Now these ten balls are in a lottery machine:

Plato would make Socrates say in the Republic (7.514a ff.), the human condition is comparable to that of prisoners of an underground cave, whose unfortunate fate is to confuse reality with passing shadows created by a fire inside their miserable abode and kept in motion by clever manipulators, who in the name of politics, religion, science, and tradition control the human herd.

The Grand Design, part serialized in the Times, says there is no need to invoke God to set the Universe going. “Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something,” Hawking concluded. A good refutation of this atheistic turn by Stephen Hawking is a book the Mind of God by Paul Davies.  Davies may  not be a devout believer now but his most famous book the Mind of God, does outline a good case for there being a Creator of this universe.  In the words of Professor Kenneth Miller, “Science itself does not contradict the hypothesis of God. Rather, it gives us a window on a dynamic and creative universe that expands our appreciation of the Divine in ways that could not have been imagined in ages past.”[2] Additionally, “If dinosaurs had not died in this event, they would probably still dominate the domain of large-bodied vertebrates,” so theorizes a committed atheist Stephen Jay Gould, “as they had for so long with such conspicuous success, and mammals would be small creatures in the interstices of their world. This situation prevailed for 100 million years; why not for 60 million more? . . . In an entirely literal sense, we owe our existence, as large and reasoning animals, to our lucky stars.”[3]There are innumerable lucky chances or for a believer, instances of Providences that have gone into making the universe suitable for human life. Some of these have been enumerated and explained in books like Cosmic Jackpot: Why Our Universe Is Just Right for Life, The Privileged Planet: How Our Place in the Cosmos is Designed for Discovery, and Rare Earth: Why Complex Life Is Uncommon in the Universe. When we look at the totality of the evidence in biology and astronomy, for Allah’s Providence, we are reminded of the words of the Holy Quran, “If you try to count the favors of Allah, you will not be able to number them. Indeed man is very unjust, very ungrateful,’ as the odds against our biophylic universe are infinite. (Al Quran 14:35)

“The idea of particles was familiar from rocks, pebbles, and sand. But this wave/particle duality-the idea that an object could be described as either a par­ticle or a wave-is as foreign to everyday experience as is the idea that you can drink a chunk of sandstone.

Dualities like this-situations in which two very different theo­ries accurately describe the same phenomenon – are consistent with model-dependent realism. Each theory can describe and ex­plain certain properties, and neither theory can be said to be bet­ter or more real than the other. Regarding the laws that govern the universe, what we can say is this: There seems to be no single mathematical model or theory that can describe every aspect of the universe. Instead, as mentioned in the opening chapter, there seems to be the network of theories called M – theory. Each theory in the M-theory network is good at describing phenomena within a certain range. Wherever their ranges overlap, the various theo­ries in the network agree, so they can all be said to be parts of the same theory. But no single theory within the network can describe every aspect of the universe-all the forces of nature, the particles that feel those forces, and the framework of space and time in which it all plays out.”[4]

It is a strange paradox that the best human minds after centuries of investigation, have barely begun to scratch the surface of ‘what is reality,’ yet some among them claim certainty that there is only chaos and an accident behind that has led to and orchestrated this ‘reality!’ The dual nature of light that Hawking chooses as a metaphor, when we pursue it deeper, the elegance and beauty of a simple ray of light, argues for a Designer and a Creator.  I have discussed this point in a separate article.  Whereas the 19^th century physics, in its arrogance, had shut the door to ‘Personal God’ the 20^th century physics has widely opened it again.  The article, the Indispensible God Hypothesis can be reviewed in the fall, 2008 volume of Muslim Sunrise:

“Probabilities in quantum theories are different. They reflect a fundamental randomness in nature. The quantum model of nature encompasses principles that contradict not only our everyday experience but our intuitive concept of reality. Those who find those principles weird or difficult to believe are in good company, the company of great physicists such as Einstein and even Feyman, whose description of quantum theory we will soon present. In fact, Feynman once wrote, ‘I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics.’ But quantum physics agrees with observation. It has never failed a test, and it has been tested more than any other theory in science.”[5]

“One of the first to recognize that this might involve a good measure of serendipity was Fred Hoyle, in the I950s. Hoyle believed that all chemical elements had originally been formed from hydrogen, which he felt was the true primordial substance. Hydrogen has the simplest atomic nucleus, consisting of just one proton, either alone or in combination with one or two neutrons. (Different forms of hydrogen, or any nucleus, having the same number of protons but different numbers of neutrons are called isotopes.) Today we know that helium and lithium, atoms whose nuclei contain two and three protons, were also primordially synthesized, in much smaller amounts, when the universe was about 200 seconds old. Life, on the other hand, depends on more complex elements. Carbon is the most important of these, the basis for all organic chemistry.

Though one might imagine ‘living’ organisms such as intelligent computers produced from other elements, such as silicon, it is doubtful that life could have spontaneously evolved in the absence of carbon. The reasons for that are technical but have to do with the unique manner in which carbon bonds with other elements. Carbon dioxide, for example, is gaseous at room temperature, and biologically very useful. Since silicon is the element directly below carbon on the periodic table, it has similar chemical properties. However, silicon dioxide, quartz, is far more useful in a rock collection than in an organism’s lungs. Still, perhaps life forms could evolve that feast on silicon and rhythmically twirl their tails in pools of liquid ammonia. Even that type of exotic life could not evolve from just the primordial elements, for those elements can form only two stable compounds, lithium hydride, which is a colorless crystalline solid, and hydrogen gas, neither of them a compound likely to reproduce or even to fall in love. Also, the fact remains that we are a carbon life-form, and that raises the issue of how carbon, whose nucleus contains six protons, and the other heavy elements in our bodies were created.

The first step occurs when older stars start to accumulate helium, which is produced when two hydrogen nuclei collide and fuse with each other. This fusion is how stars create the energy that warms us. Two helium atoms can in turn collide to form beryllium, an atom whose nucleus contains four protons. Once beryllium is formed, it could in principle fuse with a third helium nucleus to form carbon. But that doesn’t happen, because the isotope of beryllium that is formed decays almost immediately back into helium nuclei.

The situation changes when a star starts to run out of hydrogen. When that happens the star’s core collapses until its central temperature rises to about 100 million degrees Kelvin. Under those conditions, nuclei encounter each other so often that some beryllium nuclei collide with a helium nucleus before they have had a chance to decay. Beryllium can then fuse with helium to form an isotope of carbon that is stable. But that carbon is still a long way from forming ordered aggregates of chemical compounds of the type that can enjoy a glass of Bordeaux, juggle flaming bowling pins, or ask questions about the universe. For beings such as humans to exist, the carbon must be moved from inside the star to friendlier neighborhoods. That, as we’ve said, is accomplished when the star, at the end of its life cycle, explodes as a supernova, expelling carbon and other heavy elements that later condense into a planet.

This process of carbon creation is called the triple alpha process because ‘alpha particle’ is another name for the nucleus of the isotope of helium involved, and because the process requires that three of them (eventually) fuse together. The usual physics predicts that the rate of carbon production via the triple alpha process ought to be quite small. Noting this, in 1952 Hoyle predicted that the sum of the energies of a beryllium nucleus and a helium nucleus must be almost exactly the energy of a certain quantum state of the isotope of carbon formed, a situation called a resonance, which greatly increases the rate of a nuclear reaction. At the time, no such energy level was known, but based on Hoyle’s suggestion, William Fowler at Caltech sought and found it, providing important support for Hoyle’s views on how complex nuclei were created.

Hoyle wrote, ‘I do not believe that any scientist who examined the evidence would fail to draw the inference that the laws of nuclear physics have been deliberately designed with regard to the consequences they produce inside the stars;’ At the time no one knew enough nuclear physics to understand the magnitude of the serendipity that resulted in these exact physical laws. But in investigating the validity of the strong anthropic principle, in recent years physicists began asking themselves what the universe would have been like if the laws of nature were different.”[7]

“Today we can create computer models that tell us how the rate of the triple alpha reaction depends upon the strength of the fundamental forces of nature. Such calculations show that a change of as little as 0.5 percent in the strength of the strong nuclear force, or 4 percent in the electric force, would destroy either nearly all carbon or all oxygen in every star, and hence the possibility of life as we know it. Change those rules of our universe just a bit, and the conditions for our existence disappear!

By examining the model universes we generate when the theories of physics are altered in certain ways, one can study the effect of changes to physical law in a methodical manner. It turns out that it is not only the strengths of the strong nuclear force and the electromagnetic force that are made to order for our existence. Most of the fundamental constants in our theories appear fine tuned in the sense that if they were altered by only modest amounts, the universe would be qualitatively different, and in many cases unsuitable for the development of life.   For example, if the other nuclear force, the weak force, were much weaker, in the early universe all the hydrogen in the cosmos would have turned to helium, and hence there would be no normal stars; if it were much stronger, exploding supernovas would not eject their outer envelopes, and hence would fail to seed interstellar space with the heavy elements planets require to foster life. If protons were 0.2 percent heavier, they would decay into neutrons, destabilizing atoms. If the sum of the masses of the types of quark that make up a proton were changed by as little as 10 percent, there would be far fewer of the stable atomic nuclei of which we are made; in fact, the summed quark masses seem roughly optimized for the existence of the largest number of stable nuclei.

If one assumes that a few hundred million years in stable orbit are necessary for planetary life to evolve, the number of space di­mensions is also fixed by our existence. That is because, according to the laws of gravity, it is only in three dimensions that stable el­liptical orbits are possible. Circular orbits are possible in other di­mensions, but those, as Newton feared, are unstable. In any but three dimensions even a small disturbance, such as that produced by the pull of the other planets, would send a planet off its circu­lar orbit and cause it to spiral either into or away from the sun, so we would either burn up or freeze. Also, in more than three dimensions the gravitational force between two bodies would de­crease more rapidly than it does in three dimensions. In three dimensions the gravitational force drops to X of its value if one doubles the distance. In four dimensions it would drop to Ys, in five dimensions it would drop to;, and so on. As a result, in more than three dimensions the sun would not be able to exist in a stable state with its internal pressure balancing the pull of gravity. It would either fall apart or collapse to form a black hole, either of which could ruin your day. On the atomic scale, the elec­trical forces would behave in the same way as gravitational forces. That means the electrons in atoms would either escape or spiral into the nucleus. In neither case would atoms as we know them be possible.

The emergence of the complex structures capable of support­ing intelligent observers seems to be very fragile. The laws of na­ture form a system that is extremely fine-tuned, and very little in physical law can be altered without destroying the possibility of the development of life as we know it. Were it not for a series of startling coincidences in the precise details of physical law, it seems, humans and similar life-forms would never have come into being.The most impressive fine-tuning coincidence involves the so­called cosmological constant in Einstein’s equations of general rel­ativity.”[8]

“Many people through the ages have attributed to God the beauty and complexity of nature that in their time seemed to have no scientific explanation. But just as Darwin and Wallace explained how the apparently miraculous de­sign of living forms could appear without intervention by a supreme being, the multiverse concept can explain the fine-tuning of physical law without the need for a benevolent creator who made the universe for our benefit.”[9]

“What can we make of these coincidences? Luck in the precise form and nature of fundamental physical law is a different kind of luck from the luck we find in environmental factors. It cannot be so easily explained, and has far. deeper physical and philosophical implications. Our universe and its laws appear to have a design that both is tailor-made to support us and, if we are to exist, leaves little room for alteration. That is not easily explained, and raises the natural question of why it is that way.Many people would like us to use these coincidences as evi­dence of the work of God. The idea that the universe was de­signed to accommodate mankind appears in theologies and mythologies dating from thousands of years ago right up to the present. In the Mayan Popol Vuh mythohistorical narratives the gods proclaim, “We shall receive neither glory nor honor from all that we have created and formed until humanbeings exist, en­dowed with sentience?’ A typical Egyptian text dated 2000 BC states, “Men, the cattle of God, have been well provided for. He [the sun god] made the sky and earth for their benefit?’

…

A more modern illustration of the Christian view was given a few years ago when Cardinal Christoph Schonborn, archbishop of Vienna, wrote, ‘Now, at the beginning of tlle 21st century, faced with scientific claims like neo-­Darwinism and the multiverse [many universes] hypothesis in cos­mology invented to avoid the overwhelming evidence for purpose and design found in modern science, the Catholic Church will again defend human nature by proclaiming that the immanent de­sign in nature is real?’ In cosmology the overwhelming evidence for purpose and design to which the cardinal was referring is the fine­tuning of physical law we described above.”[10]

I could have ignored the authors’ lack of mention of Islam and the Muslims in the above paragraphs until I noted their seemingly deliberate omission of naming the first Muslim Nobel Laureate, Dr.  Abdus Salam and his contribution to the unification of the forces of nature.  Hawking mentions Newton, Einstein and Maxwell but conveniently omits Salam, in the conclusion of his seventh chapter:

“Ever since Newton, and especially since Einstein, the goal of physics has been to find simple mathematical principles of the kind Kepler envisioned, and with them to create a unified theory of everything that would account for every detail of the matter and forces we observe in nature. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century Maxwell and Einstein united the theories of electricity, magnetism, and light. In the I970s the standard model was created, a single theory of the strong and weak nuclear forces, electromagnetic force. String theory and M-theory the came into being in an attempt to include the remaining force, gravity.”[11]

The authors very eloquently try to summarize what they have explained about the laws of nature, through out the book, in the very beginning of the last chapter:

“In this book we have described how regularities in the . motion of astronomical bodies such as the sun, the moon, and the planets suggested that they were governed by fixed laws rather than being subject to the arbitrary whims and caprices of gods and demons. At first the existence of such laws became apparent only in astronomy (or astrology, which was regarded as much the same). The behavior of things on earth is so complicated and subject to so many influences that early civilizations were unable to discern any clear patterns or laws governing these phenomena. Gradually, how¬ever, new laws were discovered in areas other than astronomy, and this led to the idea of scientific determinism: There must be a com¬plete set of laws that, given the state of the universe at a specific time, would specify how the universe would develop from that time for-ward. These laws should hold everywhere and at all times; otherwise they wouldn’t be laws. There could be no exceptions or miracles. Gods or demons couldn’t intervene in the running of the universe.

At the time that scientific determinism was first proposed, Newton’s laws of motion and gravity were the only laws known. We have described how these laws were extended by Einstein in his general theory of relativity, and how other laws were discov¬ered to govern other aspects of the universe.

The laws of nature tell us how the universe behaves, but they don’t answer the why? questions that we posed at the start of this book:

Why is there something rather than nothing?

Why do we exist?

Why this particular set of laws and not some other?

Baron John Rees, President of the Royal Society of UK writes in his book, Just Six Numbers: the Deep Forces That Shape the Universe describes:

“I have highlighted these six because each plays a crucial and distinctive role in our universe, and together they determine how the universe evolves and what its internal potentialities are; moreover, three of them (those that pertain to the large-scale universe) are only now being measured with any precision.

These six numbers constitute a ‘recipe’ for a universe. Moreover, the outcome is sensitive to their values: if anyone of them were to be ‘untuned’, there would be no stars and no life. Is this tuning just a brute fact, a coincidence? Or is it the providence of a benign Creator?”[13]

“There are various ways of reacting to the apparent fine tuning of our six numbers. One hard-headed response is that we couldn’t exist if these numbers weren’t adjusted in the appropriate ‘special’ way: we manifestly are here, so there’s nothing to be surprise about. Many scientists take this line, but it certainly leaves me unsatisfied. I‘m impressed by a metaphor given by the Canadian philosopher John Leslie. Suppose you are facing a firing squad. Fifty marksmen take aim, but they all miss. If they hadn’t all missed, you wouldn’t have survived to ponder the matter. But you wouldn’t just leave it at that – you’d still be baffled, and would seek some further reason for your good fortune.”[14][15]

“Cardinal Christoph Schonborn, archbishop of Vienna, wrote, ‘Now, at the beginning of tlle 21st century, faced with scientificclaims like neo-­Darwinism and the multiverse [many universes] hypothesis in cos­mology invented to avoid the overwhelming evidence for purpose and design found in modern science, the Catholic Church will again defend human nature by proclaiming that the immanent de­sign in nature is real?’ In cosmology the overwhelming evidence for purpose and design to which the cardinal was referring is the fine­tuning of physical law we described above.”

“Some people may be inclined to dismiss such concepts (multiverse) as ‘metaphysics’ (a damning put-down from a physicist’s viewpoint). But I think the multiverse genuinely lies within the province of science, even though it is plainly still no more than a tentative hypothesis. This is because we can already map out what questions must be addressed in order to put it on a more credible footing; more importantly (since any good scientific theory must be vulnerable to being refuted), we can envisage some developments that might rule out the concept.”[19]

How can one tell if a being has free will? If one encounters an alien, how can one tell if it is just a robot or it has a mind of its own? The behavior of a robot would be completely determined, unlike that of a being with free will. Thus one could in principle detect a robot as a being whose actions can be predicted. As we said in Chapter 2, this may be impossibly difficult if the being is large and complex. We cannot even solve exactly the equations for three or more particles interacting with each other. Since an alien the size of a human would contain about a thousand trillion trillion particles even if the alien were a robot, it would be impossible to solve the equations and predict what it would do. We would therefore have to say that any complex being has free will- not as a fundamental feature, but as an effective theory, an admission of our inability to do the calculations that would enable us to predict its actions.[25]

Stephen Hawking concludes his book with the following paragraph:

M theory is well and good, in due course of time we may have XY and Z theories but they have no bearing on there being a Transcendent Creator. The greater the complexity and organization of the Natural Laws, louder they announce the presence of a benevolent God!  What has been discussed earlier under the heading,

“As man cannot perceive with his physical eyes the Imperceptible Being Who is latent in everyone like fire and yet is hidden from everyone, nor can he find Him through the exercise of his imperfect reason, he has been subject to many errors in his understanding of Him and through his errors he renders to others that which is His due. God Almighty has mentioned an excellent illustration in the Holy Qur’an that the world is like a great hall paved smooth with slabs of glass and a current of water flows underneath them which runs very fast. A person looking at the slabs of glass wrongly imagines them to be water also and is afraid of walking upon them as he would be afraid of walking upon water, though in reality they are only glass but very clear and transparent. Thus, these great objects in heaven like the sun and the moon etc. are transparent like glass and are worshiped by mistake. Behind them, there is a Higher Power at work which is flowing swiftly like water. It is the mistake of those who worship created things that they attribute to the glass all this activity which is being manifested by the Power behind it. This is the explanation of the verse, Al Quran 27:45.

اِنَّه صَرْحٌ مُّمَرَّدٌ مِّنْ قَوَارِيْرَ‌

‘It is a great hall paved with smooth slabs of glass.’ (Al Quran 27:45)

As the Being of God Almighty, despite its brightness, is hidden beyond sight, the physical universe is not adequate for its true recognition. This is the reason why those who depended upon the physical system despite their careful consideration of its perfect orderliness which comprehends hundreds of wonders within itself, and despite their pursuit of astronomy and physics and philosophy to a degree which shows that they had penetrated through heaven and earth, could not get rid of their doubts and suspicions and became involved in all types of errors and wandered far afield in their absurd fantasies. Many of them become involved in grave errors and wander far away in pursuit of their stupid fancies. Their utmost conjecture is that this grand system which displays great wisdom must have a Maker, but this conjecture is incomplete and this insight is defective. The affirmation that this system must have a creator does not amount to a positive affirmation that He does in truth exist.”[30]