclaim that we just can't know scientifically what caused the Big Bang. Neither caution nor radical skepticism about the applicability of the laws of quantum physics to conditions at or near the origin of the universe will be popular with many contemporary scientific cosmologists, but perhaps they should reconsider.
Without quantum effects at the beginning of creation, Oscillation Cosmologies are indefensible because they cannot otherwise avoid singularities. With quantum effects, Oscillation Cosmologies are still on shaky ground for reasons already given and for others to follow. We must now examine some of the logical and philosophical implications of these options, even though we have serious doubts about the applicability of quantum laws to an ultracompressed universe.

E. Oscillationism and Thermodynamics

Oscillation Cosmologies presuppose the existence of sufficient mass/energy in all cosmic epochs to reverse their expansion and close them down, no matter how different their contents, laws, constants, and initial conditions might be. Our own cosmic epoch seems to be very much out of place within such an endless series of oscillating epochs. Our universe lacks seventy percent or more of the mass required for reversal. Oscillationists may have a strong faith that the missing mass is really there; but they cannot prove it, and it has now been decisively disproved by the discovery in 1998 that the pace of cosmic expansion is accelerating rather than slowing. This could not be true of a universe that will eventually cease expanding and gradually collapse into a Big Crunch. Oscillation Cosmologists cannot reconcile their robust Omega = l + requirement with the paltry Omega = .1 to .3 of our actual universe as we know it. They might resort to the desperate strategy of contending that either the First Law of Thermodynamics or the Law of Gravity were grossly violated at the beginning of our eccentric cosmic epoch, even though they held in all antecedent universes. They might argue that enough mass or gravity was present in an infinite number of antecedent universes to close them, but our exceptional universe is open because huge quantities of mass/energy or gravitational attraction just disappeared somehow at the beginning of our atypical cosmic epoch. Perhaps so. Perhaps not. If this happened, Oscillationists must explain how and why; but no explanation is readily forthcoming. In an infinite set of successive universes, why is ours an exception to the rules?
If a singularity preceded our epoch, the notion of antecedent universes is meaningless; but without an initial singularity to reshuffle everything drastically, we have no good reason to believe that any physical fundamentals change

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dramatically from epoch to epoch. Natural laws, including the First and Second Laws of Thermodynamics, would not break down between epochs that are not separated by singularities. Oscillationists have no adequate theory or mechanism to explain an enormous one-time extinction of mass or weakening of gravity. With no initial singularity, the First Law of Thermodynamics, the conservation of mass/energy, weighs heavily against significant extinctions of mass and gravitation between epochs. An implausible theory cannot be saved by appeal to an even more implausible theory.
The Second Law of Thermodynamics, the law of increasing entropy or disorder, also makes serious trouble for Oscillation Cosmologies, even without singularities. Cosmologists like Paul Davies87 and Alan Lightman suggest that it does.88 Others like Alan MacRobert,⁸⁹ Steven Weinberg,⁹⁰ Ya. B. Zel'Dovich and I. D. Novikov,⁹¹ James Peebles,⁹² and Alan Guth⁹³ reject Oscillationism outright because they are convinced that the Second Law of increasing entropy or disorder excludes it. Endless oscillations and divisions are ruled out completely by increasing entropy. S. A. Bludman argued in 1984 that

because of the huge entropy generated in our Universe, far from oscillating, a closed universe can go through one cycle of expansion and contraction. Whether closed or open, reversing or monotonically expanding, the severely irreversible phase transitions transpiring give the Universe a definite beginning, middle and end the ultimate crunch can never be reversed. Nor could it have bounced in the past if it began hot or developed a great deal of entropy in a first contraction. ⁹⁴

Most scientific cosmologists believe that the law of increasing entropy holds not only during the initial expansion phase but also during the contraction phase of a universe undergoing gravitational collapse. They have no doubt that the law of increasing entropy would apply continuously through successive cosmic epochs, no matter how these are connected. They may or may not be right, but if they are, Oscillation Cosmology is dealt a deadly blow. Since disorder constantly increases, according to the Second Law, our present universe would be infinitely chaotic if it were preceded by an infinite number of cosmic epochs, as Oscillationism maintains. Because our universe is not infinitely chaotic, an infinite number of antecedent universes did not antedate it, and Oscillationism is dead.
Unless Oscillationists can find a way around the Second Law of Thermodynamics, increasing entropy is a formidable obstacle, not only for them, but also for other Antecedent Universe Cosmologists. But the situation may not be completely hopeless.
John A. Wheeler argued in 1973 that when a collapsing universe shrinks to a singularity, a drastic reprocessing of mass, charge, physical constants, natural laws, and all details of the system occurs; and the ensuing universe starts

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out on a completely fresh dynamic cycle.⁹⁵ Singularities might insure that a universe that ends in maximal entropy would be followed by another universe that begins in minimal entropy, but many unresolved problems are hidden in the obscure notion of "reprocessing."
Quantum Cosmologists wanting to dispense with singularities also speculate that when a cosmic epoch shrinks to quantum size, quantum effects wash out all existing entropy, all information about what went before; and thus each new epoch starts afresh. As Andrei Linde recalls, M. A. Markov developed "a model of an eternal, oscillating universe, which at each cycle of its evolution forgets what occurred before."⁹⁶ In Markov's own words, "The state of maximum contraction would play a peculiar role of 'purgatory,' purifying the universe from 'excessive' mass and entropy acquired in a previous expansion and
contraction.''⁹⁷ Robert Dicke and P. J. E. Peebles, commenting on oscillating universes, say that "Experience would suggest the total entropy can only increase, though it certainly is conceivable that in the new physics of the bounce, entropy is eliminated, perhaps lost in black holes left over after the big bang."⁹⁸ Notable authorities may be quoted on both sides of the question of whether entropy continues from epoch to epoch, but which view is most plausible? Many cosmologists are convinced that only an initial singularity, if anything, could guarantee a scramble sufficiently thorough to insure the demise of the Second Law of Thermodynamics from epoch to epoch. Understandably, a cosmic epoch would have to forget its composition and structure if it collapses into a singularity, for at that point there is no space, time, physical causation, physical structures, or natural laws. In singularities, and only in them, the laws of nature are gone, and so are all physical causes, constants, fields, masses, particles, and components. Nothing remains to remember or carry forward the disorder inherited from a preceding epoch. Unfortunately, along with entropy, an initial singularity also obliterates all lawful spatial, temporal, and causal continuity between cosmic epochs In a singularity, both the First Law and Second Laws of Thermodynamics are gone, and nothing remains to insure that enough physical energy or orderliness will persist from epoch to epoch to keep the series going.
Most cosmologists think that complete reprocessing would not occur if a universe collapses only to quantum (or larger) size, and the rest of us may just have to take their word for it. At finite dimensions of compaction, something spatial, temporal, causal, and lawful remains of a maximally compressed antecedent universe; and, despite Markov's doubts, just enough probably remains to carry forward the entropy, the distorting Wey! curvature, of a preceding epoch into a later one. If quantum laws and processes are preserved through the passage from one epoch to another, so are the laws of thermodynamics. If cosmologists can't affirm continuing quantum laws without affirming the laws of thermodynamics, the Second Law of Thermodynamics is a major hurdle for that appeal to quantum effects to avoid an

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initial singularity, for they can't avoid an increase of entropy from epoch to epoch.
The strategy of resorting to total reprocessing in singularities is extremely risky for Oscillation Cosmology. The physics of the Big Bounce without singularities also requires that all antecedent worlds be closed quantum universes that cannot collapse into singularities because of quantum effects like indefiniteness and discreteness; but in an infinite number of diversifying tries, total reprocessing will insure that at least one rescrambled antecedent universe would be open, flat, and/or non-quantum. Infinite diversification through reprocessing would bring about at least one open or flat universe that breaks the series, and/or one non-quantum universe that ends in a spaceless, timeless, lawless, and causeless singularity-with all its problems.
In an infinite number of antecedent diversifying shuffles that actualize all possibilities, quantum laws and quantum effects themselves would be scrambled out of existence at some point, and so would sufficient mass to close an infinite number of antecedent cosmic epochs. From such antecedent universes, no Big Bounce could occur. The endless chain would be broken; and we would not be here; but here we are! Infinite reprocessing might unscramble entropy, but it would also terminate infinite reprocessing. The non-existence of our world is a very high price to pay for avoiding the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Furthermore, since every epoch in an infinite series has an infinite number of predecessors, every universe must be nonexistent! The very idea of oscillating universes is unintelligible!

i. Entropy Can't Apply to the Universe as a Whole

Perhaps the Second Law of Thermodynamics does not apply legitimately to the universe as a whole. The philosopher Stephen Toulmin contends that it does not.⁹⁹ The preceding argument against Oscillation Cosmologies based on increasing entropy from epoch to epoch applies the Second Law to the universe as a whole. If Toulmin is right, this application is illegitimate and all objections to Oscillation Cosmologies based on thermodynamics are spurious.
Toulmin's argument is complex, but let's try to go directly to the heart of it. He is concerned in part with the practical implications of the idea that the universe is running down; but his primary focus is on the shift of the Second Law away from applied mechanics, where it properly belongs, to cosmological speculation about the universe as a whole, where he thinks it is out of place. Toulmin believes that this shift is illegitimate because the question "Is the universe as a whole a thermally isolated system?" is senseless. The reason, Toulmin explains, is that

the question how far a given physical system is isolated from its surroundings has a clear enough meaning when asked about any bounded part of

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the universe-being equivalent to the question, to what extent heat exchanges are possible across the boundary-when asked about the universeas-a-whole, its meaning is completely obscure.¹⁰⁰

We cannot talk intelligibly about heat exchanges across the boundary of the universe as a whole, Toulmin maintains, because nothing exists outside the boundary of the universe as a whole. The universe has no surroundings.¹⁰¹ The Second Law of Thermodynamics tells us that disorder increases in thermally isolated systems; it applies intelligibly only when systems have boundaries and surroundings; it applies appropriately only within but not to the universe as a whole. According to Toulmin, we do not apply the law of gravity to the universe as a whole because we realize that nothing exists outside the universe to be attracted by it. Similarly, the Second Law of Thermodynamics should not be applied to the universe as a whole because it has no boundaries or surroundings.¹⁰²

ii. Entropy Can Apply to the Universe as a Whole

Fortunately, scientists seldom pay much attention when philosophers tell them what they can and cannot do or think. Toulmin's argument is unconvincing. If nothing exists outside the boundaries of the universe as a whole, this means that it is the ultimate isolated system par excellence; as Victor Stenger says, "Only the universe is a completely closed system."103 If the universe as a whole has no surroundings, then it is clearly impossible for anything to affect the constancy of its supply of energy (First Law) or the internal dissipation of its energy and order as it expands (Second Law).
Toulmin's reasons for thinking that the laws of thermodynamics do not apply to the universe as a whole really show that the universe is a perfect example, perhaps the only really perfect example, of a system that can neither gain nor lose energy (once created). Thus, objections to Oscillation Cosmologies based on thermodynamics must be taken seriously after all. If disorder really increases constantly in closed systems, and the universe as a whole is the ultimate closed system, then Oscillation Cosmologies are untenable because they project the entropic universe as a whole infinitely into the past. Our world is not one of infinite chaos; but it would be ifthe Second Law of Thermodynamics has been operating throughout an infinite past; so Oscillation Cosmologies must be false.
Antecedent Universe Cosmologies clearly affirm that something exists outside a particular cosmic epoch like the one we inhabit, namely, a temporally infinite but imperceptible (to us) larger or older universe. Thus, even on Toulmin' s terms, Oscillation Cosmology should have no difficulty applying laws of thermodynamics to our cosmic epoch, which, by hypothesis, is bounded and surrounded by an infinite series of prior cosmic epochs. The real problem is that

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the surroundings of our epoch transmitted little or no entropy into our Big Bang; so they could not be temporally infinite.
Oscillation Cosmologies are doubly cursed. Without singularities between cosmic epochs, the Second Law of Thermodynamics would not break down, and our world would be infinitely chaotic, which it is not. Our orderly cosmic epoch would be impossible if preceded by an infinite number of increasingly disordered universes that dumped their disorder into our Big Bang. With singularities, if the First and Second Laws are periodically reprocessed out of existence, and so is everything else that would make oscillating universes go on forever. Even worse, antecedent universes could have no spatiotemporal or causal connections with later universes; no continuous and infinitely comprehensive temporal series could exist within which one universe could be earlier or later than another.
So, Oscillation Cosmologies answer that it was caused by an influx of energy from a preceding universe or cosmic epoch. With or without singularities, this answer is incredible and indefensible. To summarize, Oscillation Cosmologies affirm that our universe, our cosmic epoch, was preceded by an infinite number of antecedent expanding/collapsing universes; but this claim lies far beyond the limits of scientific knowledge. Science cannot establish that even one cosmic epoch preceded our own, much less an infinite number of them. Antecedent universes are supernatural beings that fall outside of our system of spacetime or nature, as Robert Jastrow correctly indicates. They are beings that, by hypothesis, exist before time and outside space, even if it is only our time and space. We know empirically of no universe other than our own; old fashioned Naturalists are right about that! Scientifically, with respect to supernatural spaces and times, we can only be agnostics or Positivists.
Oscillation Cosmologies have additional flaws. They presuppose that our own cosmic epoch contains enough mass/energy to close it and reverse its expansion process, and that this was true of all antecedent universes, an infinite number of them. However, our own cosmic epoch does not seem to be closed. Its expansion rate is increasing, and seventy to ninety percent of the required mass is missing. Maybe we will find it someday; maybe not. We do not know that we will; and the chances are extremely high that we will not, especially now that we know that the Hubble expansion rate of our universe is increasing. Oscillation Cosmologies also presuppose that all antecedent universes were bouncing quantum universes, but no known laws of physics would cause or allow crunched-up universes to bounce. Oscillationists appeal to periodic reprocessing to eliminate entropy; but this insures that in an infinite number of antecedent diversifying tries, a prior open or flat universe, a non-quantum universe, or a terminal singularity would have resulted from an endless reshuffling of laws and initial conditions; and we and our world would not exist. Yet,

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here we are! Since this consideration applies to every epoch in an infinite series, no worlds at all would exist!
Oscillation Cosmologies differ over whether antecedent collapsing epochs begin and end in singularities, but they are damned if they do and damned if they don't. With singularities, no lawful spatiotemporal or causal relations could link cosmic epochs because space, time, physical causation, and all the laws of nature break down in singularities. The Naturalistic claim that all spatiotemporal events are caused by other spatiotemporal events would be untrue. The very notion of an antecedent universe becomes incoherent and unintelligible. An antecedent universe is postulated as a physical cause of our universe, but physical causation begins after T = 0 and cannot be traced back any further. We cannot infer that the cause of our universe was something physical. Singularities having no magnitude at all are empirically indistinguishable from nothingness.

Without singularities, Planck-size or larger spatiotemporal and causal relations could connect successive epochs; but the laws of nature would not break down between epochs; and without a total meltdown, the law of increasing entropy carries over from epoch to epoch. If our epoch was preceded by an infinite number of epochs, and if chaos increased in each and from one to the next, then our epoch would be infinitely chaotic. It is not; so Oscillation Cosmologies must be wrong. Furthermore, if the laws and initial conditions of each universe are totally reprocessed between epochs, an open or flat universe, a non-quantum universe, a terminal singularity, or the extinction of all energy whatsoever would occur in an infinite number of diversifying antecedent tries that actualize all possibilities; and our universe would not exist; but it does. Quantum effects rescue Oscillation Cosmologies only at the price of unjustifiable favoritism. Quantum indefiniteness and discreteness would exclude all singularities, both initial and those in collapsing neutron stars and black holes. Initial singularities are excluded only in imaginary time, not in real time, if Hawking is right. Quantum effects support neither Oscillation Cosmologies nor even more eccentric Quantum Cosmologies yet to be examined, for we do not know that other worlds exist( ed) as quantum universes, or that atomic or sub-atomic size universes obey the laws of quantum physics when all the energy within them is drastically compacted in size, pressure, density, temperature, and curvature. With or without an initial singularity, our universe is flat or open, thus radically unlike the infinite number of universes that supposedly preceded it; but what happened to the missing gravity or mass?
Oscillation Cosmologies are initially attractive, but their problems are insurmountable. are not serious obstacles to theistic belief. This does not establish the truth of theism, but it clears away much of the rubbish that stands in the way. 

[Notes]

1. Alan M. MacRobert, "Beyond the Big Bang," Sky & Telescope (March 1983 ), p. 211.
2. I. L. Rozental, Big Bang Big Bounce (New York: Springer-Verlag, 1985), p. ix.
3. George Garnow, One Two Three ... lnfinity (New York: The American Library, 1954), pp. 314-315. See also Garnow, The Creation of the Universe (New York: The New American Library, 1957), pp. 36-37, 134.
4. Ibid., p. 42.
5. George Garnow, "Modem Cosmology," Scientific American, 190:3 (March 1954), p. 63. 6. Garnow, The Creation of the Universe, p. 37. 7. Garnow, One Two Three ... lnfinity, p. 314. 8. A. Karel Velan, The Multi-Universe Cosmos: The First Complete Story of the Origin of the Universe (New York: Plenum Press, 1992), p. 336. 9. Mark Israelit and Nathan Rosen, "A Singularity-Free Cosmological Model in General Relativity," The Astrophysical Journal, 342 (15 July 1989), p. 634.
10. See Abner Shimony, "Quantum Physics and the Philosophy of Whitehead," Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, 2 (1965), pp. 307-330.
11. Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality, corrected ed. (New York: The Free Press, 1978), p. 91. 12. Ibid., p. 95. 13. Ibid., p. 97. 14. William L. Craig and Quentin Smith, Theism, Atheism, and Big Bang Cosmology (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), pp. 43-44, 120.
15. Ibid., p. 43.
16. Ibid., p. 208.
17. Ibid., p. 211.
18. Ibid., p. 209.
19. Ibid., p. 210.
20. Ibid.
21. Richard C. Tolman, Relativity, Thermodynamics, and Cosmology (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1934).
22. E.g., see ibid., Ch. 10. See also Charles W. Misner, Kip S. Thome and John A. Wheeler, Gravitation (New York: W. H. Freeman and Co., 1973), pp. 935, 940, 1196-1217.
23. John Gribbin, "Oscillating Universes Bounce Back," Nature, 259 ( 1976), p. 15.
24. John Gribbin, In the Beginning: After COBE and Before the Big Bang (Boston: Little Brown and Co., 1993), Ch. 9.
25. Stephen W. Hawking and Roger Penrose, "The Singularities of Gravitational Collapse and Cosmology," Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, A314 (1970), pp. 529-548.
26. Stephen W. Hawking, A Brief History of Time (New York: Bantam Books, 1988), pp. 50-51 and Ch. 8.
27. Roger Penrose, "Some Remarks on Gravity and Quantum Mechanics," in Quantum Structure of Space and Time, eds. M. J. Duff and C. J. Isham (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1982), p. 4.
28. See John Boslough, Stephen Hawking's Universe (New York: Avon Books, 1989), p. 40. See also Michael White and John Gribbin, Stephen Hawking: A Life in Science (New York: Penguin Books, 1992), pp. 178-179; L. P. Grishchuk and Ya. B. Zeldovich, "Complete Cosmological Theories," in Quantum Structure of Space and Time, eds. M. J. Duff and C. J. Isham (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1982), p. 414; George Smoot and Keay Davidson, Wrinkles in Time (New York: Avon Books, 1993), p. 186; Chris Isham, "Quantum Gravity," in The New Physics, ed. Paul Davies (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1989), p. 71.
29. Stephen Hawking, Black Holes and Baby Universes and Other Essays (New York: Bantam Books, 1993), p. 91.
30. Ibid., p. 61.
31. Frank J. Tipler, The Physics of Immortality (New York: Anchor Books, 1994 ), pp. 6~5. 71, 117, 136.
32. See Werner Heisenberg, Physics and Philosophy: The Revolution in Modern Science (New York: Harper & Row, 1958), pp. 31-35; Heinz R. Pagels, Perfect Symmetry: The Search for the Beginning of Time (New York: Bantam Books, 1986), pp. 304 ff; George Smoot and Keay Davidson, Wrinkles in Time (New York: Avon Books, 1993), p. 84 n; Victor J. Stenger, The Unconscious Quantum: Metaphysics in Modern Physics and Cosmology (Amherst, N .Y.: Prometheus Books, 1995), pp. 189-190, 201-202, 208-211.
33. See e.g., Leon M. Lederman and David N. Schramm, From Quarks to the Cosmos (New York: Scientific American Library, 1989), p. 161.
34. Timothy Ferris, Coming of Age in the Milky Way (New York: William Morrow and Company, 1988), p. 328. See also Brian Greene, The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1999).
35. Stephen Hawking and Roger Penrose, The Nature of Space and Time, (Princeton, NJ.: Princeton University Press, 1996), p. 38.
36. Michio Kaku, Visions: How Science Will Revolutionize the 21st Century (New York: Anchor Books, 1997), p. 342.
37. From A BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME, by Stephen W. Hawking, copyright© 1988, 1996 by Stephen W. Hawking, p. 50. Used by permission of Bantam Books, a division of Random House, Inc. and Writers House LLC.
38. Hawking and Penrose, The Nature of Space and Time, p. 4. 39. Ibid., p. 103.
40. Hawking, A Brief History of Time, pp. 88-92; Roger Penrose, "Singularities and Time-Asymmetry," in, General Relativity, eds. S. W. Hawking and W. Israel (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1979), pp. 617-629. See also Stephen Hawking, "Theoretical Advances in Relativity," in Some Strangeness in the Proportion, ed. Harry Woolf(Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1980), pp. 145-152.
41. Hawking and Penrose, The Nature of Space and Time. p. 103.
42. Ibid., pp. 99-103.
43. Roger Penrose, "What Does the Big Bang Tell Us about Quantum Gravity?" Memorie della Societa Astronomica ltaliana, 62:3 (1991), p. 612.
44. Ibid., p. 612.
45. Ibid., pp. 610-612.
46. Ibid., p. 614.
47. Hawking, A Brief History of Time, p. 50.
48. Ibid., p. 138.
49. Ibid., p. 139.
50. Ibid.
51. Hawking, Black Holes and Baby Universes and Other Essays, pp. 81-83, 92, 96.
52. Hawking, A Brief History of Time, p. 136.
53. Carl Sagan, "Introduction," Hawking, A Brief History of Time, p. x.
54. Hawking, A Brief History of Time, p. 139.
55. Robert Jastrow, "What Forces Filled the Universe with Energy Fifteen Billion Years Ago?" in Cosmos, Bios, Theos, eds. Henry Margenau and Abraham Varghese (La Salle, Ill.: Open Court, 1992), p. 49.
56. Hawking, Black Holes and Baby Universes and Other Essays, p. 111. 57. Hawking and Penrose, The Nature of Space and Time, pp. 98, 101, 106, 119, 131, 137.
58. Hawking, A Brief History of Time, pp. 110-113.
59. Ibid., pp. 135-141.
60. Ibid., pp. 8, 166.
61. See the many essays in David R. Griffin, ed. Physics and the Ultimate Significance of Time (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1986), esp. David Griffin's "Preface," pp. vii-xv, and his "Introduction: Time and the Fallacy of Misplaced Concreteness," pp. 1--48.
62. John D. Barrow and Mariusz P. Dabrowski, "Oscillating Universes," Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 275 ( 1995), p. 855.
63. Robert J. Russell, "Cosmology, Creation, and Contingency," in Cosmos as Creation: Theology and Science in Consonance. ed. Ted Peters (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1989), pp. 188-189.
64. James Trefel, The Dark Side of the Universe (New York: Avon Books, 1988), p. 189.
65. See: Mark Israelit and Nathan Rosen, "A Singularity-Free Cosmological Model in General Relativity," The Astrophysical Journal, 342 (15 July 1989), pp. 627-634; Mark Israelit, "Cosmological Perturbations in the Early Prematter Universe," The Astrophysical Journal, 435 (1 November 1994), pp. 8-15.
66. Rozental, p. 105.
67. Ibid.
68. Alan H. Guth, The Inflationary Universe: The Quest for a New Theory of Cosmic Origins (Reading, Mass.: Persus Books, 1998), note * on p. 26.
69. Martin Rees, Before the Beginning: Our Universe and Others (Reading, Mass.: Perseus Books, 1997), p. 195.
70. See Timothy Ferris, The Red Limit: The Search for the Edge of the Universe (New York: Quill, 1983), p. 119.
71. Gamow, The Creation of the Universe, p. 35.
72. From THE BIG BANG NEVER HAPPENED by Eric Lerner, p. 217. Copyright © 1991 by Eric J. Lerner. Reprinted by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a Division of Random House Inc.
73. Velan, The Multi-Universe Cosmos, p. 223.
74. See Roger Penrose, "Singularities of Spacetime," in Theoretical Principles in Astrophysics and Relativity, eds. Norman R. Lebovitz, et al. (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1978), p. 218; P. C. W. Davies, The Accidental Universe (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1982), p. 29; Heinz R. Pagels, Perfect Symmetry: The Search for the Beginning of Time (New York: Bantam Books, 1986), p. 338; Andrei Linde, "Inflation and Quantum Cosmology," in Three Hundred Years of Gravitation, eds. Stephen W. Hawking and Werner Israel (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1987), pp. 611, 620; Joseph Silk, The Big Bang, rev. and updated ed. (New York: W. H. Freeman and Co., 1989), pp. 112-113, 115, 118-119; Mark Israelit and Nathan Rosen, "A Singularity-Free Cosmological Model in General Relativity," The Astrophysical Journal, 342 ( 15 July 1989), pp. 627-628, 633; John Gribbin and Martin Rees, Cosmic Coincidences (New York: Bantam Books, 1989), pp. 68, 256, 280; Paul Davies, The Mind of God: The Scientific Basis for a Rational World (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992), pp. 62-66; George Smoot and Keay Davidson, Wrinkles in Time (New York: Avon Books, 1993), pp. 161, 283; David Bohm and B. J. Hiley, The Undivided Universe: An Ontological Interpretation of Quantum Theory (London: Routledge, 1993), pp. 348, 374; Andrei Linde, Dmitri Linde, and Arthur Mezhlumian, "From the Big Bang Theory to the Theory of a Stationary Universe," Physical Review D, 49:4 (15 February 1994), pp. 1788-1791, 1808; Gribbin. In the Beginning, After COBE and Before the Big Bang, p. 166; Mark lsraelit, "Cosmological Perturbations in the Early Prematter Universe," The Astrophysical Journal, 435 (1 November 1994), pp. 8-9; Victor Stenger, The Unconscious Quantum, 1995, pp. 208-209, 219-220; Sten Odenwald, "Space-Time: The Final Frontier," Sky & Telescope, 91 :2 (February 1996), pp. 27-29; Martin Rees, Before the Beginning: Our Universe and Others, pp. 172, 21 O; Brian R. Greene, The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory (New York: W.W. Norton, Co., 1999), pp. 236, 239, 252-254,357-358.
75. Milton Munitz, The Mystery of Existence (New York: Appleton-CenturyCrofts, 1965), p. 141.
76. Ibid., p. 139.
77. Ibid., p. 141.
78. Robert Jastrow, "Science and the Creation," in Creation, ed. Thomas H. Schattauer (New Haven: Yale Divinity School. 1980), p. 35.
79. Hawking, A Brief History of Time, p. 51.
80. Kaku, Visions: How Science Will Revolutionize the 21st Century, p. 351.
81. Roger Penrose, Shadows of the Mind (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), p. 257.
82. Pagels, Perfect Symmetry, p. 167.
83. Rees, Before the Beginning: Our Universe and Others, p. 169; see also p. 195.
84. John Gribbin and Martin Rees, Cosmic Coincidences: Dark Matter, Mankind, and Anthropic Cosmology (New York: Bantam Books, 1989), p. 68.
85. Israelit and Rosen, "A Singularity-Free Cosmological Model in General Relativity," 1989, p. 628.
86. Jonathan J. Halliwell, "Quantum Cosmology and the Creation of the Universe." Scientific American, 265 :6 (1 December 1991 ), p. 82.
87. Paul Davies, "The First One Second of the Universe," in Images of the Universe, ed. Carole Stott (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1991 ), p. 209.
88. Alan Lightman and Roberta Brawer, Origins: The Lives and Worlds of Modern Cosmologists (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1990), pp. 18, 19.
89. MacRobert, "Beyond the Big Bang," p. 213.
90. Steven Weinberg, The First Three Minutes: A Modern View of the Origin of the Universe, updated ed. (New York: Basic Books, 1988), p. 154.
91. Ya. B. Zel'Dovich and I. D. Novikov, The Structure and Evolution of the Universe (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1983), pp. 658-663.
92. Ibid., pp. 220, 221.
93. Ibid., pp. 468, 474.
94. S. A. Bludman, "Thermodynamics and the End of a Closed Universe," Nature, 308 (March 1984), p. 322.
95. Charles W. Misner, Kip S. Thorne, John A. Wheeler, Gravitation (New York: W. H. Freeman & Co., 1973), pp. 1214 ff.
96. M. A. Markov, "Problems of a Perpetually Oscillating Universe," Annals of Physics, 155 (1984), p. 490.
97. Ibid., p. 335. See also pp. 344 and 354.
98. R. H. Dicke and P. J. E. Peebles, "The Big Bang Cosmology-Enigmas and Nostrums," in General Relativity, eds. S. W. Hawking and W. Israel (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1979), pp. 511-512.
99. Stephen Toulmin, The Return to Cosmology: Postmodern Science and the Theology of Nature (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982), pp. 35-52.
100. Ibid., p. 42.
101. Ibid., pp. 42-43.
102. Ibid., p. 39.
103. Stenger, The Unconscious Quantum, p. 265.

At least two twentieth-century cosmologies offered in the name of natural science would regard as a loaded question because it presupposes that the Big Bang really happened, and that it created our whole universe. According to Steady State Cosmology and Plasma Cosmology, there never was a cosmos-making Big Bang. As Eric Lerner, a Plasma Cosmologist, expressed it in the title of his 1991 book: The Big Bang Never Happened; but this is a small minority view among today's cosmologists. A few skeptics about the Big Bang still cling to Steady State Cosmology,¹ but this position is now mainly of historical interest, except to Fred Hoyle. Lerner's challenge to Big Bang Cosmology is serious, well developed, and deserves and receives the most attention in the following pages.

1. Steady State Cosmology

In 1948, Big Bang Cosmology did not dominate the field as it does today. The redshift of the galaxies was well confirmed by then, and Hubble's law was available to calculate their rate of expansion. George Gamow's associates, Ralph Alpher and Robert Herman, published a paper in 1948 in which they predicted the existence of background radiation as a lasting relic of the Big Bang. They calculated its temperature at five degrees Kelvin, two degrees higher than currently accepted; but for years no one paid much attention to their prediction or tried either to confirm or falsify it. The Big Bang gained its contemporary dominance when this microwave background was actually found by radio astronomers Amo Penzias and Robert Wilson in 1965, but this information was not available in 1948.

In 1948, alternative cosmologies had a chance, especially the Steady State theory developed and published that year by Fred Hoyle, Thomas Gold, and Hermann Bondi. This theory tried to explain how the universe could appear constant, orderly, and unchanging to all observers at all times despite the fact that it is also expanding and dissipating its order and mass/energy. Steady State Cosmology said that the observable universe of all observers throughout infinite time and space would contain essentially the same quantities of entropy, background radiation, redshifted galaxies, and stars or other configurations. The heavens would always be steady or constant, on average, despite the continuous disappearance of stars and galaxies over the horizon of visibility in accord with Hubble's law. How is this possible?

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To reconcile sameness of observable mass with disappearance of observable mass, Steady State Cosmologists resorted to creation, but not the all-at once creation of Christian or Big Bang Cosmology. Hoyle and Bondi posited an infinitely prolonged process of continuous creation. Throughout infinite space and infinite time, just enough hydrogen atoms are created to replenish the supply within every astronomer's observable universe. Given enough time, gravitational attraction forms new background radiation and new gaseous clouds from the newly created particles. Gravity concentrates these gaseous clouds into new stars and galaxies to replace those lost to view through the Hubble expansion process. Thus, throughout infinite time and space, the universe always looks basically the same, in a steady state, to all observers everywhere.²

Continuous creation is not wrought by God or any transcendent reality, according to Hoyle and Bondi. Their metaphysics was thoroughly naturalistic and this-worldly. Hoyle asked: "Where does the created material come from?" and he answered that matter is responsible for it. "Matter that already exists causes new matter to appear. Matter chases its own tail. "³ Matter does not create new matter out of old matter or out of pre-existent energy. If it did, nothing would be left after a finite interval to feed the Hubble expansion, and the universe would be empty and dead. Like God, matter creates matter out of nothing. Just how, Steady State Cosmologists did not say.

According to Hoyle, the creation of matter by matter ex nihilo is a slow process, but in an infinite amount of time it really adds up. "The average rate of appearance of matter," he wrote, "amounts to no more than the creation of one atom in the course of about a year in a volume equal to that of a skyscraper."⁴ This is enough, nevertheless, to generate the microwave background, to cause the redshift, and to drive the Hubble expansion. "The new material produces a pressure that leads to the steady expansion,"⁵ Hoyle proclaimed.

2. Critique of Steady State Cosmology

Most cosmologists today reject Steady State Cosmology, though Hoyle and a few others tenaciously defended it. What considerations make it implausible?

A. No Observational Evidence

Most seriously, no observational evidence supports the theory of continuous creation. Hoyle almost saw the difficulty when he conceded that "It would be quite impossible to detect such a rate of creation by direct experiment."⁶ Bondi also acknowledged that "It is utterly impossible to observe directly such a rate of creation."⁷ This is certainly true. However, the problem is more serious than detecting the rate of the creation of material particles out of absolutely nothing. Namely, no instance whatsoever of such creation has ever been observed! Even if hydrogen atoms were being created ex nihilo at the rate hypothesized, no one

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could find them, no one has, and no one will. In particle accelerators, a great variety of physical particles can be created out of pre-existing particles and radiant energy; but after the initial creation of the universe itself, no matter has ever been created out of absolutely nothing. No empirical evidence at all supports the theory of continuous creation ex nihilo. Bondi, who saw this very clearly, confessed that the continuous creation of matter by matter out of nothing "is not directly observable."⁸ He argued for the theory nonetheless on the grounds that it is the simplest assumption compatible with the observable facts.⁹ Once the microwave background was discovered in 1965, this was no longer true. A few more recent Quantum Cosmologists surmise that new and enduring particles may arise from quantum fluctuations in the vacuum of empty space; but this, too, has not been verified, and there is ample room for doubt. New particles that endure are created only when actualized energy is injected from outside the vacuum.¹⁰ The vacuum of empty space is not pure nihilo!

B. The Dark Sky, Microwave Background, Redshift, and Hubble Expansion

Without continuous creation of hydrogen atoms from nothing, Steady State Cosmology can not account for the dark sky at night, the microwave background, the redshift, or the Hubble expansion of the universe. Olbers' Paradox, according to which there should be no dark sky at night in an infinite universe, could be resolved, Bondi believed, by the supposition that redshifted light loses energy with distance-enough energy to darken most of the night sky. ¹¹ "Highentropy energy (in the form of radiation)," he wrote, "is constantly being lost through the operation of the Doppler shift in the expanding universe, while lowentropy energy is being supplied in the form of matter." ¹²

Unfortunately for the theory, low entropy energy is not being supplied in the form of new matter. No fresh hydrogen atoms come into being from nothing to replace what is lost to view, to drive the redshift and Hubble expansion, to resupply the ebbing microwave background, or to explain why the sky is dark at night. The omnipresent background radiation, the almost ubiquitous redshift, Hubble's law of uniform expansion, and the dark night sky count decisively against Steady State Cosmology. No observational evidence exists that any matter is being created continuously out of nothing, much less that just the right amount of it exists to replenish what is being lost to view by a relentless Hubble expansion.

C. The First Law of Thermodynamics

Critics of Steady State Cosmology protested that continuous creation violates the First Law of Thermodynamics, which prohibits the creation and destruction of mass/energy. Hoyle replied that the theory is actually necessary to account for conservation only in the observable universe. Energy is conserved because

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exactly enough matter is being created to counterbalance its loss over the horizon due to the Hubble expansion.¹³ Bondi claimed that continuous creation "prevents the approach of the heat death, the state of thermodynamic equilibrium in which no evolution can take place and in which the passage of time has no significance."¹⁴ These responses are inadequate.

Hoyle displaced the "Energy is constant" of the First Law of Thermodynamics, with "Energy that can be observed at any given time is constant." His position is that the total existing amount of mass/energy in the universe is constantly increasing. Real energy is being created continuously out of nothing to preserve the appearance of constancy. Both Steady State and some Big Bang Cosmologies postulate the creation of mass/energy out of nothing, either gradually, or all at once. If energy conservation is construed as a metaphysical principle that guarantees the eternal and necessary existence of all existing mass/ energy, Steady State Cosmology violates this incrementally, but in infinite quantities over infinite time. Big Bang Cosmology violates it in finite quantities during a single resplendent burst. However, as explained in Chapter One, the law of conservation is not a metaphysical principle, despite the claim of the Oscillation Cosmologies introduced in the next chapter that the energy of our universe is derived from an infinite number of prior universes. Understood scientifically, all natural laws, including the laws of thermodynamics, come into being together with the universe and do not antedate it. Steady State Cosmology violates the First Law of Thermodynamics because it posits creation of mass out of nothing within our existing universe; but Standard Big Bang Cosmology does not violate it because "prior to" the universe-creating Big Bang, nothing existed to which the law could have applied, so no such law existed.

D. Antimatter

In particle accelerators, matter and antimatter particles are always produced in pairs; and particle physicists believe that symmetrical particle/antiparticle production is a universal law of nature.¹⁵ In the thermonuclear furnace of the Big Bang, conditions somehow permitted enough matter to prevail over antimatter to produce the universe as we know it. Within our universe, when particle/antiparticle pairs are produced, they immediately annihilate one another in detectable explosions that leave traces of gamma rays.

The law of symmetrical production obviates Steady State theory's continuous creation of hydrogen atoms. If the proton of a hydrogen atom is created, it will be accompanied by an anti proton; and if the electron of a hydrogen atom is created, a positron will accompany it. New particle/antiparticle pairs always immediately annihilate one another. Thus, endless hydrogen atom production in "empty space" is impossible. Continuous creation fails to provide for the renewal of matter and for the elimination of antimatter. If matter/antimatter obliteration were transpiring throughout space, the resulting ubiquitous explo-

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sions and the ensuing omnipresent gamma ray radiation would be readily detectable; but astronomers detect no such all-pervasive occurrences. According to Virginia Trimble, "a few things don't belong anywhere ... [like] antimatter, at least not anywhere in the observable universe, or we would see gamma rays where it meets matter."¹⁶ We just don't find what the theory predicts.

E. Verifying Infinity

Philosophically, Steady State Cosmology presupposes a naturalistic metaphysics that is totally unverified and unverifiable. Hoyle explicitly affirmed the infinity of both time and space, writing that "Theory requires the galaxies to go on forever, even though we cannot see them .... The galaxies are expanding out into an infinite space. There is no end to it all .... The same thing applies to time."¹⁷ Bondi said that "There is no point origin and no initial catastrophe in this theory."¹⁸ Unfortunately, there neither is, nor can there be, a direct or an indirect inductive confirmation of the propositions that time extends infinitely into the past, that it will extend infinitely into the future, and that space extends endlessly in all directions. Logically, inductively, we cannot infer the infinite from the finite, which is all that we ever observe.

Is the infinity of spacetime plausible as an explanatory hypothesis? Since no empirical evidence favors it, why would anyone want to adopt this postulate? Cosmologists like Sandra Faber¹⁹ and Roger Penrose20 confess being attracted formerly to Steady State Cosmology on purely aesthetic grounds, because they found the ideas of endless time and space to be beautiful and those of an initial singularity and an absolute beginning to be ugly. In adopting a general worldview, aesthetic considerations may be inescapable in the final analysis; but most rational persons are skeptical of attempts to ground metaphysical worldviews primarily or prematurely on aesthetic preferences. Atheistic philosophers and astrophysicists definitely would not allow theologians to get away with believing in God merely because God is beautiful; so why should they get away with affirming an infinite Godless universe just because they find the thought of it beautiful?

In 1989, Fred Hoyle still defended Steady State Cosmology in an article²¹ and in an interview conducted in August of that year. In the interview about his earlier work, he commented: "I don't really work in terms of belief. I didn't go beyond saying that the steady theory is a possibility."²² However, his books and articles do not disclose that Hoyle cared only about possibilities. Yes, anyone who wants to know the actual world must explore possibilities, but mere possibilities are very cheap. They require no empirical knowledge at all, no experiments, and no verification whatsoever (all dear to the heart of Hoyle). As Leibniz proposed, being possible means nothing more than that the concept of something is free from logical self-contradiction. Matter that is actually antimatter is not possible; but matter that really is matter is possible. Pure possibilities

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give us no information at all about our actual world, except that it too is a possible world. Philosophers play interminable games with abstruse possibilities; but we expect more from scientific cosmologists. Usually they expect more of themselves.

To summarize, Steady State Cosmology was developed as an alternative to the somewhat primitive versions of Big Bang theory that were available in the late 1940s. Steady Staters were convinced that Big Bangers did not know what they were talking about, and vice versa. According to Hoyle and his associates, our universe is infinite in space and time; it has always been here; so no Big Bang is required to explain it. Their confidence that on a large scale the universe has always looked, on average, very much as it does today had to be reconciled somehow with the Hubble expansion. How can the observable universe always contain the same amount of intergalactic mass/energy if and when galaxies are constantly disappearing over the horizon of visibility due to the Hubble expansion process? Hoyle and Bondi resorted to continuous creation of matter out of nothing by pre-existing matter to account for the eternal renewal of mass/energy in the visible universe.

For many reasons, Steady State Cosmology is not plausible. No empirical evidence supports the continuous creation of matter out of nothing by preexisting matter. Without continuous creation, Steady State Cosmology cannot account for the background radiation, the redshift of the galaxies, the Hubble expansion, and the dark sky at night. Continuous creation of matter out of nothing violates the First Law of Thermodynamics, according to which total mass/energy in the entire universe, not just the observable universe, is constant. Particles of matter and antimatter are always created together and then annihilate one another immediately; but no observations confirm the ubiquitous and continuous annihilation that should accompany ongoing matter/antimatter creation; and if it happened, we and our material world would not be here. Finally, the boundlessness of space and time are totally unverified and unverifiable, infinitely beyond the limits of scientific methods and knowledge. These metaphysical beliefs cannot be counted as scientific knowledge, and no convincing philosophical arguments support them. Crucial evidence for Steady State Cosmology is Jacking. The evidence against it is overwhelming.

Perhaps another cosmology that affirms the boundlessness of spacetime is more credible. We tum now to Plasma Cosmology. Can it succeed where Steady State Cosmology failed?

3. Plasma Cosmology and Eric Lerner's Critique of the Big Bang

Today, occasional minor anomalies may not quite fit, but Big Bang Cosmology is massively supported and far from discredited. Big Bang Cosmology indisputably dominates all others; but it is not without its critics. A few astrophysicists emphasize transient discrepancies between the theory and available data, but

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these discrepancies are constantly being resolved. In 1991 Eric Lerner published The Big Bang Never Happened. Lerner's primary objections to the Big Bang, the central physical and metaphysical features of his Plasma Cosmology, and the basic flaws in his position will be discussed next. Interested readers should peruse his informative and challenging book for themselves.

A few cosmologists announced during the 1980s that they had found serious difficulties with the Big Bang theory of cosmic origins. Eric Lerner builds on their work and argues that discrepancies between theory and observation are significant enough to falsify Big Bang Cosmology. As he summarizes his main criticisms,

The test of scientific theory is the correspondence of predictions and observations, and the Big Bang has flunked. It predicts that there should be no objects in the universe older than twenty billion years and larger than 150 million light-years across. There are. It predicts that the universe, on such a large scale, should be smooth and homogeneous. The universe isn't. The theory predicts that, to produce the galaxies we see around us from the tiny fluctuations evident in the microwave background, there must be a hundred times as much dark matter as visible matter. There's no evidence that there's any dark matter at all. And ifthere is no dark matter, the theory predicts, no galaxies will form. Yet there they are, scattered across the sky. We live in one.²³

The following doubts arise about Big Bang Cosmology, according to Lerner.

A. Large-Scale Structures

Is the universe too immense for Big Bang Cosmology? Astronomers have now mapped and measured large sectors of the heavens. They found galaxies clustered together in vast strings, sheets, webs, and tapestries, separated by huge voids of seemingly empty space. These clusters of galaxies are themselves clustered into superclusters, separated by immensities of near emptiness. The superclusters are grouped into patterned megaclusters, divided by vast expanses of barrenness, almost without end. Age is correlated with size and velocity in an expanding spacetime system, and the age and magnitude of space in the observable universe are unimaginably vast.

Both the age and the size of the universe are far too great for Big Bang Cosmology, according to Eric Lerner. Big Bang Cosmology can allow for no objects older than twenty billion years at most, and no expanses greater than one hundred fifty million light years across; but the universe accessible to the best modem telescopes is radically different from what the Big Bang theory predicts. Lerner claims that some supergalaxies are between one hundred to one hundred

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and fifty billion years old, at least five times older than Big Bang theory can accommodate.²⁴ If some galaxies formed from an earlier state in which matter was spread smoothly through space, this matter must have moved for at least eighty billion years to arrive at its visible distribution; but the Big Bang says that the entire universe is at most only twenty billion years of age.²⁵ This theory cannot be saved by moving back the time of the initial explosion, Lerner contends, for that would be incompatible with the measured pace of the Hubble expansion.²⁶

B. Dark Matter and the Galaxies

Does enough matter or mass/energy exist in the universe to explain how the galaxies were formed? This question is closely related to others, Lerner thinks. Is our universe closed rather than open? Does enough mass/energy exist to enable gravity to halt and reverse the universe's expansion? Enough mass to form the galaxies would equal that required to close the universe, according to Lerner.²⁷ Other cosmologists doubt that the relation of mass to forming galaxies and closing the universe is so exact. Stephen Hawking, who concedes uncertainty about it, suggests that "A tenth of the critical density would be enough matter for galaxies and stars to form."²⁸

In Big Bang Cosmology, galaxies form as a result of tiny initial irregularities or fluctuational flukes in the early universe that spread over time to detach large irregular chunks of radiant energy and gases from one another. Later, many of these gaseous expanses solidified as gravity concentrated them into supergalaxies, galaxies, their stars, halos, and smaller clouds of gas and dust. Lerner insists that not enough physical mass/gravity exists in the galaxies or elsewhere to do the job. Big Bang Cosmologists assume that gravitational energy is the dominant force in the universe and that it caused the galaxies to form. Many believe that it will ultimately reverse the expansion of the universe. Without sufficient mass, there is not enough gravity for either purpose; and, Lerner contends, the observable mass definitely is not there.

The visible mass in the universe is only two percent at most of what is required to close the universe and form the galaxies, Lerner claims. Other cosmologists readily acknowledge that the luminous mass in the universe is barely one to two percent of the critical mass necessary to close the universe.²⁹ Ninety eight percent or so of the mass required to close the universe and form the galaxies is missing, says Lemer.³⁰ If Big Bang Cosmology is right, there should be no galaxies; but galaxies exist; so Big Bang Cosmology is wrong, Lerner concludes.

To save the theory, Lerner suggests, Big Bang Cosmologists conjure up massive quantities of cold dark matter and claim that it comprises ninety-eight percent or so of the physical universe. The trouble is, no one can find it! Astronomers can detect only the hot luminous matter that appears in the optical, ultra-

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violet, X-ray, gamma-ray, infrared, and radio regions of the spectrum; but this luminous matter falls significantly short of what Big Bang Cosmology requires. Rather than give up the Big Bang theory, its advocates concoct imaginary stuff that is not there. Big Bang Cosmology can be defended, Lerner charges, only by arbitrarily postulating the existence of purely fictional entities, a process akin to adding epicycles to defend the Ptolemaic geocentric theory of the solar system.

The cold dark matter of Big Bang Cosmology is merely deduced from theory, Lerner says, without a trace of observational support; and other prominent astrophysicists agree.³¹ This missing mass, theorists concede, is not conventional matter like protons, neutrons, and electrons; if it were, it would be luminous. Radically different unobserved kinds of matter must exist in massive quantities to close the universe; so theorists concoct exotic particles like heavy neutrinos, axions and WIMPs (Weakly Interacting Massive Particles) which, by their own admission, no one has ever found. Astronomer Vera Rubin mentions "neutrinos, gravitinos, photinos, sneutrinos, axions, magnetic monopoles, and dozens more. "³² . If they exist, they could easily supply the missing mass required to form the galaxies and close the universe. "Their only drawback," Lerner observes, is "that as in the case of cosmic strings, there is no evidence that they exist."³³ This drawback, if sustained, is quite serious indeed!

Actually, we possess significant empirical evidence for the existence of some cold dark matter. It is obtained by first measuring the velocities of stars in galaxies, and of galaxies in clusters. Then the gravitational force, and thus the mass, required to hold them in orbit or cause their observed movements is calculated. Finally, the mass of detectable luminous matter is subtracted from the required mass. The results indicate that observable matter is only a small fraction of what is necessary to prevent orbiting stars and galaxies from flying apart. According to Vera Rubin, at least 90 to 99 percent of the matter in the universe is dark matter that is "detected by its gravitational attraction on the matter which we can see."³⁴ Whether enough dark matter really exists to close the universe is a matter of heated controversy among contemporary cosmologists. As William Fowler put it, "According to the Caltech religion, the universe is open, and according to the Princeton superstition, it's closed."³⁵

Lerner attempts to explain away all empirical evidence for dark matter. Citing research done by other astronomers, Lerner argues that dark matter is accepted by many astronomers because they greatly overestimate the masses of measured galaxies and clusters in two ways. These astronomers either count "interlopers," on this side or the other of observed galaxies as if they actually belong to the galaxies they are weighing,³⁶ or else they count small galaxies completely beyond the gravitational field of larger galaxies as if they belong to them. Either way, the mass and gravity of a measured galaxy will be greatly overestimated.³⁷ Lerner concludes that "These two errors would account for all of the "missing mass"; in pairs of galaxies, groups of galaxies, and clusters

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there is no dark matter."³⁸ Both of Lerner's explanations seem irrelevant, however. Whether or not interloper or nearby galaxies are beyond, before, or outside the gravitational fields of focal galaxies, their mass is there in the universe nonetheless.

Very few astronomers are persuaded that all cold dark matter can be explained away so easily. Much more evidence is available for the existence of cold dark matter than Lerner's exposition suggests. As Vera Rubin points out, the velocities of the outermost stars in spiral galaxies are not significantly less than the velocities of the innermost stars, which indicates the presence of dark matter because visible matter cannot explain this motion. Spiral galaxies are very different from our solar system, where planetary velocities decrease with increasing distance from the Sun, in accord with Newton's law that gravitational attraction decreases as distance increases.³⁹ The luminous centers of spiral galaxies seem to contain the most matter, so we would expect the velocities of their outermost stars to decrease, like the outermost planets of our solar system; but this does not happen.⁴⁰ Why? According to Rubin, "The conclusion is inescapable: matter, unlike luminosity, is not concentrated near the center of spiral galaxies. In short, the distribution of light in a galaxy is not at all a guide to the distribution of matter."⁴¹ Thus, much dark matter must be there within the galaxy and/or its surrounding "dark halo."

Lerner concludes that even if some dark matter exists, contemporary measurements of celestial mass disclose "far too little to 'close the universe' and solve the various problems confronting the Big Bang theory."⁴² Many contemporary cosmologists agree. Lerner probably loses the battle over the non-existence of dark matter, but he wins the war over whether enough of it exists to close the universe. Vera Rubin's studies of galactic dynamics disclose some missing mass; but, she admits, when all this dark matter is added in, the universe still has a critical density of .2 at best,⁴³ still far short of the critical density of 1. James Trefel remarked in 1988 that after including all detectable dark matter, we are left with only thirty percent of the critical value required for closing the universe.⁴⁴ Similarly, in 1990 H. Reeves wrote,

The best estimates of the total (baryonic and nonbaryonic) cosmic density, from dynamic effects on galactic motions, yield values around ten percent of the closure density .... There is no sound proof of the existence of a nonbaryonic matter contributing in a major way to the total density of the universe.⁴⁵

In late 1995, Joshua Roth and Joel R. Primack affirmed that "counting the universe's luminous inhabitants-galaxies ... only adds up to at most about one percent of the critical density," and that "galaxy halos typically contain enough dark matter to contribute at least 13 percent of the critical density, with preferred values exceeding 30 percent."⁴⁶ Many astronomers estimate the total dark

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and luminous mass to be around thirty to forty percent of critical mass.⁴⁷ Sixty percent or more of the mass required to close the universe can be provided only by postulating the existence of an odd attracting, not an Einsteinian repelling, Cosmological Constant, or by assigning significant mass to neutrinos. Neutrinos were found in 1998 to have a tiny mass,⁴⁸ but they add only another tenth of critical mass at most; and an attracting Cosmological Constant is nothing more than an ad hoc hypothesis unsupported by empirical evidence.⁴⁹ Any implausible theory can be saved if we are willing to posit enough epicycles and to violate egregiously the scientific principle of parsimony.

As far as we can tell, the density of our universe is only a small fraction of one, Omega, or critical density. Some non-luminous matter may be tied up in black holes, brown dwarfs-as confirmed by the Hubble Telescope in 1995, dim stars, and interstellar gas and dust; but astronomers were stunned in 1994 by the failure of the Hubble Telescope to find such things where most expected.

Some dark mass may be totally different in kind from any matter with which we are familiar; but when all the dark matter we can find is added to luminous matter, the total mass is at best only four percent or so of critical mass, according to an extensive review of all available evidence by Peter Coles and George Ellis in 1994.⁵⁰ Recent attempts by more than one research team to "weigh" the universe by examining the redshift of distant supernovae also favor a low-density universe.⁵¹ Estimates of the grand total of dark and luminous matter obviously differ somewhat, but astrophysicists agree substantially that far too little exists to close the universe. Thus, even if some dark matter exists, this does not help very much. Emphasis on insufficient mass is not merely a Lerner eccentricity; many prominent astrophysicists agree that too little mass/ energy exists to reverse the cosmic expansion process and close the universe.⁵² As Coles and Ellis indicate, "On the balance of the evidence, an open Universe should be preferred."⁵³

Conclusive evidence that we live in an open universe now seems to be available. Astronomers were stunned again in early 1998 when two research teams arrived independently at the unexpected result that the rate of cosmic expansion is actually increasing, not decreasing, as almost everyone since Hubble assumed. Gravitation/mass is not even powerful enough to slow down the pace of cosmic expansion, as universally assumed prior to 1998, much less to stop it. Supernovae in far distant galaxies were discovered to be much dimmer and further away (by ten to fifteen percent) than predictions based on a slowing rate of cosmic expansion could explain. The best explanation of their having traveled so much further than expected is that the rate of Hubble expansion is increasing, being driven by the pervasive energy of a repelling Cosmological Constant.⁵⁴ These initial findings were confirmed many times during and since 1998; and by the end of that year, the prestigious journal Science declared the increasing rate of cosmic expansion to be the "Breakthrough of the Year"!⁵⁵

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Most astrophysicists, including Stephen Hawking who at first resisted,⁵⁶ are now convinced that the issue is definitively resolved: we live in an open universe, one that will never end in a Big Crunch. Thus, all cosmologies that presume a closed universe are utterly implausible. Some astronomers caution that the dimmer-than-expected light from these Supernovae might be best explained by the presence of cosmic dust, or by their taking longer than usual to achieve their maximum brightness. So far, the increasing rate of Hubble expansion has withstood every challenge;⁵⁷ and even if the Hubble expansion rate is not increasing, too little mass exists in the universe to close it. High precision observations of the microwave background made in 1999-2000 seem most compatible with a flat universe having an Omega of 1,58 but neither flat nor open universes ever collapse, and both kinds are absolutely incompatible with oscillation ism.

We probably live in an open universe with a finite past that will expand forever, but Lerner contends that an open universe would falsify all forms of Big Bang Cosmology. Readers will soon see that and why this is not so.

C. Cosmic Heterogeneity

Is the universe as homogeneous and isotropic as required by Big Bang Cosmology, or is it too clumpy and structured? Without dark matter and its gravitational effects, Big Bang theory cannot account for the heterogeneity of the universe, Lerner contends; but Plasma Cosmology can readily explain the formation of stars, solar systems, galaxies, supergalaxies, and cosmic heterogeneity. Big Bang Cosmology assumes that among the four basic forces of nature, only gravity is available to consolidate gaseous regions of mass/energy into heavenly bodies or into galactic and supergalactic structures.⁵⁹ Relying on the theories and research of Hannes Alfven⁶⁰ and his associates in Sweden, Lerner proposes that electromagnetism can diversify the cosmos, where gravity alone cannot;⁶¹ once we comprehend how electromagnetism operates on plasmas, we will know how the universe came to be structured.

Plasmas are "hot, electrically conducting gases;" and "Over 99 percent of the matter [in the universe] is plasma," Lerner writes.⁶² Plasma Cosmology says that flowing electromagnetic currents pervade our plasma universe; the entire universe is a gigantic electrical power grid: "Plasma cosmologists envision a universe crisscrossed by vast electrical currents and powerful magnetic fields, ordered by the cosmic counterpoint of electromagnetism and gravity."⁶³

Big Bang Cosmology ignores electromagnetism and relies on gravity alone to explain the lumpiness of the universe. This does not work, Lerner insists; but when both electricity and magnetism are considered, the heterogeneity of the universe is adequately explained. Gravity is not the only physical force that draws things together; electromagnetism does also. On a cosmic scale, it and gravity together structure the universe. Lerner's hero, Hannes Alfven, contends

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that "Plasma becomes inhomogeneous naturally," that "Plasma, electrical currents, and magnetic fields work to concentrate matter and energy, to make the universe the complex, dynamic, and uneven place that it is."⁶⁴ Plasma pervaded by electromagnetic currents naturally produces swirling filaments, whirlwinds, and vortices through a "pinch effect" that pulls currents together when they are flowing in the same direction.⁶⁵ On a cosmic scale, these processes produce solar systems, stars, vast strings of galaxies, and enormous filaments ofsuper-galaxies.⁶⁶ Furthermore, "Magnetic fields and currents can concentrate matter and energy far faster and more effectively than can gravity."⁶⁷ Indeed, "Plasma interactions can, given a few hundred billion years, form the supercluster complexes." This is far too long for a Big Bang universe with only twenty billion years at most to spare, but for Plasma Cosmology "time is no problem."⁶⁸ A few hundred billion years hardly matter in an infinitely old universe.

D. Homogeneity and the Microwave Background

Does the microwave background really originate with the very earliest universe? The discovery in 1965 of the microwave background by Penzias and Wilson was crucial in persuading most cosmologists to accept the Big Bang theory of origins. Both the remarkably homogeneous black body radiation coming from everywhere in the universe, and the uniform distribution of matter on a large enough cosmic scale, seem to confirm Big Bang Cosmology's prediction of homogeneity and isotropy in the universe. Big Bangers construe the microwave background to be an enduring remnant of the age of radiation that began only minutes after the eruption of the primordial fireball. Lerner challenges the presumption that this is the only plausible explanation and offers an alternative hypothesis as much more credible.

Lerner's theory is simple. Electrons flowing through magnetic fields emit radio waves and microwaves. The microwave background originates in intergalactic magnetic fields that first absorb and then reemit microwave radiation.⁶⁹ The microwave background appears to come from everywhere rather than from specific intergalactic locales because, after a number of reabsorptions and reemissions, microwaves are scattered in all directions, and their radiation is "smoothed out."⁷⁰ Thus, the microwave background originates in intergalactic space and requires no Big Bang for its explanation.

Another problem, says Lerner, is that the microwave background is too smooth. Big Bang theory proposes that fluctuations and aberrations very early in the universe eventually created supergalaxies, galaxies, and stars. If this actually happened, some inhomogeneities in the microwave background should show up, but they do not, Lerner declares. Preliminary reports from the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) Satellite launched by NASA in 1989 indicated that "the Microwave spectrum is 'too perfect'," and this "rules out any way of

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forming the large scale structure of the universe from the Big Bang."71 This challenge to Big Bang cosmology is very serious, but since Lerner wrote, the tables have turned decisively against him.

E. The Hubble Expansion and the Infinite Universe

Could the universe expand in accord with Hubble's law without a Big Bang? If so, how so? Lerner's Plasma Cosmology is not easily reconciled with the Hubble expansion of the universe and the redshift from distant galaxies. Like Steady State Cosmology, Plasma Cosmology incorporates a non-empirical metaphysics of infinite space and endless time. Steady State Cosmology tried to reconcile the Hubble expansion with an infinite and eternal universe by postulating everlasting continuous creation. How can Plasma Cosmology repudiate both the Big Bang and continuous creation, yet affinn the Hubble expansion? Lerner admits that this is not easy!

The Hubble expansion cannot be explained away, though Lerner would like to do so. Most cosmologists identify the redshift of the galaxies with the Doppler effect, and Lerner agrees after examining alternative proposals. In an Appendix,72 Lerner discusses and rejects two alternative explanations for the redshift, first that light simply gets tired or loses energy as it travels through long distances (as Bondi believed), next that some unknown physical law causes the scale of everything to expand with time. Lerner repudiates the first because it requires a much greater density of matter than is available and because there is no evidence that anything absorbs energy from traveling photons. The second view is unacceptable because it cannot be confinned and because it involves new, unverifiable, and implausible laws of physics. Lerner concedes that since light arriving from a source moving away from an observer shifts toward the red end of the spectrum, the galaxies must be moving away from us as the universe expands.

To explain the Hubble expansion, Lerner prefers a proposal developed by Alfven, according to whom it results from what I will call a "Mini-Bang," though this is not Lerner's tenninology. Lerner thinks that a Mini-Bang (perhaps more than one) occurred when a limited region of the infinite universe was blown apart by a colossal matter/antimatter collision to fonn our observable universe.

Alfven and Lerner are convinced that substantial quantities of antimatter exist in the infinite vastness of space. It is nonnally separated from our material comer of the universe by electromagnetic vortices, but occasionally matter and antimatter collide. Billions of years ago, in our small comer of the infinite cosmos, matter contracted gravitationally, not to a singularity, but to a hundred million light-years across, a tenth of its present size.⁷³ Massive quantities of matter and antimatter just happened to be in the same vicinity, so one or more matter/antimatter explosions occurred, producing our observable expanding

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universe or "metagalaxy." If the Big Bang never happened, Lerner must still answer the question: "What caused the Mini-Bang?" He answers that ten to twenty billion years ago it resulted from a gigantic collision of matter with antimatter in our little comer of infinite space. Residual kinetic energy from that explosion accounts for the Hubble expansion, ⁷⁴ which was "in no way a Big Bang that created matter, space, and time. It was just a big bang, an explosion in one part of the universe."⁷⁵

Lerner's Plasma Cosmology thus resorts to a Bang after all, but only a metagalaxy-producing Mini-Bang. Not surprisingly, he abhors the outcome that he embraces.⁷⁶ He concludes, "The question of the Hubble relation remains unanswered," and "Far more theoretical and observational work is needed."⁷⁷ But "Why the Hubble expansion?" remains unanswered only if Big Bang Cosmology is rejected! Big Bang theory provides a very plausible answer!

Plasma Cosmology invites a number of serious questions. Is the entire infinite universe expanding like the observable universe? Is this a material world through and through? Plasma and Big Bang Cosmologies give very different answers.

What would Plasma Cosmologists expect to find if we could see very deeply into infinite spacetime? What are those parts of the universe like that were not affected by our localized Mini-Bang? Lerner does not answer, but we can make some educated guesses and predictions. Since most of the allegedly infinite universe was not affected by our Mini-Bang, it would not be involved in our Hubble expansion. Other metagalaxies might express their own expansions or contractions. Some of them might be headed directly toward us. Some might be composed of antimatter or, heaven forbid, even dark matter; and they could exhibit radically different natural laws.

How could our own metagalaxy belong to the "same universe" with innumerable causally unrelated metagalaxies? Lerner neither asks nor answers, but the question deserves some serious consideration. Could any two metagalaxies belong to a single universe without any causal connections or lawful spatiotemporal continuities, at least at their edges? These edges might be so far away from local astronomers that they could not observe any metagalactic interactions. Totally independent universes might exist without causal contact and spatiotemporal continuity; but if metagalaxies belong to the same universe, surely they must affect one another, be spatiotemporally continuous, and share many if not all natural laws. Actually, Plasma Cosmologists do not have the slightest trace of scientific evidence that the universe is infinite, that other metagalaxies exist (like Lerner's alleged matter and antimatter worlds that collided to produce our world), or that they are distantly continuous with our own. Even if these presumptions were true, we could never know it. Very few, if any, metagalaxies in Lerner's infinite universe ever affect our observable world, so how could they belong to our universe?

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Big Bang cosmologists, by contrast, do not identify the whole expanding universe with the observed or observable universe, but they think that it is finite and in principle observable and continuous with our own causally, spatially, temporally, and in other ways. They expect to investigate more and more of it as better instruments like the Hubble Space Telescope are deployed, repaired, and upgraded. They predict that the most general features of the as yet unseen far distant universe will significantly resemble what we have seen already. This has always been the case as better scientific instruments have allowed us to probe deeper and deeper into the unknown universe, and it should not change. Big Bang Cosmologists expect the now unknown universe out there to be composed mostly of matter, not antimatter, and to obey familiar physical laws, including Hubble's law ofuniform expansion. Results obtained from the Hubble Space Telescope consistently confirm these expectations.

The further out we look in space, the further back we see in time; even at the speed of light, considerable time, billions of years in some instances, lapses before photons and radiant energy reach us from far distant objects. Big Bang Cosmologists expect the most distant objects in the universe to be moving away from us and from one another at speeds roughly proportional to their distance, with minor variances due to local gravitational fields. These speeds, they anticipate, will gradually approach the speed of light. They expect that the most distant objects in the heavens will be observed in their youth, as they were billions of years ago when their light and radiant energy now arriving here departed from there. So far, with every improvement in technology, their predictions pan out.

Some of the most distant objects that astronomers have discovered thus far are the quasars-starlike objects that contain as much mass/energy as entire galaxies. In late 1998, quasars that are thirteen billion light years away were detected.⁷⁸ Quasars, seen in their youth, are some of the most distant and thus the oldest celestial objects known to us, but they obey familiar physical laws. In January 1993, radio astronomers, using the facilities at Kitt Peak Observatory in Arizona, discovered giant clouds of gas twelve billion years old in which galaxies are being formed. These clouds contain as much mass as entire galaxies, but no stars had formed in them twelve billion years ago. Since 1996, many additional observations with the Hubble Space Telescope disclosed galaxies as they existed nearly twelve billion years ago, within three billion years of the Big Bang, and found them to be smaller but much closer together and more numerous than those nearer to us in space and time; the small early ones probably merged over time to form the large later galaxies.⁷⁹

The Hubble Space Telescope now provides us with a vision of embryonic protostars and new stars being formed in and ejected from dense clouds of space dust.⁸⁰ Big Bang theory predicts that galaxies go through gaseous phases before they develop into stars and galaxies; and this prediction is now confirmed. In 1994, in a closer galaxy, astronomers identified for the first time a planet in

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orbit around a distant sun in our Milky Way. By the end of 1995 at least four were recognized, with new ones being added almost every month thereafter. By the end of 2000, nearly fifty or so were known, some earth-size, most Jupitersize.⁸¹ As we learn more and more about our universe, we find no far distant metagalaxies or alternate antimatter universes. We just find more and more of what Big Bang Cosmology predicts.

Nothing can be accelerated through existing space faster than the speed of light and cross the speed of light barrier, says the theory of relativity; but the Hubble expansion of space itself can separate celestial objects at faster-than-light speeds, thereby making it impossible for these objects ever to communicate causally. This is the "horizon problem" discussed earlier. According to Hubble's Law, each time the distance doubles, the speed doubles. Without violating relativity, some galaxies are moving away from local observers at speeds that exceed 186,000 miles per second, the approximate speed of light. Objects moving away from us faster than light are forever beyond our horizon of visibility. Their light will never reach us. This is one good reason why we cannot identify the observable universe with the total universe that originated with the Big Bang. Though his estimate is admittedly only approximate, Alan H. Guth surmises that " ... The entire universe is expected to be at least 10²³ times larger than the observed universe; ... the observed universe is only a minute speck in a universe that is many orders of magnitude larger."⁸² This largeness should not be confused with infinity, however.

Astronomers look back in time as they see further away in space, but Big Bang Cosmologists do not expect to see the Big Bang itself, or anything beyond and before the Big Bang. No optical telescope will ever see through the fog of cosmic radiation that lasted for the first 700,000 years. Since the microwave background dates back to the onset of this age of radiation around 300,000 years after the Bang, radioscopes already see at least that far back in time. Milton Munitz speculates that if we could develop telescopic instruments capable of detecting neutrinos, gravitons, magnetic monopoles, or free relic quarks, we could access information coming from the earliest fraction of a second after the Bang.⁸³ Unfortunately, at present we are far from having such instruments. Commenting on the Ligo and Lisa observatories now being constructed to detect gravity waves, Gary H. Sanders and David Beckett observe,

As early as 10^-43 second after the Big Bang, space and time became differentiated and gravitational radiation was able to stream freely in all directions. In principle, LIGO could detect these primordial waves, enabling us to hear at last the hush of the universe's birth.⁸⁴

From this also we are infinitely far removed in practice. We do not know much about our universe, but everything that we do know favors Big Bang Cosmology.

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To summarize, Eric Lerner avidly repudiates the Big Bang theory of cosmic origins. He contends that the Big Bang's ten to twenty billion year age for the universe is far too small to accommodate recently mapped supergalaxies that are a hundred and fifty billion years old. Without massive quantities of dark matter, there is too little gravity for the Big Bang cosmos to form stars, galaxies, and supergalaxies; and no good evidence indicates that any cold dark matter exists. Big Bang theory is oblivious to the power of electromagnetism to form heterogeneous astronomical structures. Electromagnetism accounts for the microwave background without a Big Bang, and the COBE satellite found no evidence of galaxy-producing fluctuations in the cosmic background radiation.

Defenders of the Big Bang can offer intelligent responses to these doubts.

4. Critique of Plasma Cosmology

Plasma Cosmology has its own grave defects, some concerning its physics, and some its metaphysics. Lerner's contention that the universe is infinite in space and time sounds remarkably like old fashioned naturalistic metaphysics. Is he a Naturalist? Many Theists, he notes, also believe that the universe is unbounded in space and time, and they regard an infinite world as an expression of God's infinite creative power. Merely believing in infinite spacetime does not make one a Naturalist. Other Theists believe that the universe is finite in time and space, even though a finite universe implies no more than finite Divine power and creativity. ⁸⁵

Lerner avows that Plasma Cosmology is neutral with respect to atheism and theism, that it "does not demand a creative God and is perfectly compatible without one. But nor does it preclude a creative deity."⁸⁶ This cunning evasion does not successfully conceal Lerner's commitment to a Humanistic Naturalistic worldview. He contends that scientific method alone yields truth, and he rejects all "mythological" explanations.⁸⁷ He develops an optimistic, futuristic, and humanistic understanding of mankind and human values.⁸⁸ He makes no appeal to God, and twice he expresses a decided preference for a naturalistic theory of origins. ⁸⁹ He vehemently defends the principle that all events have (natural) causes against what he regards as irrationalism, occultism, mythology, and mysticism. He even finds antiscientific perspectives, which he opposes, in fashionable but fanciful metaphysical interpretations of quantum physics.⁹⁰

But Lerner's naturalistic Plasma Cosmology has its own serious problems.

A. A Universe Infinite in Space and Time

Unlike Big Bang Cosmology, Plasma Cosmology affirms that the universe is infinite in both space and time. Is it reasonable, is it scientific, to adopt these features of Lerner's Naturalism? If scientific method alone yields truth, what scientific evidence proves that we live in an infinite universe? None at all, even

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if we do! Early in his book, Lerner proclaims that "Philosophers such as Nicholas of Cusa and Giordano Bruno had advocated the idea of a universe unlimited in time and space, eternal and without beginning. But no scientist had justified these notions with hard data."⁹¹ These words tacitly promise to provide hard data later to prove that space and time are infinite; but Lerner never fulfills this promise. Later he reaffirms that the finitude or infinitude of the universe "is a scientific question that must be answered by observation;" but almost immediately he concedes in a footnote that "Strictly speaking, it is not possible to prove scientifically that the universe is infinite. But it is quite possible to claim that we have no observational evidence that it is finite."⁹² Thus, he argues, lack of evidence for finitude counts as evidence for infinity. Are his claims plausible?

First, we observe only finitude, so all our observations count only for finitude. More importantly, we really cannot show that the universe is infinite merely because we have no evidence for its finitude, or against its infinitude. All appeals to lack of evidence are fallacious arguments from ignorance, and they establish nothing.

The naturalist Sidney Hook wrote,

The existence of God, immortality, disembodied souls or spirits, cosmic purpose or design, as these have been interpreted by the great institutional religions, are denied by naturalists for the same generic reasons that they deny the existence of fairies, elves, leprechauns, and an invisible satellite revolving between the earth and the moon.⁹³

So, why should we disbelieve in the existence of such fanciful entities? We could argue that God, disembodied souls, cosmic purpose, pixies, elves, and invisible satellites between us and the moon really exist just because there is no observational evidence against them. No one with any knowledge of logic would accept such an argument from ignorance. Yet, Lerner's central argument for the infinity of nature is no better. Neither logic nor scientific method entitle us to believe something simply because no evidence disproves it. We would surely have to accept the reality of every occult entity imaginable if having no observational evidence against their existence counts decisively as evidence in their favor. Yet, this is all that Lerner or any other naturalist can say for their infinite and self-sufficient universe-there is no evidence against it (which ignores the Big Bang). Lerner's Naturalistic metaphysics hangs on an argumentum ad ignorantium.

We really should disbelieve in pixies, elves, and invisible satellites because, after a thorough search, we find no observational evidence for their existence. Their existence is excluded by the presence of other things that we know to exist. Thorough searches yield knowledge, not ignorance, and justify many negative conclusions. Negative propositions like "There is no butter in the refrigerator," "Unicorns don't exist," and "No stars are composed of antimatter"

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can be confirmed by observation to a very high degree of probability. If we are in no position to make a thorough search, we may not know some things for certain; but we can still know many negative truths within limits of high probability. Still, complete lack of evidence for one theory does not establish its opposite.

So what does the available evidence actually show about our universe? Our most thorough searches disclose only finitude. Empirically or scientifically we can only know finitude, even if the universe is actually infinite. Further, all the positive empirical evidence for the Big Bang (given in Chapter One) counts decisively against the infinity of space and time. Many allegedly scientific cosmologies covered in later chapters accept the Big Bang; but they postulate other universes in ways that leave all accessible evidence and all natural science far behind. For them and for Plasma Cosmology this is a great weakness.

Another subtle but unsound argument for infinite space and time runs through Lerner's book, one from historical association. He says that historical figures like Anaxagoras, Nicholas of Cusa, and Giordano Bruno, who captured the spirit of science and scientific method also believed in an infinite universe. He insinuates that these historical facts somehow imply that the universe really is infinite; but this does not follow. How did Lerner's historical heroes know that the world is infinite? What empirical evidence for it did they adduce? None!

The truth about how Naturalists like Lerner arrive at an infinite universe surfaces when he writes, "Plasma cosmology assumes that, because we now see an evolving, changing universe, the universe has always existed and always evolved, and will exist and evolve for an infinite time to come."⁹⁴ The key word here is "assumes"; but his opponents can just as easily assume the contrary, if that is all that there is to it. Lerner's Infinite-world Metaphysics is merely an unjustified assumption, merely an expression of groundless metaphysical faith. No logic warrants reasoning from finite observational premises to conclusions that affinn infinity, and all the positive evidence for the Big Bang weighs heavily against Lerner's position.

B. Hydrogen and An Infinitely Old Universe

Plasma Cosmology confronts scientific as well as metaphysical obstacles. Our universe is around seventy five percent hydrogen, as spectrographic scans of the heavens repeatedly confirm. If the universe were infinitely old, as Plasma Cosmology maintains, no hydrogen would exist in it today, given the laws of physics as we know them. Hydrogen is constantly being synthesized into helium and heavier elements in the stars; and this hydrogen cycle is irreversible. If nucleosynthesis of hydrogen into helium and the heavy elements has occurred throughout infinite space for an infinite amount of time, every hydrogen atom in the infinite universe would have passed through an infinite number of explod-

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ing supernovas, each of which would have converted some hydrogen into heavier elements. If this has been transpiring for an infinite amount of time, no hydrogen would remain in the universe today. Yet, the hydrogen is there. It makes up nearly seventy five percent of the universe as we know it, and its existence is overwhelming evidence against an infinitely old universe.

Fred Hoyle raised the foregoing objection against his own Steady State Cosmology.⁹⁵ To avoid the difficulty, he resorted to the implausible continuous creation of hydrogen atoms. Can Plasma Cosmology provide an alternative hydrogen-renewing mechanism? Electromagnetism cannot save the theory, for it does not reverse the process of nucleosynthesis. Could Lerner's Mini-Bang solve the problem for Plasma Cosmology? Can hydrogen be renewed periodically in the infinite universe by matter/antimatter annihilations that create infinitely many Hubble-expanding metagalaxies like our own? Lerner has not worked out the physics for this; and the physics that we know is decidedly against it. Matter/antimatter explosions always produce gamma rays, never hydrogen or helium atoms, the dominant elements in our universe.

Besides, no convincing evidence indicates that antimatter exists in sufficient quantities to produce metagalactic Mini-Bangs.⁹⁶ Lerner concedes that evidence for the existence of massive quantities of antimatter is inadequate, and he pleads for "more observation."⁹⁷ Plasma Cosmology replaces the open universe's enigma of the cold dark matter that is not there with that of the antimatter that is not there!

Observation actually shows that very little antimatter exists in the universe, as far as we can tell. If some far away galaxies are composed of antimatter, it might seem difficult at first to know this, according to I. L. Rozental, because "Antimatter emits photons in absolutely the san1e way as matter does."⁹⁸ To us, light from antimatter galaxies would look exactly like light from galaxies composed of matter. However, Rozental adds, galaxies emit particles as well as photons; and antimatter galaxies would emit antiprotons and positrons. If vast quantities of each exist, then somewhere in space antiparticles would be colliding constantly with material protons and electrons. Significant and detectable matter/antimatter annihilations would result; but none have been discovered after extensive searches; so the existence of antimatter galaxies is extremely doubtful.⁹⁹

Lerner might reply that although no discernible antimatter exists now, it might still have existed at the time of the Mini-Bang. According to the Big Bang theory itself, the initial universe-creating thermonuclear explosion was driven primarily by stupendous matter/antimatter collisions; so it too must reconcile the past existence of antimatter with its virtual non-existence at present. Which theory offers the most plausible account of the origin and presence of the antimatter that fueled its Bang? In Big Bang theory, either a surplus of matter prevailed from the outset as a given initial condition of creation, or else both antimatter and matter emerged from X bosons (derived, in tum, from pure

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energy during the first few pre-matter minutes of creation) that decayed irregularly into a material world. How does Plasma Cosmology explain the origin of the massive quantity of antimatter involved in its Mini-Bang? How was it separated from matter? How did it survive annihilation by matter prior to its collision with a material world undergoing metagalactic gravitational collapse?

Lerner recognizes that antimatter is produced on earth whenever matter is derived from energy, so it would be an immense puzzle, he suggests, if this did not happen throughout the universe.¹⁰⁰ Yet, whenever this happens on earth, matter and antimatter immediately annihilate one another, so it would also be a great enigma if this too does not happen throughout the universe; but it doesn't. Lerner claims that antimatter can be separated from matter if both pass through a magnetic field containing a current that squirts matter out in one direction and antimatter out the opposite way. Clouds of matter and antimatter would then form and be pushed apart by the Hubble expansion. Multiple metagalactic gravitational collapses might later bring them together again to produce a Mini-Bang. ¹⁰¹

This explanation cannot be verified directly, Lerner admits.¹⁰² Neither can the standard Big Bang explanation of why we live in a material world, we must concede. The true test of a scientific theory, Lerner contends, is the correspondence of its predictions with observation. Apparently, he regards his cosmology as an explanatory hypothesis that is justified by its fruits; but Plasma Cosmology's explanation of why we do not live in an antimatter world flunks this test. Big Bang Cosmology, with all the supporting evidence presented in Chapter One, passes.

C. The Vastness of the Universe

Lerner proclaims that the visible universe is too vast to have been produced within Big Bang's paltry ten to twenty billion year-old universe. Recall his claim that astronomers have now mapped supergalaxies that are at least one hundred to one hundred and fifty billion years old. This would make them at least five times older than the Big Bang's entire universe. Something has to give!

In astronomy, ages are related to velocities, distances, magnitudes, and masses; and our estimates of age depend on what we know about such things. Lerner's predicament may appear at first to arise because estimates of galactic and supergalactic ages, velocities, distances, sizes, and masses are notoriously inexact. Methods available to astronomers do not yield very precise measurements; but improved methods, enhanced by the power of the Hubble Space Telescope and the Hipparcos Satellite have already given us a much more accurate perspective on the age and composition of the stars and of the cosmos. Astronomical distances are judged by such methods as the parallax, which indicates the displacement of celestial objects when observed at the same

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moment by two different observers in two different places, by the intrinsic brightness of certain stars like the Cepheid variables that function as standard candles, and by spectral analyses of redshifts.¹⁰³ The Hubble Space Telescope now views galaxies so far removed from us that Cepheids are not detectable; so today's astronomers are using the intrinsic brightness of exploding supernovae as standard candles for measuring vast cosmic distances.

Hubble's law of uniform expansion affirms that celestial distances increase uniformly in proportion to velocity, and the Hubble constant sets the scale of the universe as the ratio of distances to velocities. Much more detailed and exact measurements of cosmic distances and ages made by the repaired and upgraded Hubble Telescope and by the Hipparcos Satellite¹⁰⁴ have already produced more evident and precise estimates of the age of the stars and of the universe; and it will continue to do so.

Still, the inexactness of measurement on an astronomical scale does not procure more than an eight to twenty billion year variance for the age of the universe. It fails to supply the hundreds of billions of years required by Lerner's "ancient structures." Lerner does not say where he gets his figures. He seems to do his own calculations, but most astronomers simply do not accept them. Discrepancies between dates and data may be dismissed as only a "temporary difficulty," but not a "permanent breakdown of the Big Bang itself."¹⁰⁵ In 1993, George Smoot concluded from his research team's momentous study of the cosmic background radiation by the COBE satellite that doubters about the Big Bang are now proved wrong because

The existence of the wrinkles in time as we see them tell us that big bang theory, incorporating the effect of gravity, can explain not only the early formation of galaxies but also the aggregation within 15 billion years of the massive structures we know to be present in today's universe. This is a triumph for theory and observation.¹⁰⁶

Today, most astronomers would agree, not without justification, that Lerner and others of like mind plainly miscalculate the age and the vastness of the most ancient structures in the visible universe. The best available numbers clearly support the "Standard Big Bang" model of the origin of the universe.¹⁰⁷

D. Mini-Bangs and the Age of the Universe

If the visible universe is really too vast to have been produced in a mere ten to twenty billion years, as Lerner maintains, then neither Big Bang nor Plasma Cosmology can accommodate the discrepancy. Plasma Cosmology resorts to one or more Mini-Bangs to explain the Hubble expansion, so it has exactly the same problem. If the Big Bang cannot account for the age and expanse of the visible universe, how could Plasma Cosmology's Mini-Bang do any better? In

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describing what followed the Mini-Bang, or the series of them, that allegedly produced our visible world, Lerner fumbles to avoid this difficulty.

Trapped in magnetic fields, these particles drove the plasma apart over hundreds of millions of years. The explosions were small enough not to disrupt previously formed filaments of plasma, so these far more ancient objects still exist today, in expanded form-just as designs printed on a balloon persist while it is inflated.¹⁰⁸

Exactly what Lerner is getting at here is obscure. Are his "ancient objects" within the visible universe, or do they exist only in some theoretically constructed but unexperienced universe? Assuming the first, Lerner may have something like this in mind: The most distant parts of the visible universe contain galaxies and supergalaxies that are a hundred to a hundred and fifty billion years old, he claims. These did not participate in and were not affected by the Mini-Bangs that created the Hubble expansion. Thus, one hundred and fifty billion-year-old structures can exist within a metagalaxy that is only ten to twenty billion years old. The force of the Mini-Bangs that created our visible universe bypassed these structures, but somehow they were swept into our visible universe. How did this happen? Why did the Mini-Bangs not destroy them?

Because vast cosmic structures that antedate our Mini-Bang(s) (which other astronomers cannot find) would defy Hubble's law of uniform expansion, Lerner's explanation does not work. Except for gravity-bound galaxies like the Andromeda Galaxy and our own Milky Way, all structures in the visible universe, no matter how vast, participate uniformly in the Hubble expansion on a cosmic scale. None proceed through the heavens at a pace that drastically defies Hubble's law. Beyond gravitationally bound local groups, all galactic and supergalactic structures take part uniformly in the Hubble process. According to Sky and Telescope, "that hundreds of galaxies, including our own, are collectively swarming toward a super-massive entity dubbed the Great Attractor ... describe(s) a subtle distortion in the universe's otherwise stately expansion, not its wholesale reversal."¹⁰⁹ Only a single Bang with cosmic-wide effects can account for such ubiquitous cosmic homogeneity. No vast visible plasma filaments exist that are exempt from the effects of a single initial blast.

Lerner concedes that his "ancient objects" exist today "in expanded form"; but what caused their expansion if they were not brought into being, affected by, or disrupted by his own initial Mini-Bang? A matter-antimatter explosion powerful enough to initiate our expanding observable universe would either destroy all nearby pre-existing structures or push them forever beyond our horizon of visibility. Lerner himself cannot account for structures that are hundreds of billions of years old within a metagalaxy he concedes to be only ten to twenty billion years of age.

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E. Electromagnetism and the Age of the Universe

Gravity is too weak, Lerner insists, to concentrate mass/energy into galaxies and supergalaxies in only ten to twenty billion years. However, if, as Lerner maintains, electromagnetic forces can concentrate matter and energy much more effectively and rapidly than gravity, and both gravity and electromagnetism are available to concentrate mass, then his own plasma physics should help to explain how the stars, nebulae, and large scale structures of the universe came into being within Big Bang time. Plasma physics itself seems to make Plasma Cosmology's infinite and eternal universe unnecessary and comes to the support of the Big Bang. Calculations involving causal processes that can concentrate mass into galactic structures and help close the universe must encompass both electromagnetic and gravitational attraction, if Lerner is right. Perhaps electromagnetism and gravity conjointly determine large-scale cosmic structures; and together they determine whether our universe is open-to expand forever, or closed-to slip some day into reverse. Astrophysicists must do the computations; but the recent discovery that the rate of Hubble expansion is increasing, not decreasing, clearly indicates that the combined force of gravity and electromagnetic pinching is insufficient to reverse the course of cosmic enlargement.

F. Background Radiation

Lerner holds that the microwave background can be explained adequately without any appeal to the Big Bang. If he is right, his own metagalaxy-creating Mini-Bang would produce background radiation equal to that produced by a cosmos-creating Big Bang. Yet, all observable background radiation, he maintains, was produced by intergalactic electromagnetic fields. He takes no notice of all this extra background radiation. How much background radiation should astronomers expect to find if Plasma Cosmology is correct? If the radiation Lerner believes to be produced by intergalactic electromagnetic fields is added to the radiation residue of his Mini-Bang, the total would far exceed all the measurable background radiation in the universe. One Bang, whether Mini or Maxi, accounts quite sufficiently for all detected cosmic background radiation. Lerner's Mini-Bang is incompatible with his electrodynamic solution to the background radiation problem. If intergalactic electromagnetic fields could generate all observable background radiation, and if his Mini-bang would do exactly the same, there should be twice as much background radiation as there actually is. But there isn't.

G. The Smoothness of the Universe

With new instruments of exploration like the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) Satellite, astronomers can now "see" back to within 300,000 years after

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the Big Bang. In the preliminary COBE report cited by Lerner, the universe appeared to be too smooth to support the Big Bang account of the origin of heterogeneous structures in the universe like supergalaxies, galaxies, and stars. Originally, as Lerner suggests, COBE investigators found no evidence of fluctuations in the microwave background radiation.¹¹⁰ After he published The Big Bang Never Happened in 1991, another more definitive report on COBE data based on much more detailed analysis was presented to the American Physical Society meeting in Washington, D. C. on 23 April 1992 by George Smoot, who headed the team of COBE researchers.¹¹¹ Members of the Society were electrified by the announcement that "ripples" were indeed detected in the cosmic background radiation.

Variations in temperature thirty millionths of a degree warmer or cooler than average were discovered on a scale of five hundred million light years across. These were originally very tiny, probably no greater than quantum level fluctuations; but over time minute differences become vastly expanded. The astrophysicist Michael Turner remarked that "The Holy Grail has been found. It's that important. If this evidence holds up to scrutiny, it is what we've been looking for 20 years. It confirms our ideas of how structures form."¹¹² Stephen Hawking, exaggerating a bit, called the COBE findings "the discovery of the century, ifnot ofall time."¹¹³ COBE Satellite data also provided evidence for the existence of dark matter, though still far from enough to close the universe. Thus, a primary source of information about the cosmos cited by Lerner to support his position now counts decisively against it.

To summarize, like Steady State Cosmology, Plasma Cosmology affirms the infinity of space and time. Naturalistic atheists like Lerner assume that an infinite universe has always been here, is totally self-sufficient, and requires no Big Bang and no God for its creation. Yet, empirical knowledge reaches its limits long before we arrive at spatiotemporal infinity, so Lerner's avowedly scientific metaphysics is scientifically baseless. Lerner tries to refute Big Bang Cosmology and offers Plasma Cosmology in its place. He emphasizes the dominance of gaseous plasmas in cosmic structures and the enormous cosmic effects of electromagnetism; but Plasma Cosmology comes to grief over the redshift and the Hubble expansion. Lerner reluctantly postulates a Mini-Bang resulting from the gravitational collapse and collision of antecedently existing regions of matter and antimatter to explain the creation of our observable expanding metagalaxy. He affirms that the universe beyond our metagalaxy is infinite and implies that it is not involved in our Hubble expansion. He cannot confirm this, and we should doubt it for many good reasons. If the universe is infinitely old, no hydrogen would remain in it today; but it is almost seventy-five percent hydrogen. Plasma Cosmology offers no mechanism to reverse the process of nucleosynthesis of hydrogen into heavier elements in the stars. No matter-antimatter Mini-Bang could reverse the hydrogen cycle.

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Lerner's visible universe was itself supposedly caused by a Bang ten to twenty billion years ago, so his own theory has the same (unsolved?) problems of scale that he attributes to the Big Bang. If some structures in the visible universe really are a hundred and fifty billion years old but nevertheless participate uniformly in the Hubble expansion, Lerner's own twenty billion-year-old visible universe cannot accommodate them. Most cosmologists do not accept the exaggerated age and size that he assigns to anomalous cosmic structures. If electromagnetism concentrates energy more rapidly than or in addition to gravity, this mechanism actually supports the contention that all visible structures in the universe came into being within Big Bang time.

Lerner's Mini-Bang would also produce a microwave background, so there would be far too much cosmic radiation if, as he contends, intergalactic electromagnetism generates all discernible background radiation. The latest results from the COBE Satellite actually confirm the reality of diversifying structural fluctuations in the microwave background. They also confirm that our universe is exceptionally fine-tuned for life. Calculations by Max Tegmark and Martin J. Rees "show that if the CMB's (Cosmic Microwave Background's) temperature variations were as little as ten times greater or smaller, life as we know it would not exist today."¹¹⁴

Lerner cannot establish an infinite spatiotemporal metaphysical background for his Mini-Bang. On the whole, his case against the Big Bang is very weak. The Big Bang theory of cosmic origins is still without a serious rival. But how did the Big Bang itself originate? At this point, we still have no plausible answer; but other possibilities remain to be explored.

[Notes]

1. See George Smoot and Keay Davidson, Wrinkles in Time (New York: Avon Books, 1993), pp. 246-247.
2. See Fred Hoyle, The Nature of the Universe, rev. ed. (New York: The New American Library, 1964), Ch. 6 and Hermann Bondi, Cosmology, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, England: The University Press, 1961), Ch. 12.
3. Hoyle, The Nature of the Universe, p. 108.
4. Ibid., p. 110.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. Bondi, Cosmology, p. 143.
8. Ibid., p. 149.
9. Ibid., p. 144.
10. A. Karel Velan, The Multi-Universe Cosmos (New York: Plenum Press, 1992), pp. 162-165, 183-184.
11. Bondi, Cosmology, pp. 23-26.
12. Ibid., p. 144.
13. Hoyle, The Nature of the Universe, p. 113.
14. Bondi, Cosmology, p. 144.
15. Martin Rees, Before the Beginning: Our Universe and Others (Reading, Mass.: Perseus Books, 1997), p. 185.
16. Virginia Trimble, "Cosmic Discovery 1998," Sky & Telescope, 97:2 (February 1999), p. 37.
17. Hoyle. The Nature of the Universe, p. 11 \.
18. Bondi, Cosmology, p. 149.
19. Alan Lightman and Roberta Brawer, Origins: The Lives and Worlds of Modern Cosmologists (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1990), p. 326.
20. Ibid., p. 418.
21. Fred Hoyle, "The Steady-State Theory Revived?" Comments on Astrophysics, 13:2 (1989), pp. 81-86.
22. Lightman and Brawer, Origins: The Lives and Worlds of Modern Cosmologists, p. 57.
23. From THE BIG BANG NEVER HAPPENED by Eric Lerner, pp. 39-40.
Copyright © 1991 by Eric J. Lerner. Reprinted by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a Division of Random House Inc.
24. Ibid., pp. 24-25.
25. Ibid., p. 24.
26. Ibid., pp. 31-32.
27. Ibid., pp. 33-34.
28. Stephen Hawking, Black Holes and Baby Universes and Other Essays (New York: Random House, 1993), p. 151.
29. See Peter Coles and George Ellis, "The Case for an Open Universe," Nature, 370 (25 August 1994), pp. 610-612.
30. Lerner, The Big Bang Never Happened, p. 32.
31. See Smoot and Davidson, Wrinkles in Time, pp. 160-161.
32. Vera C. Rubin, "Weighing the Universe: Dark Matter and Missing Mass," in Bubbles, Voids, and Bumps in Time: The New Cosmology, ed. James Cornell (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1991 ), pp. I 02-103. Reprinted with the permission of Cambridge University Press.
33. Lerner, The Big Bang Never Happened, p. 34.
34. Rubin, "Weighing the Universe: Dark Matter and Missing Mass," p. 73.
35. Quoted by Don Page in Lightman and Brawer. Origins: The Lives and Worlds of Modern Cosmologists. p. 404.
36. Lerner, The Big Bang Never Happened, pp. 36ff.
37. Ibid., pp. 38-39.
38. Ibid.
39. Rubin. "Weighing the Universe: Dark Matter and Missing Mass," p. 85.
40. Ibid., pp. 86--87, 90.
41. Ibid., p. 90.
42. Lerner. The Big Bang Never Happened, p. 35.
43. Rubin, "Weighing the Universe: Dark Matter and Missing Mass," pp. 98-99.
44. James Trefel, The Dark Side of the Universe (New York: Avon Books, 1988), p. 117.
45. H. Reeves, "Nuclear Processes in the Early Universe," in Confrontation between Theories and Observations in Cosmology: Present Status and Future Programmes, eds. J. Audouze and F. Melchiorri (Amsterdam: North Holland, 1990), p. 436.
46. Joshua Roth and Joel R. Primack, "Cosmology: All Sewn Up or Coming Apart at the Seams," Sky & Telescope, 91: 1 (January 1996), p. 22. 47. James Glanz, "Exploding Stars Point to a Universal Repulsive Force," Science, 279 (30 January 1998), p. 651.
48. Roth and Primack, "Cosmology: All Sewn Up or Coming Apart at the Seams," pp. 23-26.
49. Ibid., p. 25.
50. Coles and Ellis, "The Case for an Open Universe," p. 609.
51. Saul Perlmutter et al.. "Discovery of a Supermova Explosion at Half the Age
of the Universe," Nature, 391 (I January 1998), pp. 51-54; "Big Crunch Canceled," The Economist, 346 (17 January 1998); "Farthest Supernovae Favor Low-Density Universe," Sky & Telescope 95 (March 1998), p. 19.
52. See e.g., : J. Richard Gott, III. James E. Gunn, David N. Schramm, and Beatrice M. Tinsley, "An Unbounded Universe," Astrophysical Journal. 194 (1974), pp. 543-553; P. J. E. Peebles, "The Mean Mass Density of the Universe," Nature, 321 (1986), pp. 27-32; Alan R. Sandage and G. A. Tammann, "The Dynamical Parameters of the Universe," in Large Scale Structure of the Universe, Cosmology and Fundamental Physics, eds. G. Setti and L. Van Hove (Geneva: ESO and CERN, 1984); Martin Rees, ··concluding Comments: A Cosmologist's View," in G. Setti and L. Van Hove; Joseph Silk, The Big Bang (New York: W. H. Freeman and Co., 1980), pp. 388-393; Coles and Ellis, "The Case for an Open Universe," pp. 609--615. In Lightman and Brauer, Origins: The Lives and Worlds of Modern Cosmologists, see Fred Hoyle (p. 62), Alan Sandage (p. 79), Joseph Silk (p. 195), Vera Rubin (p. 299), and Edwin Turner (pp. 310--313 ). Cf. Roger Penrose in Stephen Hawking and Roger Penrose. The Nature of Space and Time (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996), pp. 119, 137.
53. Coles and Ellis, "The Case for an Open Universe," p. 614.
54. Glanz, "Exploding Stars Point to a Universal Repulsive Force." See also: James Glanz, "Astronomers See a Cosmic Antigravity Force at Work." Nature, 279 ( 27 February 1998), pp. 1298-1299: Ann K. Finkbeiner, "Cosmic Yardsticks: Supernovae and the Fate of the Universe," Sky & Telescope. 96:3 (1998), pp. 38-45; Andrew Watson, "Cosmology: Inflation Confronts an Open Universe," Science, 279: 5356 (6 March 1998), p. 1455; James Glanz, "Exploding Stars Flash New Bulletins from Distant Universe," Science, 280:5366 (May 1998), pp. 1008-1009; Trimble, p. 38; Neta A Bahcall, Jeremiah P. Ostriker, Saul Perlmutter, and Paul J. Steinhardt. "The Cosmic Triangle: Revealing the State of the Universe," Science, 284 (May 28, 1999), pp. 1481-1488. Donald Goldsmith, The Runaway Universe: The Race to Find the Future of the Cosmos (New York: Perseus Pub. Co., 2000); Joshua Roth, "Farthest Supernova Clinches Case for Accelerating Universe." Sky & Telescope 102: 1 (July 2001 ), pp. 20--21.
55. James Glanz, "Breakthrough of the Year: Astronomy: Cosmic Motion Revealed," Science, 282:5397 (18 December 1998), pp. 2156-2157.
56. James Glanz, "American Physical Society: Celebrating a Century of Physics. en Masse." Science (2 April 1999), p. 34.
57. "An Accelerating Universe? Not So Fast." Sky & Telescope. 98:6 (December 1999), p. 18; James Glanz, "No Backing Off From the Accelerating Universe," Science (13 November 1998); James Glanz, "Calculating Weight of Emptiness is No. 1 Cosmological Mystery," Minneapolis Star Tribune (5 December 1999), p. 19 A; Kathy Sawyer, "Cosmic Driving Force?; Scientists' Work on 'Dark Energy' Mystery could yield a New View of the Universe," The Washington Post (19 February 2000), p. A I.
58. Wayne Hu, "Ringing in the New Cosmology," Nature, 404 (27 April 2000), pp. 939-940. See also P. de Bernardis, et al., "A Flat Universe From High-Resolution Maps of the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation," Nature, 404 (27 April 2000), pp. 955-959.
59. Lerner, The Big Bang Never Happened, pp. 15, 41.
60. See Hannes Alfven, Worlds-Antiworlds (San Francisco: W. H. Freeman, Co., 1966).
61. Lerner, The Big Bang Never Happened, p. 41.
62. Ibid., p. 14.
63. Ibid.
64. Ibid., p. 42.
65. Ibid., pp. 42-43.
66. Ibid., pp. 45-49.
67. Ibid., p. 44.
68. Ibid., p. 49.
69. Ibid., p. 50.
70. Ibid.
71. Ibid., p. 31.
72. Ibid., pp. 425-430.
73. Ibid., p. 217.
74. Ibid., p. 52.
75. Ibid.
76. Ibid., pp. 425-428.
77. Ibid., p. 278.
78. James Glanz, "Sky Survey Racks up Record-Setting Quasars," Science, 282 (11 December 1998), pp. 1969-1970.
79. F. Duccio Macchetto and Mark Dickinson, "Galaxies in the Young Universe," Scientific American, 276: 5 (May 1997), pp. 92-99. See also "Hubble Revisits Its Deep Field," Sky & Telescope, 91: I (1999), p. 24.
80. Kazuyuki Omukai and Ryoichi Nishi, "Formation of Primordial Protostars," Astrophysical Journal, 501:1 (20 November 1998), pp. lff; Samantha Parker, "The Eagle's Nest," Sky & Telescope, 91 :2 (February 1996), pp. 32-34.
81. Alan M. MacRobert and Joshua Roth, "The Planet of 51 Pegasi," Sky & Telescope, 91: 1 (January 1996), pp. 38-40; David C. Black, "Other Suns, Other Planets," Sky & Telescope, 92:2 (August 1996), pp. 20-27; William Cochran, "Extrasolar Planets," Physics World, 10:7 (1 July 1997), pp. 31 ff; "New Extrasolar Planets Hint at More to Come," Science, 288:5463 (7 April 2000), pp. 23-25; "Extrasolar Planets Aplenty," Sky & Telescope, 100:5 (November 2000), pp. 24-25.
82. Alan H. Guth, The Inflationary Universe: The Quest for a New Theory of Cosmic Origins (Reading, Mass.: Persus Books, 1997), p. 186.
83. Milton Munitz, Cosmic Understanding: Philosophy and Science of the Universe (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986), pp. 165-166.
84. Gary H. Sanders and David Beckett, "LIGO: An Antenna Tuned to the Songs of Gravity," Sky & Telescope, 100:4 (October 2000), p. 44.
85. Lerner, The Big Bang Never Happened, p. 389.
86. Ibid., p. 403.
87. Ibid., pp. 5, 12, 39, 41, 54, 91, 127, 214, 227, 333, 360, 383, 388, 403, 406, 416.
88. Ibid., Ch. I 0.
89. Ibid., pp. 64, 108.
90. Ibid., pp. 355, 360--362.
91. Ibid., p. 108.
92. Ibid., p. 388.
93. Sidney Hook, The Quest for Being (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1961 ), p. 78.
94. Lerner, The Big Bang Never Happened, p. 41.
95. Hoyle, The Nature of the Universe, p. 109.
96. See Gary Steigman, "Observational Tests of Antimatter Cosmologies," Annual Reviews of Astronomy and Astrophysics, 14 ( 1976), pp. 339-372.
97. Lerner, The Big Bang Never Happened, pp. 225-227.
98.1. L. Rozental, Big Bang Big Bounce (Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 1988), p. 40.
99. Ibid., pp. 40-41; and Trimble, "Cosmic Discovery 1998," p. 37.
100. Lerner, The Big Bang Never Happened, p. 215.
101. Ibid., pp. 216-217.
102. Ibid., p. 218.
103. See Robert P. Kirshner "Measuring the Universe: Redshifts and Standard Candles," in Bubbles, Voids and Bumps in Time: The New Cosmology, ed. James Cornell (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989), pp. 26-49. See also the summary in Wendy L. Freedman, et al., "Distance to the Virgo Cluster Galaxy MlOO from Hubble Telescope Observation of Cepheids," Nature, 371 (27 October 1994), pp. 757-758.
104. Michael Perryman, "Hipparcos: The Stars," Sky & Telescope, 97:6 (June 1999), pp. 40--50.
105. Eugene F. Mallove, "Review of Eric J. Lerner, The Big Bang Never Happened," in Sky & Telescope, 82:5 (November 1991 ), p. 492.
106. Smoot and Davidson, Wrinkles in Time, p. 286.
107. Kim A. McDonald, "Discovery of Largest, Most Ancient Structures in Cosmos Said to Confirm 'Big Bang' Model of Universe's Creation," The Chronicle of Higher Education, 38 (29 April 1992).
108. Lerner, The Big Bang Never Happened, p. 52.
109. "The Great Attractor's Hidden Heart," Sky & Telescope, 91 :6 (June 1996), p. 12.
110. Smoot and Davidson, Wrinkles in Time, p. 242.
111. Ibid., Chs. 11 and 12.
112. McDonald, p. A 9. Also see Sally Stephens, "New Image of the Universe
Soon After Creation: What the COBE Results Mean," Mercury, 21 (May/June 1992), pp. 91-92 and Michael D. Lemonick, "Echoes of the Big Bang," Time (4 May 1992), pp. 62ff.
113. Smoot and Davidson, Wrinkles in Time, p. 282.
114. "The Primordial Soup: A Recipe for Life," Sky & Telescope, 95:2 (February 1998), p. 20.

Humanistic Naturalists should be strongly inclined to reject Big Bang Cosmology. They should be horrified by its development, for they are committed to a philosophical outlook which appears, at least at first, to be completely refuted by Big Bang theory. Humanistic Naturalism had its heyday during the early and mid twentieth century, but the view is as old as some of the ancient Greek and Roman philosophers. Prominent twentieth century philosophers who are identified by themselves or others as Humanistic Naturalists were George Santayana, John Dewey, Morris Cohen, Sterling Lamprecht, Roy W. Sellars, John H. Randall, Jr., Sidney Hook, Ernest Nagel, Corliss Lamont, Bertrand Russell, Samuel Alexander, J. B. Pratt, William P. Montague, Paul Kurtz, Kai Nielsen, Daniel C. Dennett, and many others. Among recent naturalists, Nielsen mentions A. J. Ayer, C. I. Lewis, W. V. 0. Quine, Donald Davidson, Richard Rorty, Hilary Putnam, P. F. Strawson, Donald Davidson, David Armstrong, and J. J. C. Smart. 1 Many prominent scientists like Carl Sagan are or have been Humanistic Naturalists, and we will examine some of their positions in later chapters.

Members of this philosophical family tend to share a common metaphysical, methodological, ethical, and anthropological outlook, though they do not completely agree with or perfectly resemble one another in every respect. Humanistic Naturalists subscribe to most if not all of the following philosophical doctrines; but individual Naturalists may reject, de-emphasize, or ignore a few of these family traits. As less and less of these traits are affirmed, the legitimacy of calling a position "Naturalism" becomes more and more doubtful. Because most natural scientists regard themselves as Naturalists, David Griffin tries to reconcile science and religion with what he calls a "naturalistic theism," by dropping almost everything Naturalists have ever meant by the term. His "minimal naturalism" retains only metaphysical trait D below, and he modifies it significantly by making divine causation a regular part of all natural causation. 2 Naturalists are likely to regard this as a purely verbal victory, but Griffin also launches more fundamental and substantive attacks on Naturalism's "scientific" status. So will the following pages, even with respect to D below.

Humanistic Naturalists tend to believe:

A. Only nature exists; the supernatural does not exist.

B. Nature as a whole has no purposes, values, or traits of personality.

C. The most general features of nature like time, space, and the basic physical stuff within them exist infinitely, eternally, and necessarily.

D. All events have natural causes; there are no supernatural causes.

E. Scientific method is the only legitimate method for discovering truth.

F. A Humanistic ethics and "philosophy of man" are adequate.3

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The first four of these claims are metaphysical, and the fifth is methodological. By "metaphysical" claims, I mean those pertaining to the most universal or fundamental features of reality, the traditional meaning of the term. Unlike Kai Nielsen, who calls only a priori versions of such claims "metaphysical,"4 I recognize both a priori and empirical approaches to such claims. Naturalists do not avoid metaphysics just because they profess to be empiricists. Humanistic Naturalists try to combine the fifth methodological claim with the sixth ethical and anthropological thesis. The first five of these have the most obvious importance and direct relevance to Big Bang Cosmology.

1. Family Traits of Humanistic Naturalism

Historically, the philosophical outlook of Humanistic Naturalism was developed expressly as an alternative to Theistic Supernaturalism, which takes just the opposite position on every point. Consider first how Naturalists themselves have expressed their fundamental beliefs.

A. Nature as All Existence

Humanism believes that nature or the universe makes up the totality of existence and is completely self-operating according to natural law, with no need for a God or gods to keep it functioning. Corliss Lamont⁵

Nature in which all interactions exist. John Dewey⁶

We find insufficient evidence for belief in the existence of a supernatural; it is either meaningless or irrelevant to the question of the survival and fulfillment of the human race. As nontheists, we begin with humans not God, nature not deity. Nature may indeed be broader and deeper than we now know; any new discoveries, however, will but enlarge our knowledge of the natural. Humanist Manifesto II⁷

What, then, are the controlling principles of naturalism? Essentially those of science: the beliefs that nature is an all-inclusive, spatiotemporal system and that everything which exists and acts in it is a part of this system. Roy W. Sellars⁸

The Cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be. Carl Sagan⁹ This first humanist principle, the rejection of the supernatural worldview, is shared with materialism and naturalism. Paul Kurtz¹⁰

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There is nothing beyond nature. There is no supernatural reality, spiritual beings, or any purely mental realities. Kai Nielsen¹¹

The claim that "Only nature exists; the supernatural does not exist" is essential to being a Naturalist. Doubters about this may be skeptics, agnostics, or positivists; but they are not Naturalists. This claim invites the question: What is nature? Sometimes "nature" is conceived so broadly that it covers the whole of reality, in which case a real God who transcends our world would be an object in nature. "Nature" or "the universe" usually refers to our system of spacetime, but Frank J. Tipler defines "the universe"as "all that exists." Without the additional premise that our system of space time is all that exists, this definition implies that an existing transcendent God belongs to the universe. Tipler, for instance, insists that God is a natural entity and that theology is a branch of physics.¹² He actually wants to naturalize God and treat God as purely immanent in and ultimately produced by spacetime as we know it-in conjunction with infinitely many other spacetime universes that actualize all possibilities.

Philosophical Naturalists deliberately use "nature" in a more limited way to exclude even an immanent God, to say nothing of Heaven, Hell, Angels, and all other-worldly entities. Nature is all; nothing more exists. For atheistic Naturalists, especially in their debates with Theists, "nature" denotes this world, the visible universe in its totality; there is no other world; and no other-worldly entities are real. Nature, the cosmos, the totality of our public spatiotemporal universe, is the only reality.

The creative, transcendent, and eternal God of traditional western Theism supposedly caused nature, the totality of spacetime, to come into being. By definition, supernatural entities can only exist outside of and before our system of spacetime; but no such beings exist, Naturalists insist. We can only speak metaphorically at best, or unintelligibly at worst, they contend, of their existence, and no reliable scientific evidence supports belief in supernatural entities. "Before time" is a temporal metaphor; and "outside space" is a spatial metaphor; but these metaphors have no literal or intelligible extensional meaning or reference. Scientific method, they contend, does not and cannot verify the existence of other worlds or other-worldly entities, so nothing warrants belief in their existence.

B. Nature as Purposeless

Our world has been made by nature through the spontaneous and casual collision and the multifarious accidental, random and purposeless congregation and coalescence of atoms. Lucretius 13

[Naturalism] excludes cosmic purpose, a meaningful totality, and any variation of the Platonic form of the good. Roy W. Sellars¹⁴

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This cosmos, unbounded in space and infinite in time, consists fundamentally of a constantly changing system of matter and energy, and is neutral in regard to man's well-being and values. Corliss Lamont¹⁵

To a naturalist, evidence for purpose, needs, organization, and ends in nature, is discovered in the behavior of specific things and organisms. No reference to the purpose of the whole is empirically relevant to the purposes he discovers by natural observation and experiment. Sidney Hook¹⁶

Humanism asserts that the nature of the universe depicted by modern science makes unacceptable any supernatural or cosmic guarantees of human values. Humanist Manifesto I¹⁷

Nature for the humanist is blind to human purposes and indifferent to human ideals. Paul Kurtz¹⁸

Most if not all Naturalists insist that "Nature as a whole has no purposes, values, or traits of personality." They hold that no valuational, personal, or psychological attributes apply directly to nature as a whole; and nature does not indirectly express the purposes or personal will of either a God who transcends the world or a God who is immanent in the world. Impersonal nature has no values, pursues no goals, makes no judgments about good and evil or right and wrong, has no aims or intentions, does not care what happens, takes no attitudes towards anything, whether favorable or unfavorable, thinks no thoughts, knows not what it does, has no awareness or consciousness of its own, and does not consciously and purposefully try to do what it does or try to achieve anything at all. All personal, psychological, or "anthropomorphic" attributes must be excluded from our thinking about nature as a whole, no matter how appropriate these categories are for thinking about local earthly organisms within nature like animals and human beings, and no matter how impressive and powerful the creative natural forces are that bring living things into being. Cosmic-level teleology has no reality.

C. Nature as Infinite, Eternal, and Necessary

If we ask whence came matter, we say it has existed always. If we be asked whence came motion in matter, we answer that, for the same reason, it must have been in motion from all eternity .... These elements ... are sufficient to explain the formation of all the beings that we see. Mirabaud¹⁹

The law of the conservation of energy includes in its operation an unceasing transformation of one form of energy to another, so that the

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basic energy, but none of its individual manifestations, is eternal. Corliss Lamont²⁰

The ultimate elements of the body, as the Law of the Conservation of Mass implies, have always existed in some form or other and will go on existing forever. The indestructible matter that makes up our physical organism was part of the universe jive billion years ago and will still be part of it five billion years hence. The infinite past comes to a focus in our intricately structured bodies; and from them there radiates the infinite future. Corliss Lamont²¹

Nature stands on its own feet and explains itself. Roy W. Sellars²²

Why assume an absolute beginning for reality? If change is an event in nature, may not both change and nature always have been? .... Neither science nor philosophy, then, assume any absolute beginning/or reality. Roy W. Sellars²³

Nature is ontologically ultimate and self-sufficient. Roy W. Sellers²⁴

Religious humanists regard the universe as self-existing and not created. Humanist Manifesto I²⁵

Undoubtedly, our knowledge of the universe is meager, given the vast infinity of space and events. Paul Kurtz²⁶

Naturalists believe that "The most general attributes of nature like time, space, and the basic physical stuff within them exist infinitely, eternally, and necessarily." The fundamentals of the natural order of things, whatever they are, are uncreated, everlasting, indestructible, and self-sufficient in their being. Space and time are fundamentals that every naturalistic philosophy affirms, but considerable room must be allowed for Naturalists to disagree about the constitution of the basic stuff of the world. Thales, the first philosopher, thought that it is water and that all things in the universe are composed of transformations of water. The most sophisticated Naturalistic metaphysics developed in the ancient world was that of the Greek and Roman atomists, Democritus and Leucippus, according to whom nature is composed entirely and only of uncreated and indestructible atoms swimming everlastingly in an uncreated infinite void of empty space. This atomistic view is no longer tenable because modem nuclear physics finds no uncreated and indestructible atoms or sub-atomic particles. Contemporary views of the basic stuff of nature identity it with energy as such.

Naturalists ascribe the same metaphysical attributes to nature as a whole that traditional Theists ascribe to God. They argue that the rational ideal of

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simplicity requires that we think of nature, not God, as infinite, eternal or everlasting, necessary, self-sufficient, and uncreated reality. Theists think that it is appropriate to ask: Who created the world? but it is not appropriate to ask: Who created God? Divinity, in its very conception, is the uncreated creator of all else. Metaphysically, Naturalists move to pinpoint necessary being before getting to Divinity. Nature, not God, is the infinite, everlasting, necessary, selfexisting, uncreated creator of all. So who created nature? No one, for nature exists necessarily; nature itself is everlasting, self-sufficient, and uncreated; and nothing that transcends nature is required to explain it.

D. Nature Causes Everything

Natural processes (including those of human living) do not imply anything beyond themselves and do not require for their explanation any grounds but the further stretches of natural processes, which we observe or inductively infer to be their context. William R. Dennes²⁷

The occurrence of all qualities or events depends on the organization of a material system in space-time, and .. their emergence, development and disappearance are determined by changes in such organization. Sidney Hook²⁸

And naturalism is the metaphysical theory which maintains that everything that exists comes into being, endures for a time, and then passes away because of the interactions of the things and forces of the natural world. Sterling Lamprecht²⁹

The universe as a whole has no cause, since by definition, there is no thing outside it that could be its cause. Hans Reichenbach³⁰

[Secular humanists} consider the universe to be a dynamic scene of natural forces that are most effectively understood by scientific inquiry. Paul Kurtz³¹

Naturalists claim that "All events have natural causes; there are no supernatural causes." With this metaphysical causal principle, Naturalists rule out the creation of the universe ex nihilo by God, for that makes God the supernatural cause of all creation. All miracles and direct acts of God upon the world are also excluded because miracles, by definition, are temporary suspensions of the laws and causal processes of nature, accompanied by causal interventions by a Divine Being who transcends nature.

The naturalistic assumption that "All events have natural causes" should not be confused with the more general causal principle that "All events have

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causes." About the second, Naturalists and Theists are in complete agreement. Since supernatural causes are indeed causes, Theists wholeheartedly agree that all events have causes, including the creation of the universe, miracles, and acts of God. Naturalists insist that the general causal principle is insufficient without the qualification "natural." "All events have natural causes" means that every happening in spacetime is brought into being by some other happening or set of conditions or happenings within our spacetime system, which as a whole has no cause beyond itself. Nothing comes to be through spatiotemporally transcendent causes. No acts of God or any other realities transcend our system of spacetime.

Descartes and many later rationalists regarded the metaphysical claim that "All events have causes" as one of many self-evident truths ofreason. This truth needs no empirical confirmation, though it is confirmed in every experience. To understand it is to be certain that it is true. Most philosophers today think that Descartes confused logical certainty with psychological certitude; they reject all rationalistic synthetic or substantive axioms ofknowledge. But Naturalists need not be epistemological rationalists; they can and do advance their principle of universal natural causation as a broad generalization from experience.

Supposedly, Cartesian self-evident truths are composed entirely of clear and distinct ideas; but the idea of causation is anything but clear and distinct, whether we are Cartesian rationalists or not. The concept of "cause" greatly needs clarification. To clarify we must distinguish between conditions that are necessary and those that are sufficient for bringing about events. Necessary conditions are those in the absence of which events cannot occur, and sufficient conditions are those in the presence of which specific events must occur. Causes are either necessary or sufficient conditions, or both.

Naturalists may or may not be determinists, may or may not believe in free will, despite their conviction that all events have natural causes. "Cause" in this formula can mean necessary conditions, or it can mean sufficient conditions, or both. Determinists construe the principle of universal causation to mean that antecedent conditions are completely necessary and sufficient to explain the occurrence of all events, including human choices. Since necessary and sufficient conditions exist for absolutely everything, they believe, only those events and choices that actually come to be could ever occur; and no other events and choices were or are really possible. Destiny, like some other things, just happens! What is actual is all that could have transpired. All events are rigidly determined or necessitated. Many determinists hold that the strongest desire or set of cooperating desires is sufficient to explain every choice. Naturalists may or may not be determinists, depending on whether they interpret the principle of universal causation in the strong sense just explained or give it the weaker interpretation explained next. Deterministic Naturalists may or may not be reductive materialists who think that stupid matter causes everything. Many non-reductive alternatives are open to Naturalists, and so is belief in free will, depending in part on how seriously they take their commitment to sense experi-

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ence alone as integral to and admissible by glorious scientific method, which alone yields truth, they say. If they (inconsistently?) allow a place for nonsensory modes of experience like introspection, perhaps they can avoid psychological behaviorism and mechanistic determinism.

Naturalists may hold that universal causation means that only necessary but not sufficient conditions exist for at least some choices-those that are free. They (and non-naturalists, too, who affirm free will) may claim that active or effortful choices occur only when character and motivation are still being developed, only when no desires, inclinations, or habits clearly prevail. When some desires or disposing mental states are decisively strongest, we simply act on them without making creative, effortful choices. Free choices function to create strong desires where none previously exist. Choices add the weight of effortful attention to selected alternatives when no conditions are sufficient for appetitive dominance. Of course, some conditions are necessary for every choice. We cannot consciously and effortfully choose an alternative unless we are aware of it and have some desire for it or attraction to it; but neither this desire nor its cooperating motivational determinants needs to be stronger than all others. Determinism may be avoided by subscribing to this weak interpretation of the principle that every event has a natural cause. Theists too may avoid determinism by holding that all free human choices have necessary but not sufficient causal conditions-usually natural.

The distinction between necessary and sufficient conditions will come up later in discussions of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, according to which no absolute knowledge or predictability exists at the level of atomic or subatomic particles. At the level of quantum events, we know only necessary but not sufficient conditions for what occurs. At the atomic and sub-atomic levels, no ace predictor like God could ever know everything that might happen, because conditions in nature are not sufficiently definite to ground such knowledge. Even so, total chaos does not reign in the domains of elemental physical particles, or of free moral agents; and we are not absolutely ignorant of what is going on, or absolutely incapable of predicting the future within limits. Degrees of order and disorder are found both in human complexity and in sub-atomic simplicity; about this, Naturalists and Theists can agree.

E. Scientific Method Alone

Whatever knowledge is attainable, must be attained by scientific methods; and what science cannot discover, mankind cannot know. Bertrand Russell³²

Naturalism ... wholeheartedly accepts scientific methods as the only reliable way of reaching truths about man, society, and nature .... Sidney Hook³³

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The mind of man is being habituated to a new method and ideal: There is but one sure road of access to truth-the road of patient, cooperative inquiry operating by means of observation, experiment, record and controlled reflection. ... There is but one method for ascertaining fact and truth-that conveyed by the word "scientific" in its most general and generous sense. John Dewey³⁴

In short, Naturalism is the expression of the desire for explanation in terms of objects which can be handled and studied in accordance with scientific method Roy W. Sellars³⁵

Any account of nature should pass the tests of scientific evidence; in our judgment, the dogmas and myths of traditional religions do not do so. Humanist Manifesto II³⁶

There seems nothing in Humanism or human life that is inaccessible in principle to scientific methods of inquiry, either in primitive or highly elaborated forms. Stuart C. Dodd³⁷

Naturalism is committed to certain methodological principles, primarily scientific and empirical methods, as the most effective way to arrive at reliable knowledge. Thus, to be warranted, a descriptive belief (I) must be experimentally verified; (2) must be logically consistent, internally with itself and externally with our other beliefs; and (3) may be judged convenient in part by its role in inquiry and its relation to the situations in which it arises. Paul Kurtz³⁸

If we want the best answers to what things there are, it is to science that we should turn. ... It is science which yields our most reliable knowledge. Kai Nielsen³⁹

There is only one way of knowing, the empirical way that is the basis of science .... From a naturalistic perspective, we should deny that there is any a priori knowledge. Michael Devitt⁴⁰

Naturalists contend that "Scientific method is the only legitimate method for discovering truth." This methodological claim must be understood both for what it excludes and what it embraces. It affirms that many commonplace methods for fixing belief and bringing about social agreement are totally unreliable and unacceptable, including rationalistic appeals to a priori or self-evident truths, and religious appeals to faith and divine revelation. Competing philosophical beliefs seem self-evident to different persons in diverse times and places; and by blind faith or revelation, we can have either side of any issue that we happen

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to want. Reliance on a blind faith response to religious revelation alone leaves us completely vulnerable to any and every superstition that comes along. Religious persons who appeal only to faith and revelation have no methods for resolving profound and interminable disagreements among themselves. Only scientific methods acquaint us with reality, correct their own mistakes, and can in principle resolve disagreement rationally.

Naturalists identify rationality itself with scientific method; but what is scientific method? Some contemporary philosophers like Richard Rorty⁴¹ and Paul Feyerabend⁴² maintain that there really is no such thing as scientific method; in doing their work and learning about the world, scientists really do an incredible variety of unpredictable, unformalizable, non-algorithmic things. According to Feyerabend, careful scrutiny of what scientists at work actually do shows that in science "anything goes," and nothing should or could replace this methodological anarchy.

By contrast, Humanistic Naturalists are convinced that there is such a thing as scientific method, and it alone can give us truth. In their disputes with theologians, Naturalists employ an extremely narrow understanding of scientific method to "prove" that religious belief is unscientific and unfounded. When refuting theologians, scientific method is understood to consist primarily if not entirely in empirical (sensory) verification and/or falsification of descriptive statements, in making inductive inferences, and in advancing and testing empirical explanatory hypotheses. Logical Positivists also emphasize empirical verification and falsification; but they insist that all metaphysical beliefs are meaningless. Unlike them, Naturalists regard theological beliefs as meaningful but false and their own metaphysical beliefs as meaningful, verified, and true. Naturalists may at times succumb to the allure of Positivism.

In their most polemical anti-theistic moods, Naturalists can be quite insensitive to difficulties that plague the methods of the natural sciences, such as that: (1) "factual" beliefs are inescapably theory-laden and are often constituted in part by, and/or derived from, formal mathematical and logical systems rather than from experience;⁴³ (2) how appearances or sensory observations are connected to realities is very uncertain (as illustrated in Chapter Six by the realism/ idealism controversy); (3) scientific progress depends upon creative insights, not just upon collecting facts; (4) scientific disputes are often resolved, not by observation, but by appeals to aesthetic criteria like simplicity, harmony, beauty, symmetry, elegance, and intuition; and (5) scientific language, not just religious language, is often inescapably metaphorical.⁴⁴ Let us indulge Naturalists for the moment and try to understand their contention that the methods of science exclude religious beliefs.

Naturalists contend that beliefs in God, Heaven, Hell, Angels, and otherworldly entities are groundless because scientific methods do not and cannot directly disclose or indirectly and inductively reason to their existence, and all happenings supposedly explained by other-worldly causes can be better ex-

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plained by appeal to this-worldly causes. Scientific explanations are closer to experience, simpler, and more elegant than religious explanations. Religious affirmations about other-worldly entities or occurrences cannot be verified directly, cannot be inferred as inductive generalizations or inferences from experience, and cannot be justified as explanatory hypotheses, Naturalists insist.

To Naturalists, belief in God is like belief in Santa Claus. We can actually go to the North Pole and search for Santa. When we do, we find neither the residence, the workshops, the toiling elves, the flying reindeer, nor the persons of Mr. and Mrs. Claus. Likewise, we can search the world over without finding God or any other-worldly entities. Observable worldly entities have properties that are incompatible with and exclude the properties of other-worldly entities, so we cannot generalize inductively from this world to the next. Thus, we have no more reason for believing in God than for believing in Santa, invisible elves, or angels dancing on the heads of pins.

Furthermore, the phenomena that the Santa Claus hypothesis is supposed to explain-the presents under the tree, the noises in the night, the missing milk and cookies on Christmas morning, and so on, are much more plausibly, simply, and verifiably explained: Daddy and Mommy do it. Likewise, whatever happens in the world always has a more plausible, simpler and (in principle) verifiable explanation: Natural causes do it (ad infinitum). Neither Santa Claus nor God is required to account for anything that we ever experience.

When Naturalists claim that scientific method cannot be used to establish religious truths, they usually mean that objects of religious interest and belief like God and Heaven can be neither directly perceived, which is obviously true, nor inferred inductively, since induction gives us only more of the same and thus cannot justify belief in transcendent realities. They usually do not ask whether the hypothetico-deductive method, so essential to theoretical science, has any sound religious uses. This aspect of scientific method is very complex. It involves (1) creatively constructing hypotheses and theories, (2) making deductions and predictions from them about what might be observed to verify or falsify them, (3) performing experiments and making additional observations that actually confirm or disconfirm them, (4) excluding alternative hypotheses, (5) appealing to abstract rational/aesthetic criteria like consistency with other scientific beliefs, simplicity, elegance, fruitfulness for further research, practical usefulness, and coherence or conceptual interconnectedness with other scientific concepts and theories, (6) modifying hypotheses to take care of anomalies, (7) occasionally abandoning generally accepted paradigms when the anomalies are too overwhelming, and (8) making creative gestalt switches, revisions, and revolutions. Scientific methodology is not value free but involves being committed (often quite passionately) to the values of truth (empirical alone?), knowledge, honesty, scientific subject-matter, scientific methodology, and objectivity-which is not uninterestedness but is disinterested willingness to play fairly with ideas, to follow out the logic of a position, and to change our minds when warranted.

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F. Humanism

We need to extend the uses of scientific method, not renounce them, to fuse reason with compassion in order to build constructive social and moral values. Confronted by many possible futures, we must decide which to pursue. The ultimate goal should be the fulfillment of the potential for growth in each human personality-not for the favored few, but for all of humankind. Humanist Manifesto II⁴⁵

What these modern ways of life have in common is a devotion to the this-worldly welfare of men. The most enlightened of them, such as Humanism, Materialism and Naturalism set up the happiness, freedom and progress of all humanity as the supreme goal. This ultimate loyalty to the ultimate interests of all mankind, including one's own finest possibilities, is, I would suggest, a thing high enough and broad enough for any man to integrate his life around. Corliss Lamont⁴⁶

Most contemporary humanists have a commitment to some form of the greatest-happiness-for-the-greatest-number principle; they consider that the highest moral obligation is to humanity as a whole. This involves the view that since all men are members of the same human family, it is our obligation to further the welfare of mankind. Paul Kurtz⁴⁷

Most Naturalists believe that "A humanistic ethics and philosophy of man or humanity are adequate." This book is primarily concerned with metaphysical and methodological issues, but the usual association of naturalistic metaphysics with scientific method alone and with humanistic ethics and anthropology cannot be ignored.

Not all Naturalists are Humanists. Naturalistic metaphysics and scientific methodology have no obvious logical connection with humanistic ethics. Frederick Nietzsche combined naturalistic metaphysics with a non-humanistic might-makes-right ethics, according to which strong, fit, master-race supermen are fully justified in exploiting and destroying weak human beings. The Nazis, who greatly admired Nietzsche, showed us how this thoroughly naturalistic but antihumanistic ideal works out in practice. Nothing in naturalistic metaphysics or methodology generates or logically implies Humanism. Logic permits Naturalists to be racists, nationalists, egoists, or anything but Humanists.

As a matter of brute fact, most Naturalists have been Humanists who affirm universal human rights and human equality, and who sponsor moral beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors designed to bring about a better and happier life for humankind in this world. There is no other life, they contend; belief in another world merely siphons off energies that might otherwise be devoted to human welfare here and now-the only place where moral effort ever counts.

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Humanists tend to believe in a technological fix for almost everything,⁴⁸ but they are not irrevocably wedded to this. They do insist that human values, moral principles, and virtues are completely human in origin and neither have nor need a Divine origin or sponsorship. Theistic religion is not essential for moral motivation; many religious persons are very immoral, and many atheists are extremely virtuous.

Naturalists also accept a Naturalistic/Humanistic anthropology according to which human beings are only products of nature, not creatures of God (as if the two were mutually exclusive). Evolution accounts entirely for our existence, they contend, and human life is continuous with all of life. They reject all radical dualisms of body and mind, flesh and spirit, human and non-human.

Yet, only human beings count in humanistic ethical theories. Humanism does not recognize moral duties directly to non-human animals, other living things, or the environment. We have duties involving these things because they are beneficial to humanity, but we have no duties to them directly since they are not human.

2. How Scientific Is Humanistic Naturalism?

Naturalists claim to derive all their beliefs, the only legitimate beliefs, from scientific method alone. That they actually do this is very doubtful. Their failure, most conspicuous at the level of humanistic values, extends as well to their metaphysical commitments.

A. Humanistic Values and Scientific Method

The trouble is, Naturalists cannot derive their humanistic values and moral principles from either their metaphysics or from their methodology. Scientific method only describes the world, they concede. If so, it cannot prescribe; it cannot derive a very powerful "ought" from an "is" or readily bridge the "fact-value gap." Humanistic Naturalists endeavor to give the impression that "Science is on our side," and that their own metaphysical and moral beliefs are derived from the only rational methodology that they accept as legitimate scientific method; but this is not so.

The recent scientific emphasis on evolutionary psychology attempts to generate some weak prescriptive statements by repudiating the absolute gap between "is" and "ought." Evolutionary ethicists like Michael Ruse⁴⁹ and Neil O. Weiner⁵⁰ propound a few "natural" norms and virtues. Traditional Humanistic Naturalists did not have access to evolutionary psychology, but they still endorsed very strong prescriptive statements about universal human rights and human welfare that cannot be derived from purely descriptive statements or from any elemental natural norms disclosed by evolutionary psychology.

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Patricia A. Williams argues effectively that although the Christian ethical ideal of loving neighbors as self demands far more of us than our natural capacity for kin favoritism and reciprocal altruism, something within us nevertheless recognizes a more demanding saintliness and heroism as a higher ethical ideal. Williams indicates that both philosophical and religious ethical universalism extend the scope of moral obligation far beyond the provincial prescriptions of evolutionary ethics.⁵¹ We seem to have evolved to act morally toward "insiders," immorally toward "outsiders," but not to respect or love all human beings as such. Originally, outsiders were members of different hunter-gatherer clans; and this perfectly natural, powerful, clannish, anti-humanistic propensity still manifests itself today in racism, sexism, nationalism, and every other distinction that divides us and sets us at enmity with one another.

Humanists actually admit that they cannot derive their own rich universalistic humanistic ethics solely from the methods of empirical science. Paul Kurtz, for example, espouses a "naturalistic ethics" according to which "Ethical judgments are empirical or may be supported by scientific knowledge."⁵² Yet, he concedes, ethical Naturalism "cannot hope to derive universal values or principles that are objectively verified in the same way as descriptive hypotheses and theories are";⁵³ and he admits that scientific method merely helps us to collect the relevant facts, including facts about causation that pertain to choosing effective means to ends. But scientific method does not give us value-ends themselves.

Naturalistic Humanists have a much broader understanding of what passes for reasonable belief when universalistic humanistic ethical norms and value-ends are at stake. Kai Nielsen explicitly repudiates the claim that empirical scientific method alone yields all legitimate knowledge, mainly because it yields no ethics.⁵⁴ To scientific methodology he deliberately adds the axiological method of "wide reflective equilibrium" for rationally establishing and applying ethical, political, and social norms.⁵⁵ Nielsen extends this extra-scientific methodology to all of philosophy, science, and every rational quest for human knowledge. He calls it,

a coherentist method of explanation and justification ... [that] starts with a society's or cluster of similar societies', most firmly held considered judgments (convictions), principally their considered moral judgments or convictions, and seeks to forge them into a consistent and coherent whole that squares with the other relevantly related things that are reasonably believed and generally and uncontroversially accepted in the society, or cluster of similar societies, in question. ⁵⁶

Nielsen, a Naturalist, clearly repudiates some prominent family traits of Naturalism, particularly its commitment to empirical scientific method alone as the sole source of human knowledge; and we can find much that is congenial

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and illuminating in his writings. I am substantially in agreement with most of Nielsen's philosophical outlook, including his fallibilism, the method of wide reflective equilibrium for questions of value, and even his denial of the existence and intelligibility of God as classically or standardly conceived. We disagree primarily in our assessment of Process Theology, to which Nielsen gives very little attention, as a plausible alternative to Naturalism.

B. Naturalistic Metaphysics and Scientific Method

Most important for present purposes, scientific methodology as usually conceived cannot justify the metaphysical beliefs of Naturalism. Naturalists insist that scientific procedures fail to justify the metaphysics of transcendent Theism; but they do not readily realize or acknowledge that natural science cannot justify their own naturalistic metaphysics.

Many well respected beliefs in science are not validated by scientific method when construed so narrowly as to exclude all theistic belief, as the concluding chapters of this book will argue. Put more positively, the beliefs of transcendent Theism are better justified by empirical methods, broadly construed, than those of Naturalism, especially with respect to many hypotheses about the origin of the universe offered by today's naturalistic cosmologists in the name of science. Scientists may not be interested in the kinds of empirical evidence that support Theism; but such evidence is abundantly available, as we will see.

Naturalists often intimate that their metaphysical beliefs are high order empirical generalizations, well supported by scientific investigation. Theistic beliefs are metaphysical, they decree; but naturalistic beliefs are scientific discoveries, conclusions proved by science. Yet, this is not so. If only beliefs verified by scientific methods are known to be true, naturalistic metaphysics cannot pass for scientific knowledge. Neither can the most theoretical parts of natural science!

Both Naturalism and Positivism emphasize verification, but Naturalism should not be confused with Positivism. Unlike Positivists, Naturalists do not deny the meaningfulness of the metaphysical and theological beliefs that they reject. They only deny their truth. Yet, Naturalists often feel the allure of Positivism and occasionally lapse into it. To understand the difference, let us consider the widely accepted positivistic Principle of Verification as a criterion for distinguishing between science and metaphysics. This principle asserts that meaningful, and thus "scientific," beliefs are those that are (or that someone believes to be), confirmed or at least confmnable (or falsifiable }-at least in principle-by sensory observation, experience, or empirical investigation. By contrast, metaphysical beliefs supposedly are matters of pure speculation, totally devoid of sensory observational import; (or at least someone believes this about them).

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Karl Popper's slight variation on Positivism affirms that scientific propositions are falsifiable, at least in principle; some conceivable experience could count against them; whereas this is not so for metaphysical propositions. Verifiable or falsifiable "in principle" means that someone can imagine human sensory experiences or experiments that would count for or against them.

Meaningfulness, so understood, depends entirely on someone's powers of imagination, but whose? The class of meaningful or verifiable empirical or sensory beliefs is much more inclusive than the class of true or verified ones. What we can know to be true empirically or scientifically must be accessible directly or indirectly to human observations. Positivism claims that only empirically confirmable or falsifiable propositions are scientifically meaningful; but, Naturalists would agree, only those actually confirmed are known to be true. Many scientists and philosophers accept some variant of Positivism. They think that scientists ask questions that have empirically verifiable or falsifiable answers, whereas the questions of metaphysicians and moralists have no empirically verifiable or falsifiable answers. Scientists observe and prove; philosophers merely guess, speculate, or emote. Scientists discover hard facts, but philosophers only concoct ethereal theories that are empirically empty.

Though attracted to Positivism, Naturalists usually distinguish metaphysical from scientific propositions on the basis of their generality or particularity rather than in positivistic terms. In truth, the line between science and unverified metaphysics is not always very sharp. The history of science shows that beliefs that appear to have no empirical reference or support at one point in history are found to have such import at another. Einstein's general theory of relativity is a good example. The theory had no empirical reference or confirmation whatsoever in 1915 when Einstein first conceived of the curvature of space. Most nonscientists and scientists at the time were not able to imagine a way to confirm it, but Einstein soon showed them. The theory of the curvature of space implies that light moving through a gravitational field will be bent by that field; and this was confirmed during an eclipse of the sun on 29 May 1919 when stars in the background of the immediate border of the sun were observed to shift outward slightly from their usual positions as they were about to pass behind the darkened sun. Since then, the theory has received innumerable confirmations. By Positivistic standards, Einstein's general theory of relativity was a meaningless metaphysical theory between 1915 and 1919; but it became a meaningful and verified scientific theory thereafter.

Again, in 1929, when Paul Dirac deduced from quantum theory that antimatter exists, no one could imagine experiences or experiments to verify (or falsify) the proposition. At the time no cyclotrons were powerful enough to produce antimatter; but in 1932, Carl Anderson determined that it might be possible, by using a cloud chamber, to detect cosmic rays bearing antimatter particles.⁵⁷ Was the concept of antimatter meaningless between 1930 and 1932? Surely it was by positivistic standards, but not by broader naturalistic standards.

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Naturalists usually regard as unknown or false what Positivists typically brand as meaningless.

The initially attractive but excessively simplistic positivistic distinction between science and metaphysics is fraught with difficulties. For one thing, the Verification Principle is itself meaningless when applied to itself, but it can be defended against this charge by indicating that it is a methodological rule and not the sort of descriptive statement to which it is intended to apply. More seriously, observations are usually if not always theory-laden; so we tend to see what our theories tell us we should see, and within limits we are disposed not to see what does not fit our preconceptions.

The meaning of the Principle of Verification is very ambiguous. When and by whom must relevant observations be made?⁵⁸ Must they be made in the present moment, or do remembered past and anticipated future observations count? If only present observations count, the very notions of past and future are meaningless; and Positivism yields a solipsism of the present moment, as it once did for Ludwig Wittgenstein. Must the observations be directly accessible to human beings; or do animals, extraterrestrials, or God count as observers? Who must the observer be to detennine the meaningfulness of"The dinosaurs had halitosis," or "Adam did not have a navel"? If only present human observations count, all statements about early humans and pre-humans are meaningless. If only direct human observations count, our ideas about the Big Bang, inflation, and the activities of dinosaurs and other creatures who lived before human beings evolved are meaningless. No human observers saw the dinosaurs at play or prey, or smelled their breath. Only a transcendent God could directly observe the Big Bang, inflation, and either the infinite duration or finitistic origin of our universe. Being directly observable "in principle" by human beings is just equivalent to being directly observable by God, an ideal omniobserver.

Beliefs and theories can be supported by scientific method through: i. Direct Observation, ii. Inductive Inference, and/or iii. Hypothesis Formation and Testing; and such support comes in many degrees. Direct observation immediately perceives some object or process. For natural science, only sensory observation counts; moral and mathematical intuitions, religious experience, and introspective awareness do not count. Inductive inference reasons from perceptually observed samples to more of the same, which is how natural laws are established and justified. The hypothetico-deductive method postulates unobserved conditions or abstractions to account for observed realities, presumably better than alternative postulates. Science, philosophy, and religion all appeal to the unobserved to explain things observed. The best postulate is one that (1) predicts new phenomena not predicted by other postulates that experience actually confirms; or it is superior to other hypothetical explanations in (2) simplicity, (3) comprehensiveness, (4) consistency with itself or other established beliefs, (5) coherence or interconnectedness with other established concepts and beliefs, (6) elegance or beauty, and/or (7) fruitfulness for future

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research. These criteria are not exhaustive. Are the metaphysical beliefs of Naturalism supported by scientific methods in any of these ways?

i. Direct Observation

Science, especially astronomy, relies more heavily on sight than on other senses like touch, smell, taste, or hearing, though these senses too may be employed in scientific investigations. At the level of direct observation, seeing is believing. Many empirical beliefs like "The sun rises,'' "The moon shines," and "The stars are out tonight" are confirmed by direct observation. Even these elemental beliefs are theory laden, however; for us modems, they presuppose the Copernican heliocentric theory, theories of optics, theories about the speed of light, theories about the correspondence of perceptions with realities, neurological theories, theories of mind/body relations, and theories embodied in the conceptual categories of common sense.⁵⁹

Let us agree for the sake of the discussion that if something can be seen or otherwise consciously sensed while our senses are functioning normally, then our beliefs about that something are supported by direct observation. Let us also charitably extend the scope of "direct observation" to perceptions available through sense-extending apparatuses like microscopes, telescopes, and radioscopes. Stars and galaxies that are observed directly are, in a sense, perceived only indirectly through the light, sounds, or signals that they emit and the media that transmit them to human consciousness. These signals can be amplified by optical or radio telescopes, fall upon receptive human sensory modalities, and ultimately register in the brain and consciousness of human observers. Both direct and extended perceptions are mediated; yet, for simplicity, let us agree to say that heavenly bodies are directly observed even when amplified by complex scientific instruments and modified by our own sensory modalities.

Now, to get down to business, are the four metaphysical theses of Naturalism really high order empirical facts confirmed by direct human observations, broadly construed? Obviously, they are not. No direct human experience or scientific apparatus shows them to be true, or to be empirically meaningful in positivistic terms. This is most obviously so because no human being, scientist or not, and no living creature on earth, has ever directly observed the whole of reality-the subject matter of all metaphysics, including the naturalistic variety.

A. The claim that nature is the whole of reality, meaning that only nature (our system of spacetime) exists, cannot be a truth confirmed by direct human observation, for we have not directly observed all of our spacetime system, to say nothing of all of reality. God may do so, but that would be contrary to the basic suppositions of Naturalism.

B. The claim that nature as a whole is non-purposive and non-personal cannot be a truth of direct observation for a variety of reasons. Obviously, no human being ever has or ever will observe nature as a whole directly. Cosmo

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logical reasoning about nature or reality as a whole is inferential, not direct. It must be analogical or inductive; it does not and cannot simply report direct observations.

How can we tell if anything, including the universe, is or is not purposive? We know ourselves to be directly purposive mainly through immediate selfawareness, not through sensory observation. To capture all we know, the notion of "observation" must be extended beyond the sensory (and thus beyond the scientific) to include first person introspective experiences of our own conscious interests, desires, purposes, valuations, thoughts, intentions, volitions, attendings, and so on. We know (with less than certainty) that other people and animals are directly purposive because their bodies are structured like our own, because they behave vocally, linguistically, and otherwise in seemingly purposive ways, and because linguistic criteria indirectly indicate the presence (or absence) of inner conscious processes, activities, and values in other persons or animals. We infer that comatose persons are no longer directly purposive because they no longer engage in purposive behavior, and because medical scanners determine that their upper brains are not working sufficiently, or at all.

Some things are only indirectly purposive, if purposive at all. Rocks and rivers are not directly purposive or personal beings because they lack brains, sense organs, and self-originated goal-directed behaviors. Yet, rocks and rivers can be indirectly or instrumentally purposive and personal if they serve the interests, values, thoughts, desires, or choices of directly personal and purposive beings like humans, animals, and God. Artifacts like houses, bridges, and airplanes are only indirectly purposive. Without minds of their own, they are made to serve our purposes.

ls the universe as a whole purposive? Naturalists insist that it is not directly purposive because it has no mind of its own; and we have no good reason to believe that it is indirectly purposive, that it expresses the purposes of a transcendent divine World-Designer. How does the Naturalist know this? Our limited human acquaintance with the universe reveals that most of spacetime is not organized or structured as brains or sensory organs, but Theist may agree completely that the Universe is not directly purposive. Theists claim that the universe is only indirectly purposive and personal, that it indirectly expresses the purposes, values, wisdom, benevolence, and other personal attributes of a God who transcends nature while interacting immanently with and within it. Naturalists deny that nature is either directly or indirectly purposive.

Whether Theists or Naturalists are right about the purposiveness ofnature will be explored in greater depth in later chapters. Both positions arrive at their conclusions by analogical or inductive reasoning, or by hypothesis, but not by direct observations. For Naturalists, the universe resembles a rock; for Theists, it resembles an artifact, a clock perhaps, made by an intelligent and benevolent manufacturer. We are never outside the universe as a whole to observe it directly; we are always inside the rock or the clock trying to figure out what

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makes it click or tick; we can only reason to the whole by analogy with familiar parts that are known to click or tick.

C. Do scientist observe directly that the most general attributes of nature like time, space, and the basic stuff within them exist infinitely, eternally, and necessarily? Again, obviously not. Infinite duration can never be observed directly by finite beings like us. No nuclear physicists, astronomers, other scientists, or ordinary persons have ever experienced anything directly that exists necessarily, infinitely, and eternally. All experience is against this claim of naturalistic metaphysics, not for it.

D. Finally, does anyone directly observe that all events have natural causes, and that there are no supernatural causes? Again the answer must be negative, partly because no human observer has ever directly experienced all events, partly because some observations actually count heavily against this family trait ofNaturalism. That the Big Bang, for example, has a natural cause is doubtful. If produced by another world, that world is a supernatural cause, as Jastrow indicated. Later chapters will scrutinize naturalistic efforts to show that our universe was caused by natural processes-by other worlds regarded as natural causes; but no one claims that we human beings can observe these processes directly. Precise causal explanation breaks down at the level of singularities and/or quantum events, according to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle; and some cosmologists submit that the origin of our universe had no cause at all.

Lastly, the world religions report many direct observations of unusual events that they regard as miracles, which, by definition, lack natural causes. A naturalistic explanation probably works for most of them; but at least a few alleged miracles are not readily explained solely in terms of antecedent spatiotemporal conditions and are highly resistant to naturalistic explanation. The essential point is that some human experiences count, even if not decisively, against the metaphysical dogma that all events have natural causes. Naturalists just refuse dogmatically to allow them to count. Even the most highly unyielding instances of alleged miracles can be explained naturally, they insist, precisely because all events have natural causes.

The circularity of this naturalistic reasoning is obvious, as is its metaphysical nature. Naturalists "prove" that all events have natural causes by appealing to the premise that all events have natural causes! Propositions are metaphysical, and thus meaningless by positivistic standards, say many Positivists, if they are held in such a way that no experiences are allowed to count against them. By reasoning in a circle, Naturalists rule out all anomalies a priori, while claiming that no knowledge is a priori!

Plainly, none of the metaphysical theses of Naturalism are truths of direct observation; but they may be observational truths of a more indirect sort. Perhaps they are truths of inductive inference, or perhaps they are just the best available hypotheses for understanding our universe. Perhaps not!

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ii. Inductive Inference

Inductive logic permits inferences from the observed to the unobserved, from parts to wholes, from particular samples to broad classes, from given instances to more of the same. If we reach into a barrel and take out three rotten apples in succession, inductive logic permits us to conclude that most, perhaps all, of the apples in the barrel are rotten. Inductive reasoning introduces inescapable elements of uncertainty, so scientists do not claim absolute certainty for their inductively supported conclusions. Probabilities increase as more and more rotten apples are extracted. Yet, some apples in the barrel might be sound, and we might have good reasons for thinking so. Realizing that life is chancy, we are generally content to live with the uncertainties of inductive inference. Inferring more of the same from observed samples is exactly what it means to think rationally and scientifically about the unobserved parts of the world of nature. If all perceived manifestations of energy conform to Einstein's E = mc², scientists predict that this formula fits all the energy in the entire universe. If energy is dissipating in all observed closed systems, scientists inductively infer that it is dissipating in all closed systems, whether observed or not, at least in the present expansion phase of the universe.

Can the metaphysical theses of Naturalism be transformed into scientific truths by showing that they are products of inductive reasoning from observed samples to more of the same? This is extremely doubtful.

A. Can we reason inductively that all realities belong to our objectively existing system of spacetime because all observed realities do so? This is very doubtful. Anti-realistic philosophers would question the basic premise. That all observed entities belong to an objectively existing spacetime system is philosophically controversial and depends on hotly contested theoretical or philosophical commitments. Immanuel Kant, for example, thought that space and time are mere forms of appearance, and that only appearances but no realities or things in themselves can ever exist or be observed to exist in spacetime outside our minds. We will see in Chapter Six that some versions of quantum physics are antirealistic and heavily stress the role of observers in structuring what is observed. Let us be generous again, however, and assume with realists that we perceive realities, not just appearances, and that these are located in objectively existing spacetime. Can we now infer that all realities are located in this mind-independent system of spacetime, given that all observed realities are so located? This strong presumption may be honestly doubted, if for no other reason than that the cause of the Big Bang, if it had a cause, was clearly located outside our spacetime system.

In making inductive inferences, we must be cautious not to generalize too hastily. Some apples in our barrel may be sound because they belong to a rotresistant variety. Also, energy is not really dissipating everywhere-not for example in or near black holes where gravity is strong enough to concentrate

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energy. Perhaps energy can be created in a quantum vacuum in which "virtual" particles become ephemeral actual particles. To account for the Big Bang, some naturalistic cosmologies explored in later chapters postulate the existence of other worlds that are unobserved by and unobservable to us. On the basis of some (extremely inconclusive) evidence, many cosmologists now believe in the existence of many other universes beyond ours, perhaps an infinite number of them. This, we will see, is very problematic, but if true, then some realities are not located in our own system of spacetime or nature. Objectively existing nature was created by another objectively existing reality beyond and before itself. The contemporary version of the Cosmological Argument for the existence of God, as developed in our concluding chapter, will give good reasons for doubting that our universe exhausts reality. If all created things have causes, Big Bang Cosmology itself provides powerful evidence against the claim that our system of nature is all that really exists. Our system of nature was brought into being around fifteen billion years ago, presumably by something-perhaps God, perhaps another universe, perhaps quantum-fizzy Superspacetime-outside of itself. The naturalistic claim that nature, our system of spacetime, is infinitely old and causally uncreated and self-sufficient has been falsified decisively by modem astrophysics; but Naturalists do not concede this without a fight!

B. Is the claim that "Nature as a whole is nonpurposive and nonpersonal" derived from inductive generalization? It is definitely not an inductive inference from human acquaintance with many sample universes. We observe only one universe from the inside, and only parts of that. Naturalism itself is vulnerable to David Hume's inductive objection to the Teleological Argument for the existence of God. We cannot infer that order in our universe is created by a purposive and intelligent Divinity, said Hume, because we have not seen many worlds created before our eyes and thus cannot compare the order of this world with that of other worlds known to be made by a purposive and intelligent World Designer.

Naturalists are in exactly the same position; they have not seen many purposeless worlds created by other pre-existing godless systems of spacetime. Thus, they cannot establish inductively that the order (or disorder) of our world is similar to that of other purposeless worlds known not to have been made by Divinity. We cannot reason inductively to more of the same when an entity is one of a kind; and, as far as human experience goes, our universe is one of a kind. Empirically, Charles Sanders Peirce was right: "Universes are not as plentiful as blackberries."

Naturalists may contend that the orderliness of our natural world fails to express purposive intelligence because nature as a whole compares favorably with certain parts of nature like rocks and cabbages that are known not to have, or to express, purposive intelligence. Like Theists, Naturalists must reason analogically from parts of nature to the whole; their reasoning is definitely not an inductive generalization from several observed non-purposive universes to

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more of the same. Naturalists contend that nature as a whole is purposeless and dumb because it resembles certain parts of itself like purposeless and dumb rocks and electrons. Theists, by the same analogical logic, infer that nature as a whole is purposive and intelligent because it resembles human beings or animals who are directly purposive and intelligent, or, more appropriately, because of its similarity to houses, bridges, watches, and the like, that are purposefully produced by intelligent beings. The outcome of this debate turns finally upon which analogy between parts and wholes actually holds; but the conclusion is not derived by simplistic inductive inference from same-kind samples to more of the same. We will return to this topic in later discussions of the Anthropic and Biopic Principles; but we should note in advance that contemporary Anthropic Cosmologists find the universe to be exquisitely fine-tuned for the purpose of producing and sustaining life. This is decisively at odds with Naturalism's anti-teleology. Chapters Eight and Nine will examine this issue more carefully.

C. Can we know inductively that the most general attributes ofnature like time, space, and the basic stuff within them exist infinitely, eternally, everlastingly, and necessarily? Surely not! Induction just gives more of the same, but all observed natural processes and objects are spatially finite, limited or transient in duration, and contingent or dependent in mode of existence. We never observe any natural objects or processes that are spatially or temporally infinite, everlasting, necessary, self-sufficient, self-caused, and uncreated. Inductive reasoning can give us additional spatiotemporal finitude and contingency, but it cannot give us their opposites! No inductive evidence whatsoever supports the conclusion that nature as a whole exists infinitely, everlastingly, or necessarily. Nature just might be infinite, everlasting, and necessary; but we cannot know this by inductive inference.

Naturalistic critics of the traditional arguments for the existence of God deny the legitimacy of reasoning from a finite observed world to an infinite God precisely on the grounds that we cannot reason inductively from the finite to the infinite. If this is so, Naturalists themselves are in the same boat. They too cannot reason inductively from observed finite portions of the world to the world's infinity in time and/or space. Inductively, from finitude we can only infer more finitude, from contingency only more contingency. Naturalistic logic returns eventually to devastate its own metaphysics!

D. Lastly, can the causal principle, "All events have natural causes," be known inductively? Initially, this seems to be a scientific inductive generalization from experience. Granted, we have not observed all events; still, Naturalists contend, all events have natural causes because all observed events have natural causes. Unfortunately, solid evidence against this argument is provided by the Big Bang, ifnot also by rare experiences of miracles, which cannot be ruled out a priori without a vicious circularity of reasoning.

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Is the principle of universal natural causation a necessary presupposition of scientific inquiry? Wouldn't it be impossible for scientists to do their work without believing that all events have natural causes? Not at all! To do their work, scientists need only the imperative: "Look for natural causes!" They do not need an a priori metaphysical guarantee that they will always find that for which they are looking.

Naturalists are on no firmer ground in trying to derive their metaphysics from induction than they are in trying to derive it from direct observation. Can the empirical truth of their metaphysical claims be salvaged by demonstrating that they are rationally justified postulates or explanatory hypotheses?

iii. Hypothesis Formation and Testing

Scientists do more than merely switch on their eyes, ears, and other senses, and more than just reason from given samples to more of the same. They also explain things by appealing to often unobserved hypothetical or theoretical constructs. They always try to find the best available explanations, but how do we know which explanations are best?

Scientists theorize about what accounts for what, what in tum explains this, what finally explains that, and so on. Scientists creatively construct and defend hypothetical unobserved and unobservable entities, processes, and principles; they postulate the reality of innumerable things unseen (like initial singularities, inflation, or laws of nature) to explain things seen. Some initially hypothetical entities might be observed later; but some, like those just mentioned, will never be humanly observed. Some postulates predict outcomes that can be observed eventually; others make predictions that are falsified by later observations. Usually, several hypotheses can account forthe same data, and the right one, the best explanation, must be identified, sought, and defended. Much scientific inquiry is just a quest for the best explanation using what Charles S. Peirce called "abductive reasoning" or what others call "the hypothetico-deductive method."⁶⁰

Entities and processes that initially are nothing more than theoretical constructs may be later confirmed observationally, as was Einstein's curvature of space, and Dirac's antimatter. Hypothetical entities may be postulated because scientists hope to observe them in the future, walking by hope and faith and not by sight; but their hopes are not always fulfilled. Theoretical realities postulated by scientists like natural laws, singularities, inflation, and the Big Bang itself, are likely to remain totally unobserved, even with the aid of the most powerful instruments; still, scientists affirm them, even when more than one purely hypothetical construct explains same the facts. Why?

What distinguishes rationally justified from unjustified hypothetical explanatory constructs? Explanatory constructs tend to proliferate, so how can we tell which ones are true or best? Scientists (and philosophers) often choose

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between explanatory hypotheses on purely aesthetic grounds like simplicity, symmetry, harmony, elegance, and beauty.⁶¹ Aesthetics is ultimately integrated into rationality itself; truth merges with beauty and goodness; the beautiful and the rational are ultimately identical. In these respects, no sharp distinction exists between theoretical science and speculative metaphysics; and plenty of room remains for honest disagreement about whether an explanatory hypothesis is rationally justified.

Still, some hypothetical explanations are clearly better than others. How so? Some hypotheses are much more powerful than others in pulling more loose threads together and unifying otherwise unordered disarray. Some are more fruitful than others, more suggestive of agendas for future search. Some theoretical constructs actually make predictions that come true, or that can be falsified. Some hypotheses can be tested in crucial experiments by searching for consequences that they alone, but none of the alternatives, foretell. When explanatory entities cannot be observed directly and no crucial experiments exclude alternative explanations, scientific theories shade off into sheer guesswork. But some guesses are more educated, more beautiful, more elegant, than others.

In both natural science and philosophy, the best justified hypothetical constructs are simple, symmetrical, harmonious, elegant, beautiful, powerful, fruitful, and testable in crucial experiments that exclude competing hypotheses. These criteria can be met in varying degrees, but the best explanatory hypotheses (I) make predictions not made by other hypotheses that are confirmed, not disconfirmed, by experience, and (2) are superior to other hypotheses in simplicity, comprehensiveness, coherence, consistency, elegance, beauty, and fruitfulness for further research. Some illustrations might help.

a. The Hypotheses of "Creation Science"

"Creation science," advocated by many religious conservatives, affirms two central theses: (1) our universe was created by God out of nothing at some time in the finite past, and (2) the theory of evolution is false because all earthly species of living things were created directly by God within six days after God produced the universe itself. If Big Bang Cosmology is correct, as it seems to be, "creation scientists" are right about (I), although the "by God" and "out of nothing" parts remain to be established, and the relevant "finite past" is closer to fifteen billion years than to the six thousand years favored by religious fundamentalists. But "creation scientists" are clearly mistaken about (2) for many good reasons, such as that the universe existed for over ten billion years before the simplest living things began to exist and to evolve into more complex beings on our earth. Without exploring the evolution controversy in depth, let us consider how the hypothetical-deductive method applies to the fossilized remains of innumerable extinct plants, animals, and microscopic life forms.

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Both "creation science" and "real science" must explain the same observed facts. Extinct fossilized animals, plants, protozoa, and bacteria exist in geological strata. Real science hypothesizes that the fossils are best explained by evolutionary processes that transpired over at least four and a half billion years. The full course of evolution itself cannot be observed directly or repeated under laboratory conditions, but this explanatory hypothesis has testable implications. Although Naturalists are evolutionists, so are the Theists who do not insist upon a literal interpretation of the word "day" in the first chapter of Genesis. Evolution is incompatible with biblical literalism, but not with belief in God.

"Creation science" hypothesizes that either (a) God created the earth with all the fossils intact, but no such creatures ever actually lived, or (b) all the fossilized creatures once co-existed but were killed by Noah's flood, which deposited their bodies in existing geological strata as it receded. Hypothesis (a) is so egregiously ad hoc that few if any advocates of "creation science" take it seriously. It implies no additional observations by which it can be tested.

The most viable "creation science" hypothesis is (b). Predictions made from the deluge postulate are: (1) fossilized remains could be distributed randomly in areas of great aquatic turbulence; but in calmer areas the bones, shells, and other parts of the largest and heaviest animals will be in the lowest geological strata, and the remains of the lightest and smallest animals will be in the highest strata; and (2) carbon 14 and other dating techniques will show that all fossilized creatures lived at the same time, around six thousand years ago. Unfortunately, innumerable observations decisively disconfirm these predictions. Besides, if Noah carried breeding pairs of all living animals to safety on the ark, he presumably did this for all species of dinosaurs. So where are all the dinosaurs today?

"Creation scientists" claim to be doing science, but scientific methodology shows that they are wrong. The predictions about the fossils made by real science do not suffer this fate. The evolutionary hypothesis predicts that (1) fossilized bodies will be generally arranged so that the simplest (often the lightest weight) organisms will appear in the lower geological strata, and the fossils of more complex organisms will be in higher strata, and (2) carbon 14 dating techniques will show that many of them lived millions or billions of years apart, not all at the same time. These predictions are well confirmed by innumerable observations and tests. We can observe directly neither the lengthy evolutionary processes that created the fossils nor a direct divine creation of the dinosaurs and other extinct creatures; but the evolutionary hypothesis is supported by, and "creation science" is refuted by, its testable predictions.

b. Hypothetical Cosmological Entities and Processes

Turning now to cosmological hypotheses, most astronomers now believe in the existence of black holes which, almost by definition, cannot be observed di-

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rectly. They did not originally generalize inductively from a few observed black holes to many others. Rather, unperceived black holes were postulated to explain other things that were visible in the heavens. Astronomers observed that stars were being pulled in certain directions by unseen celestial objects, and that various kinds of radiation were emitted by unidentified sources. The eccentric orbital movements of the star Cignus X-1 cannot be explained by the presence of any visible star, and powerful X-ray emissions discovered in the Large Magellanic Cloud of stars and elsewhere come from no visible source. Astrophysicists accounted for these phenomena by reifying hypothetical black holes that suck in almost all surrounding matter/energy. Some, like Stephen Hawking, conjecture that black holes emit some radiant energy, so not everything in their vicinity gets inhaled if he is right.

Until quite recently, black holes were purely hypothetical or theoretical constructs. The Russian astrophysicist I. L. Rozental wrote as late as 1988 that black holes were "created by the fantasy of the theoreticians," and that "Black holes are unrivaled in their popularity as theoretical objects yet to be reliably observed."⁶² Rozental wrote before the definitive identification of a black hole at the center of the M87 galaxy in May 1994 by astronomers using the repaired Hubble Space Telescope. In one sense, this black hole can be seen, but in another, it cannot. The core, the hole itself, presumably a singularity, emits no light, and in that technical sense it cannot be seen; but some spectacular fireworks in its close vicinity are very visible. Since 1994, the Hubble Space Telescope has located many black holes.

Black holes were thought originally to be so dense, so completely dominated by gravitational attraction, that neither light nor any other forms of energy could escape from them or their vicinity. Supposedly, their awesome density and gravitational effects would devour all nearby objects. Stephen Hawking's more recent black hole theory hypothesizes that X-rays and gamma rays escape from the outer edges of black holes, and that black holes themselves gradually decay and radiate their energy back into the observed universe. Given enough time, all black holes will eventually evaporate completely.⁶³ As Hawking puts it, "Black holes are not completely black."⁶⁴ They do "have hair" after all. Radiation emitted by black holes is now called "Hawking radiation," even by those who do not accept its existence. If Hawking is correct, black holes are not gateways to other universes; though not verified, given enough time, they just dump their stuff back into our universe. Hawking also suggests, again without verification, that black holes occasionally just explode and release their contents back into our universe.⁶⁵ But no known laws of physics permit or predict these explosions.

Singularity cores of black holes cannot be seen because they allow no light to escape; but light definitely does escape from their close environment. If Hawking is right, black holes emit detectable X-rays, gamma rays, and flourescent electrons. Black holes themselves are hypothetical, invisible, imperceptible entities; but their existence predicts and explains certain visible, percep-

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tible effects for which we have no other plausible explanations. At the center of the M87 galaxy, astronomers actually see a vortex of swirling gases, the innermost portions of which are disappearing into an unseen black something at the center of the vortex. Optically, black is the absence of light, so we are not "seeing" anything optically when we see black. Scientists calculate that the mass of the black hole in M87 equals two to three billion suns or solar masses, all of which it has already consumed.

Great uncertainty is involved in abductive reasoning because other hypothetical constructs might also explain observed phenomena. Scientists aspire to construct hypotheses with extensively testable consequences that are not predicted by other hypotheses; but crucial experiments that decisively rule out other hypothetical explanations are rare in the natural sciences (and in philosophy). Presently, only the black hole hypothesis explains what astronomers have found at the center of the M87 galaxy and in many other places like the center of our own Milky Way and perhaps of every other galaxy.

Scientists often postulate the existence of things that are not themselves visible or directly perceptible. Like metaphysicians, they frequently appeal to the unobservable to explain things observed. Purely hypothetical or theoretical and unobserved constructs abound in theoretical physics and cosmology-like singularities, inflation, cosmological constants, magnetic monopoles, dark matter, antecedent universes, or tiny vibrating strings within primitive particles. Consider one other example.

Big Bang Cosmologists think that matter and antimatter particles were initially created together, and that we live in a material world because, in the earliest fractions of a second of the universe, in some mysterious way matter came to prevail over antimatter. How did it happen? We can only theorize, not observe. "Baryonic Asymmetry" means that baryons (like neutrons and protons) came to prevail over their antimatter counterparts in the very early universe. The most widely accepted explanation of matter dominance, developed originally by the Russian physicist Andrei Sakharov, postulates purely hypothetical explanatory entities and processes. I will not give all the details;⁶⁶ but they involve the existence in the earliest universe of never-observed, massively large, primitive particles called "X bosons." X bosons supposedly decayed into matter and antimatter particles at an irregular rate through processes that have never been observed, with matter ultimately prevailing. The observed fact that we live in a material world is explained by constructs that are purely theoretical and uninspected. But why weren't all X bosons destroyed by their own anti-particles?

One serious problem with this is that a very different hypothesis can explain the same facts. The universe just might have been divinely created with a massive matter/antimatter imbalance. Matter dominance could be an initial condition of existence as we know it, not a product of inaccessible natural processes. All existing phenomena would be explained by the God hypothesis, which scientists don't like because it appeals to unobservables! Similar consid-

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erations apply to the equally unobservable inflation postulate. Perhaps God just created the world with similar or isomorphic generic properties throughout; perhaps nearly flat space (if that is indeed what we have), and few if any magnetic monopoles were just initial conditions of creation. Is selecting the most reasonable or best-justified explanation just a matter of aesthetics-or of prejudice-where the most reasonable hypothesis is the most beautiful, or the most scientifically conventional, or the most atheistically naturalistic? At this level of abstraction, scientific or philosophical truth/beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, as later explained.

So, what has become of the simplistic but appealing dogma that scientific beliefs are truths of observation? What remains of the naturalistic claim that beliefs about God, like those about Santa, are false because they cannot be confinned by observation? Theoretical science regularly postulates ultimate unobservable explanatory constructs like black holes, X boson decay, singularities, inflation, antecedent universes, Superspacetime, and infinitely many universes; but these are no more empirical than God! Physical science gradually shades off into metaphysics. Is purely theoretical science just bad science, as Eric Lerner maintains in the next chapter? Even if X bosons and inflation have predictable and testable consequences, alternative but equally invisible conceptual constructs can explain the same observed effects. The most abstract scientific theories are shot through with unobservables and uncertainty, and modesty becomes their endorsement. At some point, we know not just where, theoretical physics becomes raw conjecture, indistinguishable from speculative metaphysics at its worst; but most scientists do not openly admit it. Some spectacular examples will be discussed in coming chapters.

c. Naturalistic Metaphysical Hypotheses

Now that we understand the hypothetico-deductive method, let us ask the really crucial question. Are the four metaphysical truths of Naturalism justified explanatory hypotheses that adequately account for the world we observe?

A. "Only our system of spacetime exists" explains all that we see, but so does "In the beginning, God created our system of spacetime." These metaphysical hypotheses may be debated on their own merits, but the naturalistic hypothesis yields no testable predictions that differentiate it from the theistic alternative. The world, our system of spacetime, would be here and might look much the same as it does whether its transcendent creator is Divine or not. Claiming that our spacetime system is "in principle" all that exists, the whole of reality, adds nothing to what we can see or predict about our universe. No crucial experiments show that Naturalism can, but Theism cannot, explain any or all of the observable features of our world. Actually, cosmic teleology and contingency, considered in the concluding chapters of this book, show just the reverse.

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Theism can adequately account for many observable features of our world that Naturalism cannot plausibly elucidate.

B. Perhaps the purposelessness, indifference, and stupidity of nature as a whole best explains the presence of evil and pervasive lifelessness in the world; but the purposefulness and intelligence of Deity may best explain the presence of life and goodness in the world. Whether Naturalism or Theism best explains both good and evil is an ancient and interminable debate, to be considered more carefully in Chapter Eleven. Final conclusions about the meaning of value and disvalue in the world are primarily philosophical, not scientific. With simple empirical claims, we can tell the difference between natural science and philosophy; but in the middle and at hypothetical extremes where scientific theories wax philosophical, it is often hard to tell. The presence or absence of ultimate cosmic teleology is not an obvious issue for purely descriptive science. The facts of life pose questions about both good and evil in the world, and about the pro-anthropic orderliness of the cosmos; but the answers belong more to philosophy than to empirical science. So, too, do Naturalism's metaphysical claims.

C. Naturalists contend that nature and its most basic ingredients-time, space, and energy-are infinite, eternal, and necessary. How does this fare as a scientific explanatory hypothesis? This and other Naturalistic metaphysical claims about the most fundamental features of the universe cannot be confirmed by direct observation, and they cannot be inferred inductively since we observe only finite, transient, and contingent parts ofnature. Induction yields only more of the same, not diametrical opposites. As an explanatory hypothesis, the eternity and necessity of our spacetime system fares no better. Naturalistic claims about the infinity, eternity, and self-sufficient necessity of our universe are definitively falsified by modem science's massive empirical and theoretical evidence for the Big Bang.

Recall the seven converging lines of evidence that convince most scientists that our universe began in a cataclysmic explosion about fifteen billion or so years ago. In asserting that our universe is infinite, eternal, and necessary, Naturalism affirms just the opposite. The naturalistic hypothesis seems to predict that: (I) distant galaxies should exhibit no redshift, (2) the universe should not be expanding at a regular pace, (3) order and energy should not be dissipating with time, (4) Einstein's field equations should not be satisfied by an expanding universe that had a beginning in time, (5) the heavy elements should predominate over hydrogen and helium in the universe since they have had an infinite amount of time to be cooked up by stellar furnaces; indeed, there should be no hydrogen or radioactive elements left at all, (6) no relatively uniform cosmic microwave background should exist, and (7) the sky at night should be as bright as day! These empirical implications of naturalistic metaphysics have been falsified overwhelmingly.

D. That "All events have natural causes" may be hypothesized, but so may "Some events have supernatural causes." To do their work, natural scientists

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require only the imperative, "Look for natural causes." They do not require a metaphysical guarantee of success. Ancient and contemporary debates over miracles proceed at the fuzzy borderline of science and metaphysics. Input data and conclusions drawn from them often just presuppose rather than establish metaphysical convictions. Natural science does not settle all such disputes, but it has established the truth of creation. Something outside of and preceding our universe presumably created it. Just what this something was-whether God, a preceding universe, a system of Superspacetime, or what have you-and whether the universe actually had a cause at all will be addressed in following chapters. Clearly, if our universe had a cause, it was supernatural, transcendent, in relation to our system of spacetime.

In sum, natural science does not side with Naturalism, the fundamental beliefs of which are not verified by, and some of which are clearly falsified by, natural science, despite all the huffing and puffing of Naturalists themselves. Its metaphysical claims have no direct observational component; and we cannot inductively infer them as more of the same. Construed as explanatory hypothesis, the metaphysical "truths" of Naturalism make no verifiable predictions that Theism fails to make. Naturalistic reasoning is often viciously circular and "proves" itself only by presupposing itself. It is often defended so dogmatically and tenaciously that no experience is allowed to count against it; but much that modem scientists have discovered about our universe counts decisively against it. Naturalists can confess their faith, and insist that their beauty, or their prejudice, is everyone's truth; but they cannot appeal to empirical science to confirm their worldview. Naturalism is a priori, unconfinned, and in some instances clearly falsified metaphysics, pure and simple. Its metaphysics is not derived from experience or "scientific method." Instead, Naturalists presuppose their metaphysical beliefs in interpreting all experience; and their ungrounded assumptions set limits to any beliefs, hypotheses, and theories that Naturalists are willing to take seriously. Some people are psychologically predisposed toward Naturalism, but no rational or scientific considerations require anyone to accept it.

[Notes]

1. Kai Nielsen, Naturalism without Foundations (Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1996), pp. 26, 29, 527.
2. David R. Griffin, Religion and Scientific Naturalism (Albany: State University ofNew York Press, 2000), pp. 11-17, 3~0.
3. See Rem B. Edwards, Reason and Religion: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1972, and Lanham, Md.: The University Press of America, 1979), pp. 133-144. Cf. Holmes Rolston, III, Science and Religion: A Critical Survey (New York: Random House, 1987), p. 248.
4. Nielsen, Naturalism Without Foundations, pp. 33-34, 47, 54 n. 39, and elsewhere.
5. Corliss Lamont, "Naturalistic Humanism," in The Humanist Alternative, ed. Paul Kurtz (Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 1973), p. 129.
6. John Dewey, The Quest for Certainty (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1960), p. 243.
7. Paul Kurtz, ed. Humanist Manifestos I and II (Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 1973),p.16.
8. Roy W. Sellars, Religion Coming of Age (New York: Macmillan, 1928), p. 141.
9. Carl Sagan, Cosmos (New York: Random House, 1980), p. 4.
10. Paul Kurtz, In Defense of Secular Humanism (Buffalo: Prometheus Books, 1983), p. 63.
11. Nielsen, Naturalism Without Foundations, p. 35.
12. Frank J. Tipler, The Physics of Immortality (New York: Anchor Books, 1994 ), pp. ix, 3, 116.
13. Lucretius, "The Nature of the Universe," in Theories of the Universe from Babylonian Myth to Modern Science, ed. Milton Munitz (New York: The Free Press, 1957), p. 55.
14. Roy W. Sellars, "Does Naturalism Need Ontology," Journal of Philosophy, 41: 25 (December 1944), p. 686.
15. Lamont, "Naturalistic Humanism," p. 129.
16. Sidney Hook, The Quest for Being (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1961 ), p. 237.
17. Kurtz, Humanist Manifestos I and II, p. 8.
18. Kurtz, In Defense of Secular Humanism, p. 65.
19. Quoted in: Joseph Priestley, Letters to a Philosophical Unbeliever, Part I (New York: Garland Publishing Co., 1983), pp. 382-383.
20. Corliss Lamont, The Illusion of Immortality (New York: Frederick Ungar Pub. Co., 1965), p. 186.
21. Ibid., p. 271.
22. Sellars, Religion Coming of Age, p. 146.
23. Ibid., p. 212.
24. Roy W. Sellers, The Philosophy of Physical Realism (New York: Russell & Russell. 1996), p. 15.
25. Kurtz, Humanist Manifestos I and II, p. 8.
26. Kurtz, In Defense of Secular Humanism, p. 214.
27. William R. Dennes, "The Categories of Naturalism," in Naturalism and the Human Spirit, ed. Y. H. Krikorian (New York: Columbia University Press, 1944), p. 288.
28. Hook, The Quest for Being, pp. 185-186.
29. Sterling Lamprecht, The Metaphysics of Naturalism (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1967), p. 202.
30. Hans Reichenbach, The Rise of Scientific Philosophy (Berkeley, Cal.: University of California Press, 1951 ), p. 208.
31. Kurtz, In Defense of Secular Humanism. p. 18.
32. Bertrand Russell, Religion and Science (New York: Oxford University Press, 1935), p. 243.
33. Hook, The Quest for Being, p. 78.
34. John Dewey, A Common Faith (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1934), pp. 32-33.
35. Sellars, The Philosophy of Physical Realism, p. 141.
36. Kurtz, Humanist Manifestos I and II, p. 16.
37. Stuart C. Dodd, "Hypotheses Defining Scientific Humanism: A Reformulation of Humanist Principles for Testing by Scientific Methods," Journal of Human Relations, 21:2 (Second Quarter 1973), p. 174.
38. Kurtz, In Defense of Secular Humanism, p. 117.
39. Nielsen, Naturalism without Foundations, p. 26.
40. Michael Devitt, Coming to Our Senses: A Naturalistic Program for Semantic Localism (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 2, 49.
41. Richard Rorty, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979); and Consequences of Pragmatism (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1982).
42. Paul Feyerabend, Against Method, rev. ed. (New York: Verso, 1988).
43. See Michael Friedman, "Philosophical Naturalism," Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association. 74:2 (1997), pp. 7-21. 44. Arthur Peacock, "Science and God the Creator," in Evidence of Purpose:
Scientists Discover the Creator, ed. John M. Templeton (New York: Continuum Pub. Co., 1994), p. 93.
45. Kurtz, Humanist Manifestos I and II, p. 14.
46. Lamont, The Illusion of Immortality, p. 262.
47. Kurtz, In Defense of Secular Humanism, pp. 68-69.
48. Cf. David Ehrenfeld, The Arrogance of Humanism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978).
49. Michael Ruse, "The New Evolutionary Ethics," in Evolutionary Ethics, eds. Matthew H. Nitecki and Doris V. Nitecki (Albany: State University ofNew York Press, 1993), pp. 133-162; Michael Ruse, "Evolutionary Theory and Christian Ethics," Zygon, 29 (March 1994), pp. 5-24.
50. Neil 0. Weiner, The Harmony of the Soul (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993 ).
51. Patricia A. Williams, "Christianity and Evolutionary Ethics: Sketch Toward a Reconciliation," Zygon, 31 :2 (June 1996), pp. 253-268.
52. Kurtz, In Defense of Secular Humanism, p. 67.
53. Ibid., p. 110.
54. Nielsen, Naturalism without Foundations, pp. 26-27, 32, 64, and elsewhere.
55. Ibid., pp. 12-19, Part Two, and elsewhere.
56. Ibid., p. 13.
57. George Smoot and Keay Davidson. Wrinkles in Time (New York: Avon Books, 1993), pp. 95-97.
58. See Rem B. Edwards, Reason and Religion: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion, pp. 347-351.
59. See Norwood Russell Hanson, Patterns of Discovery (Cambridge, England: The University Press, 1969), Ch. I.
60. See James F. Harris. Against Relativism: A Philosophical Defense of Method (La Salle, Ill.: Open Court, 1992), especially Ch. 7 and pp. 59--63. See also Nielsen, Naturalism without Foundations, pp. 27-29, 31-33, 64, 70, 309, 316-317.
61. See Timothy Ferris, Coming of Age in the Milky Way (New York: William Morrow and Co .. 1988), Ch. 16 and pp. 298-299, 384-388. See also J. D. Barrow, The Artful Universe (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995).
62. I. L. Rozental, Big Bang Big Bounce (Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 1988), p. 127.
63. Stephen Hawking, Black Holes and Baby Universes and Other Essays (New York: Bantam Books, 1993), Ch. 10.
64. Ibid., p. 120.
65. Ibid., pp. 110-111.
66. For details see Leon M. Lederman and David N. Schramm, From Quarks to the Cosmos: Tools of Discovery (New York: Scientific American Library, 1989), pp. 163-165; Martin Rees, Before the Beginning: Our Universe and Others (Reading, Mass.: Perseus Books, 1997), pp. 155-158.

EDITORIAL FOREWORD

The appearance of Rem B. Edwards's What Caused the Big Bang? marks the introduction of the first title in the Philosophy and Religion (PAR) special series. I cannot imagine a better way to introduce the special series to the academic world than to do so through the thought of a frequently cited scholar. This is PAR's first book, Edwards's sixteenth.

Edwards's erudition is everywhere in evidence as he devours the pages of Big Bang literature, separating fact from fancy, the examined from the unexamined. Socrates would recognize his sting as belonging to the most energetic of gadflies, unrelenting, pestering those who would readily ascribe the origin of the universe to anything less than disciplined reason requires. What caused the Big Bang? Now that the 15 billion-year-old cosmic dust has settled, several likely explanations emerge from the cosmic broth. But not all explanations are proven equal, as Edwards amply demonstrates: Steady State and Plasma Cosmologies; Antecedent Universe Cosmologies; Big Fizz and Big Divide Quantum Cosmologies; Quantum Observership Cosmology; Big Accident Quantum Cosmology; Atheistic Anthropic Cosmology; the Final Anthropic Principle-each view contains fatal flaws.

Edwards's thesis that God caused the Big Bang follows a detailed deconstruction of alternate models showing their weakness: where and how they commit fallacies. The burden of proof now falls squarely on the shoulders of those who do not accept the claim that God caused the Big Bang. Critics must point to the deficiencies in Edwards's argument and defend the superiority of their own view. This is a hard sell, given the breadth and depth of his work. But if God created the universe, what is our place in it? Who is God, why did God create, is God responsible for the suffering of innocent victims, and since the universe is contingent, does God sustain creation? Like all good philosophy, Edwards's answer to questions raises more questions!

In my own work on death and immortality, the mysterious nature of the nothing has long beckoned forth, inviting me to visit the nurturing intelligibilities it incloses. In discussions on death and dying, I find useful the distinction between the absence of something and the removal of ground in which the possibility of this absence arises. For instance, is death the absence of life or is it the removal of the possibility in which the possibility of absence arises? The simple answer is that it is both. The complex answer is that one distinction (ontological) raises the question of what death might be like to the dead (if post mortem states exist), while the other (epistemic) addresses the ordinary-language view of death as absence of life. The investigation into the ontological character of death (death as such), then is conducted from the perspective of the nothing as reversal in the possibility of temporal existence. Death is a return to the conditions that existed before the Big Bang. In part, my thesis depends on the existence of a state in the likeness of the nothing. Edwards's What Caused

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the Big Bang? provides solid evidence and confirms my own belief that God is at work in this domain.

If God caused the Big Bang, then, the universe had a beginning. It might not have had a beginning in time (the universe could be eternal), but it must have had a beginning in the order of existence (thereby providing an answer to the question, "Why is there something rather than nothing?"). If matter has a beginning, science cannot reach that far. The laws of the universe only become applicable at Planck Time and Planck Space or length; at 10^-43rd of a second, the size of the universe was 10^-33rd centimeter in diameter (see pp. 98-99 of this volume). This is as close to the moment of creation as science can get. So how can the Big Bang have a cause? Philosophy and/or religion take over at that point. Edwards's inquiry reveals that the gap separating the before and the after of existence (beyond scientific measurement) is not nothing at all since it is pregnant with the divine laws and patterns of existence. How else would the universe know to open the first act of existence in a scene of well-orchestrated expansion and contraction? Planets could not have formed in the absence of laws and patterns. The existence of the law implies structure. And structure points beyond contingency to the existence of a Necessary Being-or God at work in the ex nihilo.

Edwards's book is powerful and timely. His cogent analysis of quantum physics provides at least one indubitable truth that cannot be deconstructed-God exists! The current crisis in Ethics is due to the excesses of relativism. Once we accepted Hume's invitation to skepticism, Heidegger's critique of the Absolute, Nietzsche's death-of-God movement, and the genetic secularization of our species, nothing special was left to unite us. We found ourselves doing moral theory in the absence of a unified ethical vision of our common origin, nature, and destiny. Edwards's book provides the ontological grounding required for a fresh start. It should be required reading, not only where physics is taught, but whenever Philosophy and Religion matter.

Kenneth A. Bryson
Editor, Philosophy and Religion
University College of Cape Breton
Sydney, Nova Scotia, Canada
January 2001

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PREFACE

In 1988, Stephen W. Hawking wrote,

Up to now, most scientists have been too occupied with the development of new theories that describe what the universe is to ask the question why? On the other hand, the people whose business it is to ask why, the philosophers, have not been able to keep up with the advance of scientific theories. ¹

My professional training as a philosopher has contributed immensely to my preparation for writing this book; and I have done my best to try to understand those scientific theories which have a direct bearing on my central question: What caused the Big Bang? I hope that my inquiry brings together successfully both the what and the why of the origin of the universe. This topic has long fascinated me, and I have read and thought extensively about it. My considerable reading about the Big Bang, my background in Process Philosophy, with  its emphasis on uniting philosophy and science, and my training, teaching, and writing in the philosophy of religion have all helped to prepare me for this enterprise.

Almost everyone is curious about the origin of the universe; and my intended audience is philosophers, theologians, scientists, and all inquisitive persons who wonder how and why it all began. I agree with George Smoot that there is a "deep public interest in understanding the origin of the universe and our place in it;" ² so this book is written for the average literate person, not just for professionals. In places, however, the subject matter is difficult. To quote Hawking again:

...If we do discover a complete theory, it should in time be understandable in broad principle by everyone, not just a few scientists. Then we shall all, philosophers, scientists, and just ordinary people, be able to take part in the discussion of why it is that we and the universe exist. If we find the answer to that, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason-for then we would know the mind of God. ³

With Smoot and Hawking, I share this ultimate goal and address this broad audience. My contribution will be to ask and try to answer philosophical questions of scientists, who are usually at least as naive about philosophy as philosophers are about science. I also want to show ordinary people what the best scientific minds are saying about the origin of the universe, and how to think critically and philosophically about their theories. In thinking about the ultimate origin of the universe, we are in the borderlands between science, philosophy, and religion.

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I will try to present the major answers that contemporary scientific cosmologists are giving to: What caused the Big Bang? For many persons, this question has a simple and direct answer: God did it. When the Belgian astronomer/priest George Lemaitre first understood the evidence for the Big Bang, he was probably convinced personally that science had discovered the moment when God created the world;⁴ but he tended to keep his views on how religion relates to astronomy to himself. In a 1951 address, Pope Pius XII claimed that "True science discovers God in an ever-increasing degree-as though God were waiting behind every door opened by science .... Science has provided proof of the beginning of time .... Hence, creation took place in time. Therefore, there is a Creator; therefore, God exists."⁵

Those who believe that things are so easy will be surprised to learn that most contemporary scientific cosmologists are doing their best to avoid the hypothesis that God created or caused the Big Bang. Most presuppose a Naturalistic metaphysics, according to which the universe has been around in some form from eternity with no conceivable dependence on Deity. Many scientists believe that the Big Bang, which initiated our cosmic epoch, was caused by an antecedently existing universe, not by God's creative activity. Some scientific cosmologists try to avoid God by maintaining that the Big Bang had no cause at all. Coming chapters will survey both secular and religious accounts of cosmic origins and evaluate them on their own merits.

Chapter One of this book reviews the overwhelming evidence that convinces most scientists today that our universe began with a Big Bang somewhere between eight and twenty billion years ago; and it charts the course of the evolution of the universe from an initiating Big Bang to where we are today. It explores the possibility that science cannot answer the question of ultimate origins because the topic lies beyond the proper bounds of legitimate science. Good science involves both theory and empirical confirmation, but many contemporary scientific cosmologists are producing only content-less theories about what caused the Big Bang. Scientific Cosmological Agnostics deny that our question is properly scientific and indicate that the pseudoscientific theories which try to answer it cannot be verified, even indirectly. Only experience can separate actualities from abstruse possibilities, reality from wild speculation; yet we have no experience of worlds creating other worlds.

In Chapter Two, Naturalistic Humanistic theories of reality (metaphysics), of knowledge (epistemology), and of human origins (humanistic anthropology) and well-being (ethics and axiology) are introduced, subjected to thorough philosophical analysis and criticism, and shown definitively to be untenable. All the non-theistic answers to: What caused the Big Bang? examined in Chapters Three through Nine are deeply embedded within an indefensible Naturalistic Humanistic philosophical outlook.

Chapter Three explores significant challenges to the idea that our universe originated in a Big Bang. Steady State Cosmology, developed by Fred Hoyle

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and his associates in the 1940s and 1950s, affirms that the universe is uncreated and that it maintains its present general appearance from eternity; so there was no Big Bang. The Hubble expansion of the universe results from the continuous creation of hydrogen atoms out of nothing by matter. New atoms fill in the blanks left by the Hubble expansion of the universe. Steady State Cosmology is not alone in affirming that the physical universe is spatially and temporally infinite. In The Big Bang Never Happened,⁶ Eric Lerner offers seemingly powerful objections to the evidence that convinces most scientists that the Big Bang really happened, and he presents his own Plasma Cosmology which, when all is said and done, relies upon a local Mini-Bang to explain what is happening in the finite part of the infinite universe that is observable to us. Decisive objections to his position are developed.

In Chapter Four, two versions of the theory that our universe was created by the collapse of an antecedently existing universe are discussed. George Gamow thought that a shrinking universe infinitely preceded our own in a time before our time and finally collapsed in a Big Crunch. It then rebounded, and our resulting universe will expand forever. We exist in a life-supporting phase of the endless rebound period. Where Gamow's Cosmology postulates only one contraction, one crunch, one Bang, and one rebound, Oscillation Cosmology conjures up an infinite number of antecedent universes, each of which began in a Big Bang, expanded to a maximal state, recontracted, then renewed the whole process with another Big Bang. Oscillationists propose that an influx of energy from an antecedently existing universe caused the Big Bang and our resulting cosmos, but the position is fatally flawed, as this chapter shows.

Quantum theory has powerfully influenced cosmological speculation since the early 1980s. Chapters Five through Eight explore a variety of Quantum Cosmologies, each of which has its own peculiar answer to the question of cosmic origins.

Big Fizz Cosmology covered in Chapter Five says that our Big Bang was created when energy bubbles formed through spontaneous quantum fluctuations in the womb of an antecedently existing Superspacetime or Mother Spacetime. Infinitely many bubbles form spontaneously to make infinitely many universes, which co-exist within Mother Spacetime. Our bubble inflated fifteen billion or so years ago, so here we are! Big Divide Cosmology says that every universe sub-divides itself into infinitely many universes at every tum of events, so we are here for a brief moment within a universe that looks like it began in a Big Bang, but it really began only a fraction of a second ago when an antecedent universe sub-divided to actualize all possibilities. But these cosmologies are utterly implausible, as demonstrated.

Quantum Observership examined in Chapter Six emphasizes the important role that some interpreters of quantum mechanics assign to scientific observers, measurers, and experimenters. It maintains that the indefinite and indeterminate domain of quantum events takes on definiteness and determinateness only when

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observers view it. Evidence for the Big Bang exists  only as human observers find it-and thereby create it. So what created the Big Bang? We did! (But we didn't, as the concluding critique proves.)

Big Accident Cosmology contends, as explained in Chapter Seven, that the question of what caused the Big Bang presupposes something that supposedly is not true, namely that everything which comes into being has a cause. Quantum physics denies this, we are told, and discloses that our universe originated out of nothing, was caused by nothing, exists for no purpose, and is nothing. Nothing caused the Big Bang. It is so easy for nothing to cause nothing! Just why our universe did not originate this way is carefully explained.

Chapter Eight considers Atheistic Anthropic Cosmology. Many recent scientific cosmologists note that our universe is exceptionally fine-tuned for the creation of life, including intelligent forms of life. Tiny changes in any of the initial conditions, constants, and Jaws of nature would have resulted in a universe inhospitable to life. For every successful way of creating a life-supporting universe, there are infinitely many futile ways to get it wrong. Lifeless universes are infinitely probable, and life-supporting universes are infinitely improbable. Why, then, do we live in a life-supporting universe? The Anthropic Principle says that we live in a life-supporting universe because we are here, that is, because if the universe were not life-supporting, we would not be here to ask questions about it. Even atheists do not deny the remarkable life-supporting design of our universe, but they think that they can account for this without having to appeal to God. Atheistic Anthropic Cosmology explains that if infinitely many worlds exist, as many Quantum Cosmologies profess, then universes as rare as our own will just happen occasionally. Given an infinite number of shoes, one will fit now and then by pure chance. The metaphysical Principle of Plenitude, that all possibilities must be actual somewhere, guarantees the existence of an infinite number of universes. For Atheistic Quantum Cosmologists, the Principle of Plenitude is the ultimate cause of our Big Bang plus infinitely many other universes, very few of which life-sustaining. The innumerable flaws of Atheistic Anthropic Cosmology are spelled out in detail.

Chapter Nine deals with the bizarre claims made by the Final Anthropic Principle, according to which our universe and an infinite number of others will ultimately coalesce into a single omniscient and omnipotent Omega Point that will be God. God does not now exist and did not create the world; but the world, which began without God, now exists and will ultimately create God. Human life is meaningful because through our android descendants we can contribute to the development of the Omega Point by traveling in space and ultimately inhabiting our entire universe. The position borders on madness, as explained!

These atheistic theories and a few theistic accounts of what caused the Big Bang are explained and critically examined in significant depth in chapters to follow. When considered critically and seriously, much of the atheistic cosmological speculation being done by today's astronomers, astrophysicists, and

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other scientists is quite outlandish, as the preceding paragraphs suggest. Once this is fully understood and appreciated, the door is open to reexamine the possibility that God caused the Big Bang. Still, some ways of conceiving of the nature of God and of God's relations with the world are much more intelligible than others, and much easier to relate to the universe disclosed to us in Big Bang Cosmology.

Two quite different concepts of God are examined in Chapter Ten. Classical Theism is committed to the absolute changelessness of God in every conceivable respect. Process Theism, by contrast, affirms that God is indeed changeless in certain desirable respects but is in process in other highly desirable respects. It is desirable both that God be changelessly good and that God's experiences change as God interacts with created worlds and their creatures as they come in to being in spacetime and history. A comprehensive but modified Process Theology best reconciles science and religion. Chapter Ten also discusses several senses in which God may be said to "exist" and develops and justifies several changes in Process Theism that seem desirable, upon examination, if it is to be rationally and religiously appealing.

Chapter Eleven presents a revitalized Biopic Teleological Argument for the existence of God, based upon massive evidence for the fine tuning of the universe for life, as disclosed by contemporary scientific cosmology. Note that when masculine pronouns are used occasionally in reference to God in this chapter and elsewhere, this is done merely from convention and for economy or convenience of expression; but it in no way implies that God is masculine in any intelligible or defensible sense.

Chapter Twelve further develops the case for Theism with a refurbished Cosmological Argument from Contingency for the existence of God, again based upon what contemporary physics and astrophysics have revealed about the radically contingent nature of physical reality.

To my knowledge, no existing book covers and critically examines philosophically all the major options for explaining the origin of the Big Bang. The astute debate between William L. Craig and Quentin Smith in their Theism, Atheism, and Big Bang Cosmology⁷ focuses almost exclusively on the Standard Model of the Big Bang, with its initial singularity, and on the quantum Big Accident option; but it neglects all the other theories of origin explored here. M. A. Corey's God and the New Cosmology: The Anthropic Design Argument deals mainly with the teleological but not in depth with the cosmological argument for God's existence. As endnotes for each following chapter will indicate, numerous books and articles examine and defend one particular theory or another. Yet, no previous book takes a hard philosophical look at all the basic options presented here while critically examining the Naturalistic assumptions that underlie the non-theistic scientific (or pseudoscientific) cosmologies covered in Chapters Three through Nine. Many cosmologists emphasize scientific

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data and theories. While not neglecting these, I also introduce relevant philosophical questions, analysis, and theories.

I wish to express special appreciation to The University of Tennessee for the Faculty Development Grant which it awarded to me to work on this project,
and to my former Department Heads, George Brenkert and Kathy Bohstedt, for their substantial support for my efforts. Kenneth A. Bryson, editor of the Religion and Philosophy special series of the Value Inquiry Book Series, was
immensely helpful in spotting defects that I was not able to see, but final responsibility for imperfections in the book rests with me. And many, many
thanks to my wife Louise who managed to tolerate my existence while I was so
deeply immersed in the project of figuring out the universe.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I thank the following publishers for their kind permission to reprint or paraphrase copyrighted materials, especially Barry Whitney, editor of Process Studies, which previously published my discussion of "How Process Theology Can Affirm Creation Ex Nihilo," 29: I (Spring-Summer 2000), pp. 77-96 that appears here as a section of Chapter Ten. Short quotations and references in this volume should fall within the realm of "fair use," but for permission to use more detailed material, I thank the following:

Cambridge University Press: James Cornell, ed., Bubbles, Voids, and Bumps in Time: The New Cosmology, 1989.

Clarendon Press, a division of Oxford University Press: William L. Craig and Quentin Smith, Theism, Atheism, and Big Bang Cosmology, 1993.

Mind, an Oxford University Press publication: Ian Hacking, "The Inverse Gambler's Fallacy," 96 (1987), pp. 331-340.

Open Court Publishing Company: Charles Hartshorne, Creative Synthesis and Philosophic Method, 1970.

Oxford University Press: John D. Barrow and Frank J. Tipler, The Anthropic Principle, 1989.

Process and Faith: John B. Cobb, Jr., "Is God Creator Ex Nihilo?" Web site, July-August, 1999.

Prometheus Books: Kai Nielsen, Naturalism without Foundations, 1996; Victor J. Stenger, The Unconscious Quantum: Metaphysics in Modern Physics and Cosmology, 1995.

Random House, Alfred A. Knopf: Eric J. Lerner, The Big Bang Never Happened, 1991.

Random House, Bantam Dell Publishing Group: Stephen W. Hawking, A Brief History of Time, 1988, 1996.

Sky & Telescope: Cheryl J. Beatty and Richard T. Fienberg, "Participatory Cosmology: The Big Bang Challenge" (March 1994), pp. 20-22; "Extrasolar Planet Seen Transiting Its Star" (February 2000), pp. 16-17; "The Great Attractor's Hidden Heart" (December 1999), p. 12; Robert Jastrow, "What Are the Chances for Life?" (June 1997), p. 63; Alan M. MacRobert, "Beyond the Big Bang" (March 1983), pp. 211-213; Sten Oldenwald, "Spacetime: The Final

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Frontier" (February 1996), pp 24-29; "The Primordial Soup: A Recipe for Life" (February 1998), p. 20; Joshua Roth and Joel R. Primack, "Cosmology: All Sewn Up or Coming Apart at the Seams" (January 1996), pp. 20--26; Gary H. Sanders and David Beckett, "LIGO: An Antenna Tuned to the Songs of Gravity" (October 2000), pp. 41-48.

Yale University Divinity School: Robert Jastrow, "Science and the Creation," in Creation (a special issue of Reflection), edited by Thomas Schattauer, 1980.

Writers House LLC: Stephen W. Hawking, A Brief History of Time, 1988, 1996.

Zygon, a Blackwell publication: Joel Friedman, "The Natural God: A God Even an Atheist Can Believe In" (September 1986), pp. 369-388; Fred W. Hallberg, "Barrow and Tipler's Anthropic Cosmological Principle" (June 1988), pp. 139-157; Frank J. Tipler, "The Omega Point as Eschaton: Answers to Pannenberg's Questions for Scientists" (June 1989), pp. 217-253; Patricia A. Williams, "Christianity and Evolutionary Ethics: Sketch Toward a Reconciliation" (June 1996), pp. 253-268. 

[Notes]

1. From A BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME, by Stephen W. Hawking, copyright © 1988, 1996 by Stephen W. Hawking, p. 174. Used by permission of Bantam Books, a division of Random House, Inc. and Writers House LLC.
2. George Smoot and Keay Davidson, Wrinkles in Time (New York: Avon Books, 1993), p. 289.
3. Hawking, p. 175.
4. George Lemaitre, The Primeval Atom (New York: Van Nostrand, 1950).
5. Pope Pius XII, "Modern Science and the Existence of God," The Catholic Mind, (March 1952), pp. 182-192.
6. Eric Lerner, The Big Bang Never Happened (New York: Random House, 1991).
7. William L. Craig and Quentin Smith, Theism, Atheism, and Big Bang Cosmology (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993 ), p. 197. By permission of Oxford University Press.
8. M. A. Corey, God and the New Cosmology: The Anthropic Design Argument (Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 1993).