Another Fine Mess You Have Got Yourself Into, Luke Barnes

In his New Atlantic article, The Fine Tuning of Nature's Laws, Luke Barnes provided this image:

Below it was explanatory text:

“What if we tweaked just two of the fundamental constants? This figure shows what the universe would look like if the strength of the strong nuclear force (which holds atoms together) and the value of the fine-structure constant (which represents the strength of the electromagnetic force between elementary particles) were higher or lower than they are in this universe. The small, white sliver represents where life can use all the complexity of chemistry and the energy of stars. Within that region, the small “x” marks the spot where those constants are set in our own universe.”

While he doesn’t specify clearly, I think he is making an error here.  Unfortunately he doesn’t talk much about charge (both mentions are in reference to what electromagnetic force is not about charge per se), but it seems like he might be suggesting that it could be possible to change the fine-structure constant without changing the elementary charge.  I have a vague recollection of having even read it, make it less of a suggestion and more of an explicit statement, but for the life of me I can no longer find it.

Even if he is not making such a claim, he is still putting the cart before the horse.  Electromagnetic force between elementary charges is going to be proportional to the magnitude of the elementary charge, full stop.  It has nothing to do with the value of the fine structure constant which is merely a representation of the ratio between the elementary charge and the Planck charge (α_(e)=e²/q_Pl², where the (e) subscript highlights that the calculation of the electromagnetic coupling constant [also known as the fine structure constant] is calculated on the basis of the elementary charge).  He should be talking about the value of the elementary charge perhaps, and not the fine structure constant.

Sure, if a hypothetical elementary charge were z times that of the elementary charge (e_hyp=ze), then (at the same separation, r) the repulsive electromagnetic force between two protons would be z² times as strong – and the attractive force between an electron and a proton would also be z² times as strong.

For two protons, it seems that the maximum value of e_hyp may well be the Planck charge, noting that it was calculated in SI World and Planck World that the strong force is more than sufficient to hold two Planck charges together at a distance of femtometre.  This means that there is another way to look at the fine structure constant – that is as a representation of how finely tuned the strong force is not.  It is quite bit stronger than it needs to be (perhaps in the order of a thousand times).  Alternatively, if there is a natural limit to the possible charge on subatomic particles to the Planck charge, then it is possible that the elementary charge could have any non-zero magnitude below that of the Planck charge, giving the fine structure constant any non-zero value below unity.

Consider then an electron and a proton bound in a hydrogen atom.  The electron can be thought of as being prevented from spiralling into the nucleus by the balance of forces (there is also an argument from the basis of the kinetic/potential energy balance but note that this argument, as presented, uses a leap that is not explained and is thus not accounted for adequately – see also the Bohr model which co-incidentally points towards the nature of the leap). 

For hydrogen, (note the subscript used here is to emphasise that we are talking about an electron):

m_ev_e²/r_e=e²/4πε₀r_e²

m_ev_e²=e²/4πε₀r_e

Note that 2πr_e=λ_e so

m_ev_e²=2π.e²/4πε₀λ_e

e²/4πε₀= m_eλ_ev_e²/2π

but note that p_e=m_ev_e and λ_e=h/p_e, so m_eλ_e=h/v_e and so

e²/4πε₀=(hv_e/2π)=ħv_e

Thus

v_e= e²/4πε₀ħ

Note that this lines up with the value calculated here for a hydrogen atom where the principal quantum number n=1.

Now consider that α_(e)=e²/4πε₀ħc and q_Pl=√(4πε₀ħc), we have

v_e=(e²/q_Pl²).c=α_(e).c

It follows, therefore that

v_hyp=α_hyp.c

This clearly places a natural limit on the charge of an electron such that 0<α_hyp<1, meaning that 0<e_hyp<q_Pl (assuming non-zero mass, otherwise “≤” might apply at the upper end).  This is a form of mathematical confirmation of the intuition obtained from consideration of the case of two protons.

Note the immutability of this equation.  If you change the magnitude of the elementary charge, you change the magnitude of the electromagnetic coupling constant and therefore you change the speed of the electron.

Looking back at an earlier equation and multiplying through by ħc/ħc

m_ev_e²= ħc.e²/4πε₀ħcr_e

Recalling that α_(e)=e²/4πε₀ħc and that v_e=α_(e).c

m_e(α_(e).c)²= ħc.α_(e)/r_e

m_e.α_(e).c = ħ/r_e

Rearranging for r_e

r_e=ħ/(m_e.α_(e).c)

Compare this with the Bohr radius which is given by

a₀=4πε₀ħ²/m_ee²

Multiplied through by c/c and noting that α_(e)=e²/4πε₀ħc

a₀= ħ.4πε₀ħc/e²/(m_e.c)

a₀=ħ.1/α_(e)/(m_e.c)= ħ/(α_(e).m_e.c)=r_e

By extension, we see that

r_hyp=ħ/(m_hyp.α_hyp.c)

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The implication here is that there is some flexibility in the related values for our hypothetical electron, α_hyp, m_hyp and r_hyp.  We have already established that 0<α_hyp<1.  Looking at the extremes:

If α_hyp→0, and m_hyp has any value, then

r_hyp→∞

If α_hyp→1, and m_hyp=m_Pl=√(ħc/G), then

r_hyp→ħ/(√(ħc/G).c)=√(ħG/c³)=l_Pl

If α_hyp→1, and m_hyp>m_Pl=√(ħc/G), then

r_hyp<l_Pl

If α_hyp→1, and m_hyp→0, then

r_hyp→∞

In other words, the orbital radius of the electron could (depending on the choices for the other two values) be anything greater than the Planck length.  The mass of the electron has a soft limit at the Planck mass, but could have higher values if the fine structure constant were sufficiently low.  Note that we would eventually run into problems with low values of the fine structure due constant gravitational attraction swamping the electromagnetic repulsion meaning that there is another soft limit hidden in there.  Also, there is a limit due to the size of the nucleus, meaning that r_hyp would have to be significantly above the femtometre scale. The magnitude of the fine structure constant is limited to between 0 and 1, as explained above.

In reality, the only possible driver of any fine tuning here, if anything, is the value of the strong coupling constant, but this only affects particles in the nucleus, and it is more than sufficient to bind two particles with a unit of Planck charge each as close as a femtometre to each other.  The tuning, such that it is, is with respect to the separation at which the force is maximised – but even then, this is about 10⁴ tighter than the electron orbit.

It appears, therefore, that the much vaunted “fine tuning” is, in fact, pretty damn coarse.

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I don’t know enough about the (residual) strong force to work out if there are any natural limitations to its strength.  But the valid magnitude for the fine structure constant is certainly limited to between zero and unity, so Barnes’ image should at least look like this:

Since nothing happens in the region above where the strong constant has a strength of 1, we could safely ignore that space – which Barnes sort of does with his squeezing 10-∞ in a region that is about half that of 1-10.  Just keep in mind that this is arguably a hypercorrection:

Barnes’ scale is strangely pseudo-logarithmic, centred on unity with more than one half of it taken up by values, on both axes, between 0.1 and 10.  At first glance (especially prior to correction) it seems that the line above the “carbon-impossible” region might have a shape that is merely an artifact of his selection of scale.  But with the cut-down version, we can see clearly that this isn’t the case, the point [0.1,01] sits on the line, but neither [0.01,0.01] nor [1,1] do.

While there is very limited data, I suspect that what Barnes did was use a combination of logarithms and square roots of the offset from unity to construct his scale.  I don’t know why he did that.  If he’d not used such a scale, he could still have made his point, perhaps even more strongly.  If he didn’t use his strange logarithm scale, he could have had something more like this:

Note that I’ve just used his scale and plotted the intersections, I’ve not tried to reproduce the curves.  I am not commenting on his claims in the coloured sections per se, but I have added my caveat to try to prevent the image being misused.  Remember, you cannot change the fine-structure constant without affecting the elementary charge – by definition.

Why didn’t Barnes present his case more like this?

I suspect that the problem is that it would appear to make his case too strongly and that would have attracted closer, unwanted sceptical scrutiny.  There is good reason to label apologists as “liars for Jesus”, Barnes among them.

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Interestingly, in a later paper, Barnes does not mention the fine-structure constant at all (although he does use the symbol α without saying what it means, it is used in a claim about the mass of a proton).

The Dark Energy of Luke Barnes

Maybe I’m being a bit unfair with the title since the articles in question are attributed to more than just Luke, there are eight other authors:  Jaime Salcido, Richard Bower, Geraint Lewis, Pascal Elahi, Tom Theuns, Matthieu Schaller, Robert Crain and Joop Schaye.  However, as far as I know, the others aren’t Templeton Research Fellows – one of the articles has LAB (Luke A Barnes) but only LAB tainted with an association with Templeton.  And I note that there is a statement distancing that paper from Templeton (“The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the John Templeton Foundation”.)  Oddly enough, the other article “The impact of dark energy on galaxy formation. What does the future of our Universe hold?”, despite having the same authors (admittedly in a different order), does not acknowledge that Luke is supported by Templeton.  Perhaps because Luke was not lead and Jaime Salcido didn’t want to have anything to do with Templeton if he could help it?

Anyways, I’m pondering not so much the paper as the raft of articles that are based on the papers, helpfully listed by Luke at Letters to Nature.  The spin of these articles varies somewhat, at least going by their headlines, from “Life in the multiverse could be commonplace” to “Bad information for the multiverse: it is nonetheless not going (sic)”.  Either life is teeming in the multiverse, or there’s no multiverse.

Interestingly, if you look at an example of the former – for example A multiverse may be hospitable to life:study – you will see that the scientist quoted is Jaime Salcido.  But if you take a look at an example of the former – for example Bad news for the multiverse: it's still not likely – the featured scientist is Luke Barnes.  There’s also a third spin, namely that there needs to be a “new law” for dark energy, which means that the article headline writer chose to focus on the words of Richard Bower – for example New Research Questions The Multiverse Theory, Calls For A New Law Of Dark Energy.

It looks very much like Barnes and Salcido have looked at the same data and Barnes has opted to interpret it as negating the multiverse (more on that in a moment) and Salcido has interpreted it as saying that life is probable no matter which universe in the multiverse you are in.  This would mean that we’re not that special and not even our universe is that special, as even one of the more Barnes-centric articles put it “That’s bad news for the multiverse, because it means there’s nothing particularly special about our universe - and no need for a multiverse to explain our existence.”  I’m pretty sure that Barnes wouldn’t be happy with that comment.

Barnes, you see, wants fine tuning, because that supports his god and as I have argued elsewhere, he’s a closeted apologist.  If we don’t need a multiverse to explain our existence, because our universe isn’t particularly special, then we don’t need Barnes’ god either.  If there’s evidence against a multiverse, that’s not going to bother real scientists because real scientists aren’t pushing an agenda.  Not that Barnes et al have come up with evidence against a multiverse, all they have is an argument that you don’t need to call on a multiverse to explain the amount of dark energy we have – as far as the star formation rate goes.  That’s alright, we don’t even know for certain that there is dark energy (see sceptical interpretations of dark energy related measurements – such as this).

Some of the articles present an argument that, if it comes from Barnes and/or Bower and isn’t merely a misinterpretation on the journalist’s part, is worryingly deceptive.  There is a suggestion, for example at Inquisitr, that the multiverse theory is there to explain (in part) the value of dark energy.  This is a ludicrous suggestion given that the multiverse has been suggested since as far back as 1952 and the term “dark energy” was only coined in 1998.  Additionally, it is argued that the multiverse simply falls out of string theory to the extent that if string theory is true then, necessarily, there is a multiverse.  String theory dates back to the 1940s, so again predating dark energy.

Basically, multiverse theory needs a fine-tuned value of dark energy to about the same extent as the value of dark energy needs a multiverse theory – namely, not at all.

The Problem with the FTA

Well, it's a problem.  There are other problems, and the problem I am about to describe might not even be the biggest problem that the fine-tuning argument has.  But it's snappy title for a post.  (Oh, and I mean the Fine Tuning Argument not the Free Trade Agreement ...)

When people like Luke Barnes go on and on about all the limitations on physics and cosmology that you'd be faced with if you were building a universe from scratch in order to ensure that (intelligent) life existed in it, they eventually reach a point in which their expertise is no longer relevant to the argument.  Basically, if we were wondering about the magnitude of the design problem, trying to come up with a figure that describes how unlikely it would be that a life permitting universe would be the result if we just threw the "randomise" switch, then Barnes has something to bring to the table.  But once we've arrived at a figure, say that there's only one chance in 10^240 that a universe like ours would result, then Barnes' training in astrophysics is no longer relevant, he's still a smart guy, but he can't wave his doctorate around anymore and pretend that it means anything.

In brief, what Barnes can do is help us focus in on whether the universe as it is unlikely, very unlikely or very very freaking unlikely.  He argues for something in the region of very very freaking unlikely.

Now, here's the problem.

To try to explain it, I am going to use an analogy.  It's not a perfect analogy and certain elements of it aren't strictly relevant, they are just there as part of the narrative to help explain the key point.

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Say you are given an urn.  In the urn you see there is a little pork sausage.  This means that you have in your hands an LSU or an LPU, Little pork Sausage Urn or Little Pork sausage Urn, depending on your point of view.  These acronyms might seem completely arbitrary to some readers, but they’re not.  LSU and LPU are common acronyms in the discussion of fine-tuning and mean “life supporting (or sustaining) universe” and “life-permitting universe”.  The latter seems more common, perhaps because LSU is also used by Louisiana State University.  Let’s avoid confusion and talk about the Little Pork sausage Urn.

What is the probability that you have, in your hands, an LPU?  You could think about all the things that could possibly be in the urn: a balls, a sock, a small beaver, a cat, an alarm clock, a stone, the list of potential items is literally endless (using "literally" in sense of "not literally").  Thinking of it that way, you could say it's one in a bazillion, or one in 2 gazillion, or something like that.

However, you have already looked in the urn, you know there was a little pork sausage in there, so you've got very good reason to believe that there's a one in one chance that you are holding an LPU.

Alternatively, you could be led into a warehouse containing bazillions or gazillions of urns.  At random (problems with the term "random"aside), you select an urn.  What are the chances that the urn you selected contains a little pork sausage?  We don't know, do we?  The warehouse might specialise in producing urns with sausages in them, urns with pork sausages in them, urns with pork products in them, urns with nothing in them, urns with something random in them, or who the hell knows what.  To match the FTA, we have to specify that some relatively small number of urns must contain little pork sausages (so that LPUs are possible).

Ok, so we have two scenarios.  One in which we are holding an urn with a pork sausage in it and the other in which we are in a warehouse and know that there are pork sausages in one or more of a very large number of urns, but we don't know which.

Which is the scenario in which we find ourselves, with regard to the FTA?

It must be that we are holding the urn, because we cannot be in a scenario in which an LPU (now talking about a life-permitting universe) is not available to us because we are alive).

Here is the problem:  The FTA is always argued as if we are in the warehouse and there is a possibility that we don't have an LPU available to us.  It doesn't matter if the urn we are holding with a little pork sausage in it is the only such urn in the whole history of the universe (past and future) or how unlikely it is that we happen to have it in our hands.  Without it, we are in a completely different scenario, in which we have no LPU and, switching seamlessly from analogy to the thesis of the FTA, if there were no LPU, we would not exist.

No amount of jiggering with the numbers will affect that brute fact.  So the involvement of people like Luke Barnes in the promotion of the FTA is, at the end of the day, without any real value.

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That's not to say that the involvement of Barnes is without rhetorical value, or value for anyone wanting to make a fallacious appeal to authority.  But that's about tricking you into believing that the argument has merit, not about showing that you that argument has merit.

Unbelievable! It's Max Andrews!

In his Unbelievable discussion, Max Andrews stated that he has noted in himself, when shaping apologetic arguments, the tendency to beg the question of god.  You may recall that begging the question is, at base, a fallacy of circular reasoning, even though the circularity might be subtle.  It appears that he and I might have some alignment here in that I have noticed, on the part of apologists, the exact same tendency.  That said, while I agree that many arguments for god presume god, or something attributed to god, I would not, however, have necessarily included fine-tuning based arguments in the list.

These are the apologetic arguments that, off the top of my head, include some element of begging the question:

Moral Argument

Ontological Argument

Argument from First Cause

Argument from Resurrection

Argument from Revelation

Argument via Inference to Best Explanation

A good example of the sort of apologetic question begging involved appears in this video by Dave S at theglobalatheism, which concludes that the ontological argument proves no more than that if god exists, then god exists (which is the law of identity: if X, then X, or X=X).

Another video by Dave S, on the argument from resurrection, also hints at begging the question, pointing out that to get a high-ish likelihood that god exists (Pr≈0.5) you need to assume that claims that god raised people from the dead were true.  Think about this for a moment.  If you assume, up front, that claims that your god raised people from the dead are true, this necessitates the assumption that your god actually exists.  You should find this a little odd, because it would mean that, rather than adding support to the notion that the apologist's god exists, the resurrection argument reduces the likelihood of that god's existence.  This seems odd to me.

Anyway, what about the fine-tuning argument.  Does this include an element of begging the question?

Perhaps there is.  The fine-tuning argument first suggests that the universe is fine-tuned (arguing the reality of fine-tuning is a speciality of Andrews' partner in the discussion, Luke Barnes).  But that's insufficient to show god.  To show god, the apologist has to go one step further and argue that nothing else explains fine-tuning other than their god.

This is where a question can be comprehensively begged, on two levels.

Firstly, there is the definition of "god".  As indicated above, it can be argued that the ontological argument can fail based on the fact that it tries to define a god into existence.  The fine-tuning argument fails on the same grounds, because of begging the question.  The apologist pressing this argument is effectively trying to define their god into existence via the claim that their god can do anything that is necessary to prove that existence.  Their god can make a universe that looks like ours and seems incredibly unlikely, but you can bet your bottom dollar that if it ever starts to look like the universe is incredibly likely, the same apologist will argue that their god can make an incredibly likely universe as well.  Or an eternally inflating multiverse.  Or a quantum multiverse.  Therefore, their argument collapses into "if our universe were created by the sort of being that can make universes of the sort that we live in, then our universe was created by the sort of being that can make universes of the sort that we live in, let's call it god".

Secondly, there is the sheer unlikeliness of our universe versus typicality.  In this argument, there is no assumption of a god followed by a conclusion of a god, it's more an assumption of atypicality followed by a conclusion of atypicality which feeds into a "this is so surprising, therefore god" argument.  Ignoring for a moment the fact that multiverse theory arises totally independently of counter-apologetics, if we were to posit a multiverse to solve the unlikeliness of our universe, the counter-counter-apologists then rush in to say that, if there were many different kinds of universes in this multiverse, then our type of universe would be atypical - and, therefore, we have an obligation to explain why we are in this atypical universe.

This atypicality is often expressed in terms of a Boltzmann multiverse, the sort that fails on the basis of Boltzmann brains.  In a Boltzmann multiverse, each universe is a fluctuation of order in a vast, enduring region of comprehensive disorder.  In such a regime, small regions of order would be far more likely than regions like our observable universe and we would indeed be unusual.  However, all this does is put a kibosh on a Boltzmann multiverse.  But no-one is seriously positing a Boltzmann multiverse (I will do so semi-seriously in a later article though).

Nevertheless, when people regurgitate WLC's argument against the multiverse (including people like Barnes) they assume a Boltzmann multiverse and conclude that a multiverse is impossible.  Thus they are arguing that an impossible form of multiverse is impossible, which is trivially true.

The other element of the argument is based on the assumption that we must be typical.  This seems similar to the argument that leads to (counter-apologetically derived) multiverses, but there is a subtle but important difference between very highly unlikely and very highly atypical.  When you bring the multiverse to bear on the problem, the likelihood of a very highly unlikely universe existing increases, towards 100% as N (the number of universes) approaches infinity.  At the same time, as N approaches infinity, the number of atypical universes increases, the number of distinct chances of being atypical increases.

Think of it in terms of jellybeans with the probabilities being indicative, rather than rigorous.  If one in every 100 jellybeans was atypical, then with a sample of 100 jellybeans, you would expect on average that one would be atypical and there would be only chance to be atypical.  If there were 10,000 jellybeans, then we'd expect there to be 100 chances to be atypical.  Agreed, there would still be a lot more typical jellybeans than atypical ones, but the increased number of atypical jellybeans would increase commensurate with sample size.  If we introduced a filter that only permits a certain shape of atypical jellybean to pass through, and used a very large, approaching infinite sample size, then so long as the shape is possible, then we should not be surprised to see one.

This is the situation that we find ourselves in.  We are in a universe which, although atypical, must be the way it is for us to find ourselves in it - because it's precisely the sort of universe in which we could develop as persistent intelligent life (rather than Boltzmann brains).

In other words, our atypicality is very much the point, rather than being a failure of the multiverse to explain our fortuitous existence.

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Curiously enough, Dave S includes, as further reading for the resurrection video, which was posted a year ago, both my Sweet Probability and Max Andrews' dissertation on Bayes Theorem and the resurrection.  Some nice recognition there for both of us, even though I at least hadn't noticed it.

Inference? What Inference?

From the railway station in the distance came the sound of shunting trains, ringing and rumbling, softened almost into melody by the distance.

Chapter 1, Book 1, War of the Worlds, HG Wells

I was curious, after listening to his appearance on Unbelievable, as to whether Luke Barnes would advertise it.  I wrote in Come on out, Luke!  Just admit it! about how I think that he should just come clean about being a theist (a Christian theist at that).  Earlier, in Luke Barnes Exposed, I wrote about how Barnes had stumbled in his interview with Luke Muehlhauser and basically admitted to being a theist and how his recent book basically confirms it (so it's a bit strange how he is so coy with Justin Brierley, but I guess he's got into the habit of maintaining the illusion of plausible deniability).  What I further noted was that the strange fact that Barnes doesn't mention his appearance on the Pale Blue Dot podcast, a fact that I ascribed to his stumbling admission to theism during that discussion.

So, I wondered, would he advertise, on his blog Letters to Nature, his appearance on Unbelievable in which he as introduced as a christian (twice)?

The answer is no.  No mention of it at all.  No mention of it coming up (despite it being recorded a week before being published) and no mention of it having happened (at time of writing, in the middle of week following - but he does seem to have mentioned it three weeks after I initially posted this article, that is a month after the episode was published).

I did notice, however, that Luke has written a piece on Sean Carroll's new book, The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself.  Interesting, I thought, since Justin Brierley suggested that Carroll would be invited onto Unbelievable later in the year to go head to head with Barnes.  What a fortunate co-incidence!  (Note that while the episode was taped before Barnes' post went up, presumably the piece was written before, even though that too went up online the same day that Barnes posted about it, and Brierley may well have been oblivious.)

So, was this to be another arxiv paper, like his attack on Stenger?  No, this time it was going to be published by Inference: International Review of Science.

It was at this point that faint alarm bells started going off and I felt a jolt of adrenaline, that frisson that one feels at the beginning of a hunt.  Something wasn't quite right about this.  What was this journal that I had never heard of before?  And why does the word "inference" shoot up warnings for me?  And why does Barnes hasten to say that he did not choose the title?  Ah, it's called Good God!  Not a good start.

So I wandered over and looked at the About page (linked above).  Hm, interesting:

Although the editors have every intention of appealing to experts for advice, Inference is not a peer-reviewed journal.

We have no ideological, political, or religious agendas whatsoever.

So, it's a review, and/or a journal, but not a peer-reviewed journal.  And methinks they do protest too much (with questionable grammar) about their lack of agenda.  Why do they need to protest at all?  Taking a look at another open access on-line only journal (albeit peer reviewed), Science Advances (from AAAS), there's no mention of ideology, theology or agenda.  The word "ideology" does appear on their Statement on Scientific Transparency, Disclosure, and Responsibility, but in the context of unwelcome politicised and ideology-based intrusions into science.  There seems to be no need to declare that they are free of agenda.  Perhaps the intent, by the editors of Inference, is to imply that other journals are not free of agenda.

That word, "inference".  It still bothers me.

So, who are these people?  These editors who took Barnes' words and placed it below their own rubric, Good God!?  And who else has been published in this august journal?

Scanning down the list of editors, one name leaps out.  Contributing Editor, David Berlinski.  Early in the life of this journal, Jeffrey Shallit expressed misgivings about the Berlinski name appearing in the twitter feed associated with a new science journal, Mischa and Claire, and intuited that their father David was somehow involved (despite there not being any details of the editorial board available at that time).

So, Berlinski is a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute and a contributing editor to the journal that Barnes decides as the vehicle for his review of Sean Carroll's new book.  Interesting.  What about other authors?  There's Michael Denton, of course, another senior fellow from the Discovery Institute.  Then there's Arthur Cody, about whom I could find very little, but who wrote a piece against materialism.  And Tyler Hampton … tennis coach?  The apologist's go-to man for the BGV, Vilenkin, is there, writing about the beginning of the universe.  Interesting indeed.

It can't be said that every single article has intelligent design leanings, but … it's still an interesting choice by Barnes.  We have more information to work with though.  Barnes highlighted three articles that he noted as contributing to his decision.  There was Vilenkin's article as mentioned above and what appears to be a perfectly normal article by Jean-Pierre Luminet on the notion of a Holographic Universe.

There's also a reference to an article by Gregory Chaitin, although it's unclear which one since he's written for Inference three times - I could point at An Algorithmic God, but it's possible that Chaitin did not choose the name and it's not the most recent article by him published at Inference.  The most recent is Doing Mathematics Differently which starts with two quotes from Leibniz.  Both are from Philosophical Essays, but they are strangely out of order and one is a fragment:

And if someone traced a continuous line which is sometimes straight, sometimes circular, and sometimes of another nature, it is possible to find a notion, or rule, or equation common to all the points of this line, in virtue of which these very changes must occur. For example, there is no face whose contours are not part of a geometric line and cannot be traced in one stroke by a certain regular movement. But, when a rule is extremely complex, what is in conformity with it passes for irregular.

Thus, one can say, in whatever manner God might have created the world, it would always have been regular and in accordance with a certain general order. But God has chosen the most perfect world, that is, the one which is at the same time the simplest in hypotheses and the richest in phenomena, as might be a line in geometry whose construction is easy and whose properties and effects are extremely remarkable and widespread. I use these comparisons to sketch an imperfect likeness of divine Wisdom and to point out something that can at least elevate our minds to conceive in some way what cannot be sufficiently expressed. But I do not claim to explain in this way the great mystery upon which the entire universe depends.

Then there are the contents of the issue of Inference that sit alongside Barnes' piece.  Two are notable.

First there's a "Critical Essay" by David Berlinski & Juan Uriagereka, The Recovery of Case.

This initially appeals to the linguist and grammarian in me, especially as a person who continues to use the words "that" and "which", both of which are often dropped in modern English and are thus easily confused.  However, I noted an odd slide towards the end, when their examples stopped being so quirky and quaintly awkward and took on a different flavour.  Regarding the awkwardness, the authors provide an example of a complementiser in the sentence "Trottweiler prefers for Agnes to keep quiet" instead of the more natural sounding "Trottweiller prefers that Agnes keep quiet".  The thing here is (that) for isn't a complementiser in the example, it's a preposition and it seems to have been backwards engineered into a sentence which just seems wrong.  The preposition for is the only one associated with the noun "preference".  I think a far better example of for, as a complementizer, would be in a sentence where for is used instead of because, "we all sang him a nice song for he's a jolly good fellow" but even then, it would be less awkward to simply use because.

The last two examples in the article aren't as quirky, instead they dip into the bible, there's something there about Sampson and Delilah and then one about Cain and Able.   That's not the main issue though.  The main issue is hidden at the end of the third last paragraph where the authors ask "if human beings are notable in their possession of Universal Grammar, what explains the acquisition of Universal Grammar by the human species?"

Michael Denton has an answer - it's not evolution (posted at a Discovery Institute web-site, although that might not be immediately obvious, you have to go to the bottom of the right hand bar to see their logo).  So, despite a promising start, this is merely an attempt to promote intelligent design.  No surprises there given that it's co-written by a senior fellow of the Design Institute.

Then there is an "Experimental Review" by James Tour, Two Experiments in Abiogenesis.

James Tour is a synthetic organic chemist who is notable for being a "scientific dissenter from Darwinism" and who signed a petition to that effect for the Discovery Institute.  It's interesting that he should be deployed to comment on a couple of experiments with implications with regard to abiogenesis.

What I am not suggesting is that Inference is a journal that is literally awash in Intelligent Design propaganda (by which I mean metaphorically awash).  Not at all.  What I am suggesting is that Inference is a journal that acts as a platform on which high-brow Intelligent Design propaganda can sit side by side with mainstream science.  Another journal which is peer-reviewed, and does not have an editorial board that includes a senior fellow of the Discovery Institute, would be reluctant to publish the propaganda, but Inference seems to have no problems with publishing mainstream stuff that comes their way - because it aids their cause.

So, that word - inference - what was bothering me about it?  Two things really.  There's the common apologetic claim that they are using "inference to the best explanation", which sounds all scientific, except that it tends to stop at the first step (rather than going on to attempt falsification, prediction or hypothesis testing).  But inference in itself isn't a bad thing.  We all make inferences pretty much all the time.

I think what bothered me slightly and now bothers me somewhat more is the initially tenuous link to the Design Inference, a book by William Dembski - formally of, you guessed it, the Discovery Institute.  (His retirement from the institute and the ID community was only announced a couple of weeks ago, but his work on an ID book implies that he is not entirely retired.)

In earlier articles, I have written about Barnes' and his Templeton temptation.  That's bad enough, so I do hope that we are not about to see him fall into even worse company with the ID crowd.  There are plenty of other journals out there that Barnes could have sought out for publication.  Why did he choose this one?

The King of Spades and the Strong Anthropic Principle

I was introduced to the works and thoughts of Max Andrews by Skydive Phil.  In this, and at least one other article, I'll be addressing some issues that I have with Max' published take on the multiverse and fine-tuning.  Note that unlike some others that we won't mention, Max is upfront about being theist (and Christian) but, as is the case with Jeff Zweerink, his support of fine-tuning as an argument for god has faded of recent times.

It should be noted that what I address below was written quite some time in the past and does not necessarily represent Andrews' current position.  Therefore, I am not arguing against Andrews per se, but rather against a position that he no longer appears to hold (at least not in entirety).  Keep in mind that it's quite likely that there are apologists out there who would be more than happy to call upon the 2013 version of Max Andrews in support of their argument for god, while totally ignoring the fact that the 2016 version of the same person no longer agrees with everything that the 2013 version had to say.

For an insight into Andrews' most recent position (at time of writing), listen to his appearance with Luke Barnes (yes, that Luke Barnes) on Justin Brierley's Unbelievable show.

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Max writes at his blog, in the article Do Multiverse Scenarios Solve the Problem of Fine-Tuning?:

The role probability serves in this argument does not favor the non-fine-tuning hypothesis (either chance, necessity, or a combination of the sort) in multiverse scenarios.  If the objector to a fine-tuner argues that the odds of having a finely tuned universe, which harbors life, increases given the vast number of universes there is bound to be one with the values we have.  This is an abuse of probability and commits the gambler’s fallacy.  This claim assumes a general disjunction rule of probability.  For example, this rule of probability suggests that the probability of drawing a king from a deck of cards increases when each card drawn is not replaced.  If the deck has all the cards it is supposed to have the probability of eventually drawing a king is 1.  The multiverse is like the restricted or general conjunction rule of probability. By simply increasing the number of possibilities, one does not increase the probability of selection.  For example, say you randomly draw a card from the deck and you want the king of spades.  The odds of you drawing a king of spades are 1/52.  Say you draw the three of hearts.  When you replace the card and draw another card from random the odds of you getting the king of spades is not increased by the first selection.

What Max writes about cards is true, but it misses the point.  A multiverse is more like multiple decks of cards.  With each deck there is a 1/52 chance of drawing the king of spades from the top - assuming that they have all been randomised by thorough shuffling such that there is an equal likelihood of any particular card being on top.  This is equivalent to using the one deck of cards, selecting a card at random, replacing it, and then selecting a card at random again - so long as we use a probability measure such that each of the 52 cards has an equal likelihood of being selected (this comment is intended to pacify mathematicians, just in case they are reading).

But while each random draw from a single deck and each draw from the top of a randomised deck has a 1/52 chance of resulting in a king of spades, across all the draws, the chance of one of them resulting in a king of spades is higher.  By the time you have drawn 1066 cards, using either method, there is one about a 1 in a billion chance that you have not drawn a king of spades (by the way, I am not implying that William the Bastard [aka William the Conqueror] was a dastardly king of spades, the 1066 figure is just a happy coincidence).  Draw 10000 cards and that becomes about 2 in 10⁸⁴.

In other words, as the number of universes in the multiverse increases, the likelihood of any unlikely event happening in at least one of them also increases.  If there is an infinite number of universes, then anything that is at the very least possible must happen.

Interestingly, this lends credence to a formulation of the Strong Anthropic Principle that I don’t normally favour.  The argument goes a little like this (per Carter):

(at least one) universe (and hence the fundamental parameters on which it depends) must be such as to admit the creation of observers within it at some stage

We know that life is possible (if you doubt this check your pulse, if you don't have one, try looking out your window and you'll probably see either a tree or some grass and possibly both).  If there is an infinite number of universes then we know that life must therefore be instantiated in at least one of them.  And it would appear that we are in one of them.  Therefore, life becomes less miraculous, it's just something that we'd expect.  (This is the case even if there is a finite but very large number of universes.  Andrei Linde and Vitaly Vanchurin calculate that there are in the order of ten to the power of ten to power of ten to the power of 7 (10^{10^7)}) universes.  While this might not make very very very very very unlikely (yet possible) things certain, the odds of possible things that are merely very very unlikely happening are pretty high.

This seems a little circular, which is why I don’t give it too much credence, but it does seem to speak rather strongly against many probability-based (ie appeal to ignorance) arguments for the existence of god.

If there is an infinite or extremely high number of universes …

Come on out, Luke! Just admit it!

Normally, I won't post more than once a day (if that). Today, however, I've been listening to the Unbelievable episode from the weekend and want to report that I was amazed that Luke Barnes still won't admit to being a Christian - even when invited onto Premier Christian Radio to talk up the fine-tuning argument for god.

I do note that he recently presented his arguments at a HIKMA event, so I guess he could be a theist of a different sort ... he does have a beard after all.  (Just kidding.  Not about the beard, though.  He does have a beard.)  In any event, Luke was given a clear opportunity to set Justin Brierley right about his position on theism - Brierley introduced Barnes as a Christian, then sought confirmation, and Barnes breezed straight past it.

I guess he thinks that if he never publicly tells anyone what he really is, then he can go on pretending that he is a disinterested, unbiased scientist who is simply following where the facts lead him.  In other words, he is running his own version of the US military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy.  Somehow I don't think that policy worked particularly well when you had marines driving onto base in a fabulous sequin bedecked, hot pink Cadillac with the soundtrack of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert blaring at full volume*.  If they want to get away with being what they are within the context of such a policy then they, and Barnes, really need to wind things back a notch of two so that the rest of us can pretend not to know.

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* In the words of Seinfeld: ... not that there's anything wrong with that.**

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** Which should not be taken as to imply that I think that it's okay for Barnes to be a closeted theist while merely pretending that he's sashaying in the direction indicated by the facts as any good scientist would. There's definitely something wrong with that. ***

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***  It's the being closeted bit that is wrong, rather than being what what he would be if he wasn't just pretending to be an unbiased scientist (with or without the habit of sashaying).  I should point out at this point, rather than adding yet another footnote, that I have a vague feeling that there might be something wrong with the clarity of my comments, or the sensitivity of the topic, if I need footnotes that are three levels deep in order to explain myself.

Chance or Design?

In Barnes' Objections to Fine-Tuning, I concluded that there are only two fundamental responses to claims fine-tuning, that fine-tuning (and/or the appearance of fine-tuning) is due to chance or that fine-tuning (and/or the appearance of fine-tuning) is due to design, since the other options inevitably collapse down to chance or design.

We should perhaps revisit Barnes' "11 objections" in light of this:

Chance: It’s just a coincidence

Chance (overlaid by an appeal to ignorance): We’ve only observed one universe, and it’s got life. So as far as we know, the probability that a universe will support life is one out of one!

Chance/Design: However the universe was configured, evolution would have eventually found a way

Chance/Design (with another appeal to ignorance): There could be other forms of life

Chance/Design: It’s impossible for life to observe a universe not fine-tuned for life

Chance/Design: Maybe there are deeper laws; the universe must be this way, even though it looks like it could be other ways

Chance: Maybe there are bajillions of universes, and we happen to be in one of the few that supports life

Design: Maybe a physics student in another universe created our universe in an attempt to design a universe that would evolve intelligent life

Chance: This universe with intelligent life is just as unlikely as any other universe, so what’s the big deal?

Chance: The universe doesn’t look like it was designed for life, but rather for empty space or maybe black holes

Design: Fine-tuning shows there must be an intelligent designer beyond physical reality that tuned the universe so it would produce intelligent life

I have left a few of them as undetermined, Chance/Design because, at the end of the day, these "objections" don't really distinguish between the two fundamental options.  For example, while "(no matter how) the universe was configured, evolution would have eventually found a way" implies an end goal (intelligent life) that evolution is "trying" to achieve, there's nothing inherent to the argument that prefers (cosmic) evolution being designed to find intelligent life over (cosmic) evolution simply stumbling upon it.  The latter sort of relies on our knowledge that intelligent life is - at the very least - possible in one possible sort of universe, even if it may be improbable and the implication is that, given enough time and/or space, (cosmic) evolution would therefore eventually lead to intelligent life.

The main problem, the problem that theists want us all to come unstuck over, is that the fine-tuning of our universe for intelligent life does appear to be highly improbable.  We are supposed to throw up our hands and say "It's so unlikely that this should have happened by chance, so it must have happened by design.  Therefore, god."

It's for this reason that the multiverse is disliked by some theists, the multiverse short-circuits the theistic fine-tuning argument, because if there are an infinite (or sufficiently large) number of universes, with random tunings, then it becomes a lot more likely that some of them will be tuned sufficiently well for intelligent life.  If there are universes without end, a potential infinity of them, and it is possible that a universe may be tuned for intelligent life (which we know to be so), then it becomes statistically certain that there will be universes in which intelligent life arises - so such a universe existing becomes unsurprising and its existence cannot be counted as evidence for design.

Note that a universe with intelligent life is not evidence against design in and of itself but, given a claim with respect to a particular type of designer, a particular type of universe can be evidence against that designer (hence the problem of evil and the existence of vagueists, theists who strip away anything and everything associated with their god that might permit it to be falsified).

Barnes' list does have a multiverse related "objection" to fine-tuning: "Maybe there are bajillions of universes, and we happen to be in one of the few that supports life".  This is a somewhat flippant way to describe the multiverse, but they seem to be Luke Muehlhauser's words, not Luke Barnes'.  In the Pale Blue Dot podcast that Barnes appeared on, he confirms that we don't necessarily need an infinite number of universes, merely "enough" to make the supporting of life, somewhere - in one of those universes, likely.

This is part wriggle and part lure.  It seems reasonable to answer the argument that this universe is highly unlikely with one that, while not certain, nevertheless is likely.  However, the theists have a philosophical argument to the effect that their god is not only likely, but necessary.  In their minds, it doesn't matter if our universe is likely on a naturalistic assumption, given the multiverse - because they have the universe being the necessary product of a necessary being.  (It doesn't seem to matter to them that their necessity arguments have holes in them large enough to fit a few multiverses - they still have an argument.)  The lure involves encouraging those thinking about multiverses to satisfy themselves with a less than infinite number of universes (even a less than ridiculously huge, but not infinite, number of universes).  It's more of a rhetorical trick than anything else since the equations will tell us how many universes fall out of a multiverse theory, not any desire to explain fine-tuning.

Rather strangely, when discussing the multiverse with Muehlhauser, Barnes doesn't start with any of the scientific theoretical models that lead to a multiverse, like Guth's eternally inflationary multiverse, or string theory.  No, he starts with a couple of philosophical multiverse - although he does express bafflement at them.  Perhaps, we could think he's just dispensing with the nonsense first.  But no.

Directly after mentioning (and mischaracterising) eternal inflation, he leaps into typicality and Boltzmann brains.  Now I know that some well-educated, apparently sane and respected people do apparently take Boltzmann brains seriously, but I don't.  Briefly, the idea is that random fluctuations in thermal equilibriums, given enough time and space, will sometimes create a "brain", which I interpret to be little more than a nexus of something or other that is (or becomes) conscious, but is not necessarily encased in walnut like globs of flesh.  These could fluctuate into existence with a complete history in place and, albeit briefly, it would be impossible to distinguish between the existential experience of these Boltzmann brains, and that of our brains.

Furthermore, the argument goes, these fluctuations would be far more common (due to entropy considerations) than instances in which brains like ours evolve out of some primordial soup over a period of three to four billion years.  So, if this were true, the fact (if it indeed is a fact) that we humans have the nature that we have rather than being Boltzmann brains would be very unlikely.  We'd be very untypical of intelligent beings in general, since most of them would be fluctuations that dissipate soon after coming into existence.

I think this is a nonsense argument for the basically the same reason that, although it is theoretically possible in quantum physics for someone to spontaneously teleport from one spot to another, spontaneous quantum teleportation of humans will never happen.  The fluctuation required for an intelligence (even one as humble as my own) to come into existence and have pre-loaded experience is extremely specific - it's very highly ordered, which means that it's very low entropy (it's also very "surprising" but more of that in a later post).  I would consider the fluctuation of this intelligence into existence, pre-packaged with experience and awareness, without the slow grind of evolution behind it to be sufficiently astonishing as to be miraculous.

What I observe, as inherent to the Boltzmann brain argument, is an effect that I'd like to term "inconsistent poverty of imagination".  The theist is willing, when confronted with the idea of a multiverse, to imagine all sorts of nonsense and then place what we know to exist (intelligence based on evolution from very humble beginnings) on a par with the nonsense that they just thought up (intelligence based on thermodynamic fluctuations in some high entropy region of a universe or multiverse), but when asked to imagine alternatives to their god, all that imagination suddenly dries up and they can't think of a thing.

There are also rhetorical games played with infinities.  If there are an infinite number of universes, then anything that can happen will happen, and if something can (and does) happen, it will happen an infinite number of times.  This means that if Boltzmann brains are possible and they can fluctuate into existence, then they will do so an infinite number of times (but not necessarily everywhere, all the time).  Similarly, if intelligence as a consequence of cosmic and biological evolution is possible, then it will happen and it will happen an infinite number of times.  The argument is that Boltzmann brains would occur in high entropy universes (which may be thought of as being common and plentiful, and thus unsurprising) while the evolutions (cosmic and biological) that led to us could only happen in low entropy universes (which may be thought of as being rare and unlikely, and thus surprising).  We then arrive back at a sort of geocentricity-like situation, while our planet is not the centre of the universe, our universe is of a very special type rather than being typical.  From this it is argued that Boltzmann brains (as temporary denizens of the far more common high entropy universes) are more typical than we are, so we should be surprised at not being a Boltzmann brain in a different type of universe.

I disagree.

We have at least one more thing to consider, our persistence.  If we considered only one aspect of ourselves in isolation, that we are conscious and aware, then sure we might be surprised that we are not a Boltzmann brain.  But we are also persistent, we don't dissipate.  And Boltzmann brains will dissipate because, by nature, they are fluctuations in high entropy, thermally flat universes.  They represent a region of low entropy and very argument that leads to them assumes the second law of thermodynamics, that entropy increases.  The Boltzmann brain would necessarily decay, about as quickly as it came into existence, and return to equilibrium.  Absent magic, the Boltzmann brain could not choose to persist, or to replicate itself.

In other words, we are not just a thing (intelligence), we are thing of a particular type (persistent intelligence, noting that a host of other adjectives could be involved).  If I were to say that I am human, and consider only that, then I should be surprised if I was neither Asian nor African (who together make up more than three quarters of the world's population).  But if I were to note that I also have a genetic abnormality (say mutation to the melanocortin-1 receptor on chromosome 16), then I should not be at all surprised if I had pasty white skin, bright red hair, a vile temper and lived in Auchtermuchty (in Fife, Scotland not that far from Ladybank, which sounds like a euphemism - also not that far from St Andrews, ancestral home of "sweary rambling with sticks" (also known as golf)).

Being a persistent intelligence, it should come as no surprise that I am not a Boltzmann brain and for that reason, I think this rather stupid objection to multiverses fails.  (It also fails because, if Boltzmann brains are a problem, they are also a problem for monoverses.)

So, are there any meaningful objections to the multiverse other than Boltzmann brains?  Well, there are three objections from Robin Collins WLC, as summarised here by John Piippo:

For in order to be scientifically credible, some plausible mechanism must be suggested for generating the many worlds. But if the many worlds hypothesis is to be successful in attributing fine-tuning to chance alone, then the mechanism that generates the many worlds had better not be fine-tuned itself. For if it is, then the problem arises all over again: How do you explain the fine-tuning of the multiverse?

(The BGV theorem) requires that even a multiverse of bubble universes must have a beginning. In that case the mechanism that generates the bubble universes has been chugging away for only a finite amount of time. So by now, there may well be only a finite number of bubbles in the world ensemble, which may not be enough to guarantee the appearance of a finely tuned universe by chance alone. There's no evidence that the sort of world ensemble required by the many worlds hypothesis actually exists.

If our world is just a random member of a world ensemble, then it's vastly more probable that we should be observing a much smaller region of order. It turns out that a parallel problem faces the many worlds hypothesis as an explanation of fine-tuning. [Oxford physicist] Roger Penrose has pressed this objection forcefully.

The first objection, re fine-tuning of the multiverse, is merely a caution that a theoretical multiverse, presented as an objection to god as designer, cannot be fine-tuned.  Okay, thanks for that.  It's not really an objection to the multiverse per se and there's no indication that I am aware of that any of the theoretical multiverse necessitate fine-tuning.

The key element in the second objection is that there is no evidence for a multiverse, but thing is that there is evidence, certainly evidence for a multiverse generating process (watch George Efstathiou's comments, indicating that Planck data constitutes evidence in support of eternal inflation).  Even if there were no scientific evidence at all in support of a multiverse, this would not mean that the multiverse would be less supported than the god did it theory.  And with the multiverse theory, there are things that theoreticians can look out for because the theory is testable.

The third argument is actually associated with the Boltzmann brain argument (order and entropy are inextricably linked concepts).  Again, the argument is based on selected aspects of our existence and when we consider the totality of our existence, then we should not be surprised that we live in the sort of universe that we live in since it's clearly a possible universe and it's just the sort of universe that permits intelligence like ours to develop.  This objection seems to miss the point rather spectacularly.

A quite amusing aspect to Collins'  WLC's third objection is the reference to Roger Penrose (note that I changed the link to something more relevant than the Amazon page for The Road to Reality: A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe).  In the book that Piippo links to, Penrose mentions the word multiverse on only one page.  According to the index this was on page 783, but I could not find it on that page.  This review indicates that it might be on page 784 (which is not part of the Google Books review).  And the mention of multiverse is only to say that Penrose prefers the word "omnium" to "multiverse", a strange position to take if you are arguing forcefully against the fundamental concept (confirmed).  Additionally, Penrose's conformal cyclical cosmology is a temporal form of a multiverse, with our universe being reset and recycled ad infinitum (and Penrose claimed that circular patterns in the CMB data from WMAP were suggestive of earlier universe, some might claim that they are suggestive of young bubble universes bumping into each other or side-effects of inflation, while others might suggest that some people are just seeing what they want to see).

<edit> The blogger measureoffaith (see comments below) suggests that Penrose forcefully makes the case that multiverses face the same problem with fine-tuning that our universe does in sub-chapter 28.7 The Big Bang’s special nature: an anthropic key?  It would appear, however, that this section must be read very optimistically by a theist, especially when Penrose's conclusion mirrors mine - that it comes down to either design or chance, that god did it or there's some mathematical/scientific reason why the universe is the way it is, and that it's worthwhile investigating the latter.

Robin Collins also presents some objections to the multiverse, in this document.  His objections relate to the nature of a "many-universes generator".  I wrote about these objections in "The Four Mechanisms of the Ignopalypse", but I am holding off on publishing it (or was at time of writing, if you are reading this later).  It should be up later in the year.  For the moment, suffice it to say that I don't find Collins' objections to be meaningful or substantive. <end edit>

If there are any meaningful and substantive objections to multiverse theory, I would be keen to hear of them but so far there seems to be little more than a chorus of appeals to incredulity.

In conclusion, the fine-tuning of the universe can really only be explained by chance or design, since all other objections resolve down to one or the other.  I'm not overly fussed by the nature of the designer, since I don't consider a designer to be the correct answer anyway (for other reasons, quite separate from the theoretical impossibility of design).  That said, given the nature of the design argument, nothing we ever come across will be sufficient to eliminate design as a theoretical possibility - since a designer could have created the universe with the intention to make it totally indistinguishable from a universe that came into existence by chance.  All that we have is a counter to the argument that a designer must exist because there is no other alternative.  We do have an alternative, in the form of a multiverse.

Something that is worth considering, particularly if you are a pro-fine-tuning, anti-multiverse theist, is that science is inching closer and closer to proving that the multiverse is reality, rather than just hypothesis.  If you have nailed your colours to the notion that fine-tuning is a knock-down argument for god because you think that the multiverse might not exist, it is high time that you reconsider your position. (Much as Jeff Zweerink has - listen to the second impressive moment.)