Our Luxury Results Debunk the Multiverse As an Explanation

Introduction: The Story of Milo and James

Let us imagine two twin brothers named Milo and James who live under extremely unusual circumstances. They both live alone on a Pacific island that is so remote that ships virtually never pass by it.  We can imagine that when the brothers were very young their rich widowed father took them to this very remote uninhabited island, and paid for construction workers to arrive and construct a very comfortable house.  Included in the house and its surrounding land are many luxuries such as electricity, solar panels, a backyard swimming pool, a solar-powered kitchen, rainfall-accumulating vats that help make possible running water inside the house, and also quite a few fishing rods and a fishing pier. We can imagine that the father also arranged for quite a few fruit trees to be planted near the house. Sadly, when the brothers were only four years old their father died while swimming, being ate by a shark who left no trace of his body.  But given all the fruit trees near their home and the convenient fishing pier and fishing rods, along with the running water, the brothers were able to survive all by themselves, alone on the very remote island. 

Let us imagine Milo and James are now fifty years old, and have no memory at all of their father or the construction of their house (because people rarely remember things happening before age five). Milo has no memory of seeing anyone other than James, and James has no memory of seeing anyone other than Milo.  They also do not know of anyone outside of their island, because their father had not yet finished constructing a TV antenna that would have allowed satellite TV reception. 

One day Milo and James have a philosophical discussion regarding the origin of their house.  It goes like this:

"A house like ours and its surroundings are so convenient that they  could not have arisen by chance," says James. "Some mysterious power or powers must have designed them."

"No, we need not believe that," says Milo. "We should believe that our house and its convenient surroundings on our island arose merely because of some very lucky random combination of atoms, without any design being involved."

"That's ridiculous!" says James. "The chance of such luck occurring would be far less than 1 in 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000."

"But we should not be surprised that mere chance would allow us to  live as we do," says Milo. "For if we did not have a house to keep us safe from cold, rainy nights and typhoons, we would not even be here. Our house was a necessity for our existence."

"Oh really?" says James.

"Yes," says Milo. "We can call this an observer selection effect.  All conscious observers would have conditions as lucky as ours, or they would not be living as conscious observers." 

Milo has committed a very bad error of reasoning that we may call Milo's Error.  There is a reason why Milo's reasoning is utterly fallacious: the fact that observers could have briefly existed under very harsh conditions very much worse than the conditions Milo enjoys, and the chance occurrence of such very harsh but observer-permitting conditions would have been more than a trillion quadrillion quintillion times more likely than the chance occurrence of the conditions that Milo enjoys. So it is very false indeed for Milo to be claiming that under a hypothesis of mere chance he should not be surprised to observe conditions as good as he has.  Under a hypothesis of mere chance it would still be fantastically unlikely that Milo would have conditions as good as he has. 

For example, there is no reason why an observer on a remote Pacific island would have needed the comfy house that Milo enjoys. Someone could have survived on such an island by sleeping at night in a hole in the ground covered by leafy branches, which would have provided barely adequate protection for years.  It would be almost infinitely more likely for mere chance to produce a mere uncomfortable sleeping hole than for mere chance to produce a comfy house.  There is also no reason why Milo needs to have the great convenience of fruit trees, fishing rods and a fishing pier on his island,  which allow him to obtain food with little effort. He could have survived for years by the laborious method of just going out into the water and catching fish with his bare hands.  Also, observers could have survived on the island without the solar power, electricity and running water that Milo enjoys.  Rain water could have been obtained by laboriously scraping off water drops from leaves whenever it rained. 

Accordingly, Milo's theory very much predicts the wrong thing. Under a theory of random chance effects producing conditions allowing observers, it would be almost infinitely more probable that Milo should find himself in conditions just barely allowing him to survive and live a short life, rather than conditions as good as the comfy conditions he enjoys, which have allowed him to live a long comfortable life.  

Cosmic Fine-Tuning, Firing Squads and a Multiverse

Just as Milo and James pondered whether their convenient surroundings could be the product of mere chance, philosophers and other thinkers have pondered whether the natural conditions enjoyed by humans could be the product of mere chance.  There are many laws of nature and fundamental constants of nature that seem to be fine-tuned or just right to allow our existence.  Using reasoning like that of Milo, some have argued that such things are purely the result of chance. They speculate about some vast collection of universes (called a multiverse), and say that in such a collection at least one universe would allow observers. When someone points out the almost infinite improbability of such luck occurring in any particular random universe,  our multiverse reasoners appeal to an "observer selection effect," telling us that we should not be surprised to find ourselves in a universe such as ours, because in only such universes could there be observers. 

Such multiverse reasoners have committed a reasoning error very much like that of Milo. To explain why that is so, I must give an explanation like that I used to explain why Milo's reasoning was fallacious.  To make such an explanation,  it is convenient if I talk about firing squads, an analogy sometimes used by multiverse reasoners. 

A multiverse reasoner will sometimes tell us that no one should be surprised if he faces the bullet volleys of a firing squad and survives to find himself in good health, on the grounds that because of an "observer selection effect" all survivors would find such a result. This is clearly an example of Milo's Error.  A careful analysis of facing of a firing squad gives us probabilities like this:

Most-likely result of facing a 12-man firing squad of well-trained soldiers armed with rifles	Instant death	Likelihood of 99.999%
Second-most-likely result	Survival, but with wounds so bad that there will be only seconds or a few minutes until death	A thousand times more likely than the third-most-likely event
Third-most- likely event	Survival, but with wounds that will cause either death within hours or permanent disability or brain damage	Very much more improbable than the second-most-likely result
Fourth-most-likely event	Survival with no wounds	Very much more improbable than the third-most-likely result

This situation is very much analogous to the situation of Milo and James. It would be thousands or millions of times more likely for chance results from a firing squad to have produced survivors just about to die than survivors who had no wounds.  So it is fallacious to say that someone surviving a firing squad without wounds should not be surprised by the results.  Similarly it would be trillions of times more likely that mere chance would have produced barely survivable conditions for Milo and James than the comfy conditions they enjoyed. 

Moreover, when multiverse reasoners claim that we should expect to find ourselves in a universe like ours, they are committing the same kind of error as Milo's Error and the bad reasoning about firing squads listed above.  The reason why is that observers could exist in barely habitable universes not allowing most of the luxuries we enjoy, and such a result would have been trillions of times more likely than observers enjoying results as good as ours. 

To help explain this point, let's look at some of the "firing squads" that our universe and our planet have survived, typically getting the best result from facing such "firing squads."  In each case I will explain why we luckily got neither the most likely result (one that would have prohibited observers), nor the second-most likely result (one that would have just barely allowed observers), but instead a very comfy third-most-likely or fourth-most-likely result (a result very much more improbable than the second-most-likely result, and vastly more improbable than the first-most-likely result).

"Firing Squad" #1: Matter and Antimatter

Scientists believe that when two very high-energy photons collide, they produce equal amounts of matter and antimatter, and that when matter collides with antimatter, it is converted into high-energy photons. Such a belief is based on what scientists have observed in particle accelerators such as the Large Hadron Collider, where particles are accelerated to near the speed of light before they collide with each other. But such conclusions about matter, antimatter and photons leads to a great mystery as to why there is any matter at all in the universe.

Let us imagine the early minutes of the Big Bang about 13 billion years ago, when the density of the universe was incredibly great. At that time the universe should have consisted of energy, matter and antimatter. The energy should have been in the form of very high energy photons that were frequently colliding with each other. All such collisions should have produced equal amounts of matter and antimatter. So the amount of antimatter should have been exactly the same as the amount of matter. As a CERN page on this topic says, "The Big Bang should have created equal amounts of matter and antimatter in the early universe." But whenever a matter particle touched an antimatter particle, both would have been converted into photons. The eventual result should have been a universe consisting either of nothing but photons, or some matter but an equal amount of antimatter. 

A universe with nothing but photons would be inhabitable. A universe with equal amounts of matter and antimatter would be either inhabitable or at best barely habitable.  When only a tiny amount of matter comes in contact with antimatter, they are both converted to energy in a release far more destructive than a hydrogen bomb. Even if there were only small amounts of antimatter hanging around, the results would be devastating. A single person stepping on an antimatter pebble would release more energy than a hydrogen bomb. And if there were lots of antimatter in outer space, our planet would frequently get zapped by lethal rays arising from matter coming into contact with antimatter. 

For reasons that are not understood, humans have managed to escape this "firing squad" without any damage.  No one has ever been hurt by antimatter. But we don't understand why we didn't have either the most-likely result of an inhabitable universe of only photons or the second-most-likely result of a barely habitable universe with an almost-even mixture of matter and antimatter. A universe with an almost-even mixture of matter and antimatter would have so many random gigantic energy discharges all over the place that it almost certainly would not allow the existence of stable long-lasting civilizations such as ours.  Instead we got the least-likely result of a universe in which antimatter is no problem at all. 

"Firing Squad" #2: The Ratio of Positive and Negative Electric Charge

We take for granted a feature of our universe that would be enormously improbable in random universes with electric charges: the electrical neutrality of matter.  Electrical neutrality means that the total amount of positive electric charge that we observe on our planet is roughly equal to the total amount of negative charge that we observe on our planet. 

Such a balance exists because of two things:

(1) Every proton has an electric charge that is the very precise opposite of the charge on every electron (a fantastically improbable "coincidence" that is unexplained by modern science).  This seems very inherently improbable, because each proton has a mass 1836 times greater than the mass of each electron. 

(2) The number of protons is about equal to the number of electrons. 

The universe would be uninhabitable if there was not the type of balance listed above.  The chemical reactions necessary for biochemistry require a rough balance of positive and negative charge in our bodies.  Moreover, given that gravitation is a force more than a trillion trillion trillion times weaker than electromagnetism, even a slight imbalance in the ratio of positive charges and negative charges in large astronomical bodies would prevent large bodies like planets and suns from holding together by gravitation. 

By far the most likely result from this "firing squad" would be an uninhabitable universe. The second-most-likely result (vastly more likely than the result we got) is one that would have left only a barely habitable universe.  In the second-most-likely result there would be a large imbalance of positive and electric charges that might still barely allow observers, but which would be fantastically inconvenient.  There would be excesses of electric charges all over the place, meaning people would very, very often die just by stepping on a rock and being killed by its static electricity. 

Humans managed to escape this "firing squad" by getting neither the most-likely result nor the second-most-likely result, but a vastly improbable result in which electric charge imbalances kill almost no one. 

"Firing Squad" #3: The Strong Nuclear Force and Radioactivity

The two fundamental nuclear forces in our universe are the weak nuclear force (involved in radioactivity) and the strong nuclear force (which holds together the nucleus of an atom). The nucleus of atoms such as carbon consists of neutrons with no charge and protons with a positive charge. All particles with the same charge repel each other, particularly when they are very close together. So if it were not for the strong nuclear force, the nucleus of an atom such as carbon and oxygen could not exist for more than a second; the electromagnetic repulsion of the protons would cause the nucleus to fly apart.

In his book The Accidental Universe physicist Paul Davies says that if the strong nuclear force were 5 percent weaker, the deuteron (a nucleus consisting of a proton and a neutron) could not exist, making it “doubtful if stable, long-lived stars could exist at all.” He also notes that if the strong nuclear force were 2 percent stronger, a nucleus called a diproton (consisting of only two protons and no neutrons) would exist, making it doubtful that “any hydrogen would have survived beyond the hot primeval phase” near the time of the Big Bang (and also causing all kinds of problems for the existence of stars like the sun).  It is not just the strength of the strong nuclear force that is very convenient, but also its range. If the force was not so very short-ranged, it would preclude the possibility of the complex carbon molecules needed for life. 

If you reduce the strength of the strong nuclear force by a small amount, then very common atoms such as carbon and oxygen would be radioactive, because the strong nuclear force would be weak enough that protons in such atoms would occasionally fly apart from electromagnetic repulsion. If you reduce the strength by a somewhat smaller amount, atoms such as carbon and oxygen could not even exist, because the electromagnetic repulsion of protons would prevent them from ever forming. 

Cosmologist Luke Barnes states this in a recent paper:

"If the strong force were a few percent weaker, the deuteron would be unbound (Pochet et al., 1991). The first step in stellar burning would require a three-body reaction to form helium-3. This requires such extreme temperatures and densities that stable stars cannot form: anything big enough to burn is too big to be stable... Weaken the strong force by a few more percent, or increase the strength of electromagnetism, and carbon and all larger elements are unstable (Barrow & Tipler, 1986). The parameters of the standard model must walk a tight-rope in order to form stable nuclei and support stable stars."

The most likely result in a random universe would be either no strong nuclear force, or a strong nuclear force with a strength or range that would prevent the possibility of life. The second most likely result in a random universe would be a strong nuclear force that would just barely allow life or observers to exist, under very harsh circumstances.  Either the stability of stars would be greatly less or radioactivity would be vastly more common, so common that bodies would be internally radioactive, which would prevent people from living beyond about 20, and make cancer very many times more common.  We survived both the most likely result of this "firing squad," and also the second-most likely result. The result  we have is the least likely result, one which allows for biochemistry, and in which radioactivity is almost no problem for humans. 

"Firing Squad" #4: Particle Masses and the Fine Structure Constant

"In his book The Particle at the End of the Universe (page 145 to 146), Cal Tech physicist Sean Carroll says the following:

"The size of atoms...is determined by...the mass of the electron. If that mass were less, atoms would be a lot larger. .. If the mass of the electron changed just a little bit, we would have things like 'molecules' and 'chemistry', but the specific rules that we know in the real world would change in important ways...Complicated molecules like DNA or proteins or living cells would be messed up beyond repair. To bring it home: Change the mass of the electron just a little bit, and all life would instantly end."

Besides the luck involved in the electron mass having a suitable value, our universe also had great luck in regard to the neutron mass having a suitable value. Physicist Paul Davies says that if the neutron mass were .998 of its actual value, protons would decay into neutrons, and there would be no atoms at all (The Accidental Universe, page 65). Conversely, if the neutron mass were slightly greater, it would mean there could be no long-lived stars like the sun. Section 4.8 of the paper here discusses many different ways in which life and stable molecules and stable stars require a fine-tuning of particle masses and a fundamental constant called the fine structure constant. That section of the paper justifies these statements:

(1) By far the most likely result in a random universe would be particle masses and a fine-structure constant preventing life.  

(2) The second most likely result in a random universe would be particle masses that would allow observers, but prevent observers with long lives (because of high radioactivity) and prevent stable stars like the sun. 

What we got from this "firing squad" is the third-most-likely result, one in which we have a gloriously stable sun allowing long-lived civilizations, and also very little radioactivity. 

"Firing Squad" #5: Heavy Elements

After the Big Bang, there was only hydrogen, helium, and a little lithium and beryllium. Scientists tell us that all of the other elements were produced inside of stars or from stellar collisions or stellar explosions. Advanced life requires lots of carbon, oxygen, and nitrogen. Having a civilization requires additional elements such as iron. Iron may also be required for intelligent life to exist on planets. The scientific paper here tells us says "Life-forms that do not require iron are exceedingly rare; indeed, only two are known (Borrelia burgdorferi and Lactobacilli)." The same paper gives us geological reasons for doubting that a planet like Earth could have existed unless there was abundant iron in its core. 

Astronomers say that some of the elements originated in stars that did not blow up, and others originated in stars that did blow up in supernova explosions. A universe must meet many requirements to get all the needed elements in abundant amounts. For one thing, there has to be something like the weak nuclear force that exists in our universe, because that is needed for supernova explosions. Another thing needed are just the right nuclear resonances, which have to exist in the right way to assure the abundant production of carbon and oxygen by stars. In this paper  scientists conclude, “Thus, even with a minimal change of 0.4% in the strength of the N-N force, carbon-based life appears to be impossible, since all the stars then would produce either almost solely carbon or oxygen, but could not produce both elements.”

Below are the number of protons in the nucleus of different elements:

Hydrogen: 1 proton in nucleus

Helium: 2 protons in nucleus

Lithium: 3 protons in nucleus

Beryllium: 4 protons in nucleus

Boron: 5 protons in nucleus

Carbon: 6 protons in nucleus

Nitrogen: 7 protons in nucleus

Oxygen: 8 protons in nucleus

Phosphorus: 15 protons in nucleus

Iron: 26 protons in nucleus

Copper: 29 protons in nucleus

Gold: 79 protons

The heavier the element, the more requirements there are for its large-scale existence.  Scientists can explain the lightest elements (hydrogen, helium, beryllium and lithium) solely by appealing to the Big Bang, although their predictions about the amount of lithium are currently off the mark.  To explain the origin of carbon and oxygen, scientists evoke dying low-mass stars. To explain oxygen, scientists also currently appeal to supernova explosions (things that have many dependencies and prerequisites).  To explain iron, scientists appeal to both supernova explosions (involving very massive stars), and also exploding white dwarf stars. 

Scientists currently lack any credible explanation for the existence of elements such as gold and silver. They are currently trying to explain such elements by imagining the extremely far-fetched hypothesis of colliding neutron stars.  Since the estimated number of neutron stars in our galaxy is only about 2000, and since the chance of neutron stars colliding in a galaxy as large as ours is extremely low, this explanation fails to be credible. An alternate theory (imagining something almost as far-fetched) is way off in its predictions of gold and silver abundances, off by about 500%.   

There are very many fine-tuned dependencies all over the place when we talk about element abundances. Because of the requirement mentioned above, the most likely outcome from a random universe would be either not enough carbon for life or not enough oxygen for life. The second most-likely outcome would be only enough carbon and oxygen for life to occur only as a very rare fluke on a planet (with few organisms), and not enough iron, copper, and other very heavy elements for a technical computerized civilization such as ours to exist.  Instead against all odds we got the least-likely result of a universe in which we pretty much have all the elements a computerized technical civilization needs, in high abundances, and also essentially inexplicable luxuries such as the existence of gold and silver.  

"Firing Squad" #6: Dark Energy (aka the Cosmological Constant)

Dark energy (basically the same as the cosmological constant) is one of the great unsolved mysteries of the universe. It's not simply that we don't know enough about it. The mystery is that dark energy in our universe is so very small, even though quantum field theory suggests it should be so vasty larger. Scientists say that quantum uncertainty should cause an ordinary vacuum to be teeming with short-lived, fleeting particles called virtual particles. Those particles should give an ordinary vacuum a very high energy density. When scientists do the calculations, they come up with a number indicating that ordinary space should be filled with a vacuum energy density more than 10¹⁰⁰ times greater (more than a million billion trillion quadrillion quintillion sextillion times greater) than the maximum value consistent with astronomical observations (a problem known as the "vacuum catastrophe"). The simplest explanation is that there is some lucky balancing by which negative contributions to the vacuum energy density cancel out positive contributions, resulting in a net value near zero. But such a lucky balancing is incredibly improbable (far more improbable than the chance that all of the money you earned in your life would match to the penny, by coincidence, all the money that some stranger spent during his life). 

If dark energy had anything like the density predicted by quantum field theory, life would be impossible, as the space between   suns and planets would be so dense that sunlight could not travel through it (and also movement around on a planet would be impossible). Although the issue is poorly studied by cosmologists, we can be all but certain that a lesser but still fairly high dark energy would have left us only a barely habitable universe.  The most likely situation by far would be dark energy preventing any observers, and the second-most likely situation would be dark energy causing a universe that was just barely habitable, without luxuries such as abundant biodiversity, long-lived observers and long-lived technical civilizations.  We escaped both the most likely and second-most likely results from this "firing squad," and enjoy the luxury of a universe in which dark energy causes zero problems for us. 

The Many Luxury Results We Enjoy

Let us consider some ways in which our human and earthly results are vastly better than merely what is needed to have observers. They include the following:

(1) An observer might exist without any planet at all, perhaps arising on some comet or interstellar cloud or harsh moon. But on Earth observers enjoy a beautiful planet to explore. 

(2) In a barely habitable universe, an observer might exist as some fluke occurrence,  with zero or only a handful of other observers known to him, without any society surrounding him. But on Earth observers have a fascinating society all around them to enjoy. 

(3) In a barely habitable universe, each observer might have an incredibly hard and painful life, wracked by problems such as stellar fluctuations, radioactivity, explosions caused by antimatter, and death or painful results caused by excess electric charges.  But most people on Earth enjoy comparatively comfortable lives. 

(4) In a barely habitable universe, all observers might be immobile, existing as organisms like trees or sponges. This is because the amount of cosmic fine-tuning luck needed for mobile observers is much greater than the amount of luck needed for immobile observers. But on Earth people have the luxury of being able to move around. In fact, nowadays (thanks to the luxury of heavy metals such as iron) people even have the luxury of being able to explore distant lands by using trains or jets. 

(5) In a barely habitable universe, conditions might be so harsh that most observers might have either ridiculously short lives or lives that do not last much beyond reproduction. But on our planet very many people live comfortably for sixty years or more after first being a mother or father. 

(6) In a barely habitable universe, it would be very unlikely that societies could exist, and if societies did exist, they would be short-lived affairs because of things such as stellar instability which would wipe out any civilization after fifty years or more of its existence. But on Earth we have societies and cultures that last for centuries or thousands of years. 

(7) In a barely habitable universe, there would be very low biodiversity on any planet, as the appearance of any new species would be fantastically unlikely. But on Earth we have gloriously  extravagant levels of biodiversity, with more than a million animal species for us to use and enjoy.  The paper here says, "Planets with Earth-like levels of biodiversity are likely to be very rare," a claim it makes based on only geological and astronomical reasons.  

(8) In a barely habitable universe, conditions would be so harsh for life that there would probably be no observers capable of communicating with each other through luxuries such as speech and language. 

(9) In a barely habitable universe, conditions would be so harsh that there would probably be no intelligent life at all, but merely very stupid observers (such as fish or reptiles or blob-like organisms) incapable of advanced thought or philosophy. 

(10) In a barely habitable universe,  it would be very unlikely that there could ever exist advanced civilizations that developed computers and something like the Internet. Harsh conditions would prevent societies from lasting long enough for the development of high technology. Moreover, a lack of metals such as iron and copper  would tend to prevent the existence of machines such as computers. 

(11) In a barely habitable universe, fundamental constants might vary from spot to spot, so that observers might find themselves in some rare little fluke spot in which the constants allowed habitability, preventing any possibility of taking long journeys. We, on the other hand, have the luxury of being able to travel around a whole habitable planet. 

Because of all of these factors, our situation is very much comparable to the situation of Milo and James described in the beginning of this post. We should not commit Milo's Error which I described at this post's beginning. An "observer selection effect" cannot at all explain the luxury results we enjoy, just as an "observer selection effect" cannot explain the luxuries that Milo and James enjoyed. Knowing the luxuries he was blessed by, it was logically right for James to have presumed that design was involved in such blessings; and it is logically right for us to presume something similar about our cosmic blessings. 

When multiverse reasoners appeal to an "observer selection effect," they are committing a fallacy of simplistic bifurcation, the error of putting everything into two categories, when more than two categories should be used.  Totally failing to consider the category of barely habitable universes that allow only observers with no luxuries like we enjoy, they speak as if a universe must either be a universe like ours or a universe excluding observers.  The same fallacy of simplistic bifurcation goes on if someone says, "My child, when you grow up, you'll either be a manual laborer, or the leader of a company." 

The diagram below helps to illustrate a much more realistic classification scheme, one involving four categories: uninhabitable universes, barely habitable universes, moderately habitable universes, and luxury-permitting universes like the one we live in. 

For the sake of being easy to view, the diagram is a very schematic one. Instead of consisting of multiple pixels, the right edges of each bar should more realistically have a width of only a single pixel. Because of reasons such as the reasons given above, we have every reason to suspect that barely habitable universes should be more than 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 times more unlikely than uninhabitable universes, and that luxury-permitting universes such as ours should be billions or trillions of times more improbable than barely habitable universes. 

So we can now see the folly of saying something like, "We could only have existed in a universe such as ours, for observers would only  exist in a such a universe."  Such a claim is only one of the many glaring errors of multiverse reasoning. Multiverse reasoning is a cesspool of bad reasoning, and some of its other errors are discussed in this post.  The reasoning errors of multiverse thinkers are some of the most egregious sins of logic humans have ever committed. 

Postscript: The diagram below does a better job of showing how rare a universe like ours would be in the set of all habitable universes. Click on the diagram to better read the small text. 

The Persistence of Weaponized Psychology on Reddit Science Pages

Reddit (www.reddit.com) is a major web site consisting mainly of a variety of special interest web pages that are called "subreddits." For example, the Science subreddit (www.reddit.com/r/science) gives each day a long list of links to science news stories; and the Psychology subreddit (www.reddit.com/r/psychology) gives each day a long list of links to psychology news stories. There are thousands of different subreddit pages, each dealing with some specialized topic. 

I have noticed on Reddit's science subreddits a deplorable long-standing tendency to display links to what may be called weaponized psychology papers.  When someone trains to be a psychologist, he will typically think that he is learning about the mind to help people, such as people with psychological problems. But the purpose of a weaponized psychology paper is not to help anyone, but only to damage the reputation of some group of people.  Like some sniper putting someone in the crosshairs of his gun, a scientist working on a weaponized psychology paper will pick some group that will be the target of his attack.  Often the group will be some people holding some belief or engaging in some behavior that psychology professors disapprove of.  The goal may be to stigmatize or pathologize or deligitimize some group that is disliked. 

I may describe the type of shoddy methods typically used by the writers of weaponized psychology papers. Some group of people will be queried, usually by having them fill out questionnaires. Some of the questions will be trying to determine how much a subject believes in a variety of different things someone can believe in, or how much someone engages in some particular practice. Other questions will be used to try to find some type of abnormality or personality defect or character flaw in the person.  For example, questions may be asked that are trying to look for signs of anxiety, untruthfulness, anger, jealousy, narcissism, hasty thinking, or any of a hundred similar imperfections.  The questions will very often be what lawyers call "leading questions," designed to get people to confess to things they would never normally confess to. 

The scientists handling the weaponized psychology research project will typically not start out by publicly stating that only one exact hypothesis will be tested, like scientists ideally should. Instead they will be on a kind of fishing expedition, looking for any and all bad things they can report about the belief group that is their attack target.  After the data is gathered, the scientists will look for some kind of correlation that will cause embarrassment for the belief group that has been targeted.  

This will be easy to find. Given a small group of subjects, random variation in answers, and a very large pool of questions, we would expect by random chance that there will be some correlation between answers given by the members of the belief group and some unflattering psychological characteristic or some belief capable of being shamed -- no matter how respectable the belief is.  For example, if I gave 100 people surveys with 300 questions asking about beliefs and looking for psychological flaws, and one of the questions was whether the person believed the moon is round, I could no doubt find some correlation (perhaps only a weak one) between such a belief and some kind of undesirable characteristic or some other belief that was unreasonable.  Random chance will usually produce slight correlations between different things that have no causal connection; and the smaller the sample size, the more likely such false alarm correlations will appear.

Having found a few embarrassing correlations between the beliefs of the belief group they have targeted for attack and some other belief or tendency that is regarded as undesirable or embarrassing,  the scientists will write up their paper.  The abstract will typically highlight whatever correlation is most embarrassing for the belief group that is the attack target.  When the research is presented on a subreddit page of www.reddit.com, we will read some defamatory headline such as these imaginary but typical-sounding examples:

"Republican Voters More Likely to Be Narcissistic"

"Democrat Voters More Likely to Be Psychopathic"

"UFO Believers More Likely to Be Stupid"

"Churchgoers More Likely to Have Dark Triad Traits"

"Atheists More Likely to Have Dark Triad Traits"

Let us take a close look at one of the weaponized psychology studies that was promoted this week by a Reddit science subreddit page, with a headline announcing that research had shown astrology believers are less intelligent than average. The link was to a paper which demonstrates no such thing, but mainly demonstrates the most glaring defects in the methods of its authors.  

The paper's title was "Even the stars think that I am superior: Personality, intelligence and belief in astrology." With a title like that, the authors are making rather clear their animosity and contempt towards their subjects, and after reading such a title we should have little doubt that the paper is an exercise in weaponized psychology.  

In their abstract the authors state "intelligence showed a negative relationship with belief in astrology."  How did they determine that? By finding IQ scores for their subjects? No. By doing standardized intelligence tests on their subjects, such as the most widely used  IQ test, the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale test that takes more than an hour to complete? No.  

Instead our scientists most lazily resorted to a ridiculous shortcut. We read in Section 2.24 of their paper that they tested intelligence only by asking 4 questions.  They claimed that there was a correlation between results on this super-shrunken mini-test and IQ scores.  This is a very shoddy procedure that any scientist should be ashamed to be using.  No scientist has any business making claims about intelligence of some group based on results in some laughably skimpy 4-question mini-test rather than a full intelligence test such as the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale test.  Also, the scientists used a very unscientific method of getting survey subjects. We are told "participants were recruited via word-of-mouth on Facebook."  

So their paper tells us nothing reliable about the intelligence of astrology believers, but merely gives us a good example of the shoddy shortcuts and Questionable Research Practices of some scientists.  Referring to their sample of 264 subjects filling out their questionnaire, the scientists confess in their paper that "the sample is not generalisable to a broader population."  So why did we see a link to their paper on  Reddit's main science page, and why did the paper even get published? 

There are all kinds of equally shameful tactics that go on in papers presenting examples of weaponized psychology.  One of the most common is to categorize as a "conspiracy theory" some thinking that is not actually a conspiracy theory.  The strategy is: (1) stretch the phrase "conspiracy theory" like some pizza maker stretching out a ball of dough to make it pizza-sized, so that it applies to things that are not really conspiracy theories; (2) then using this distorted super-expanded definition, try to defame some belief group by saying that there is a correlation between its beliefs and beliefs in conspiracy theories. 

We see such shoddy tactics going on in the weaponized psychology paper here, one which attempts to associate belief in the lab-leak hypothesis of COVID-19 origins with a "dark triad" of "Machiavellianism, narcissism and psychopathy." The authors give us a 5-point "conspiracy theory belief scale" on which you can score 1 point if you think "Coronavirus has escaped from a lab in one of the cities of China, Wuhan," and another point if you think "many dead bodies affected by Coronavirus were secretly burned in China."  Neither one of these is an example of a conspiracy theory. A person can believe that coronavirus (COVID-19) escaped from a lab in China because of ordinary human error and overconfidence, not because of any conspiracy.  Also, believing that dead bodies were secretly burned is not an example of a conspiracy theory, as it does not involve people plotting together to achieve nefarious ends, but simply garden-variety hiding of embarrassing things. 

The same thing goes on in countless other weaponized psychology papers.  Often the scientists writing such papers will be trying to discredit some belief by associating it with a belief in conspiracy theories.  To increase the likelihood that such a correlation can be found, "belief in conspiracy theories" will be described in the widest way possible, so that more people can be discredited as having beliefs correlating with conspiracy theories. Similarly, if you wanted to label as many believers as possible as being "killers," you could conveniently define "killer" in the widest way possible, so that it might include anyone who killed a roach by stepping on it, or anyone who hunted for small game. 

Over the past few years I have noticed very frequent attempts on the Reddit science pages to discredit various parties solely on the basis of a supposed correlation (usually weak) with such persons and belief in one or more conspiracy theories.  Such a deprecation strategy seems very strange and ineffective.  We know historically that there have been some  important conspiracies in history, such as the plot to assassinate Julius Caesar. The Holocaust of World War II was a secret conspiracy, and the secret planning resulting in the Holocaust (at the Wanasee Conference) was a documented in a TV production entitled Conspiracy. The plot to assassinate Hitler was another real-life conspiracy, as was the Soviet-Cuban effort in 1962 to secretly construct nuclear missiles in Cuba. This week a committee published credible-sounding accusations about secretive mass mistreatment of an ethnic minority by a major Far East government, which supporters of that government have tried to dismiss as a "conspiracy theory," although the evidence for such accusations seems very substantial. So why would someone think that some belief group can be discredited by merely showing some correlation between that group and a tendency to believe in one or more conspiracy theories?  

A staple of weaponized psychology papers is the arbitrary scale, in which points are assigned based on some belief or tendency. Sometimes a scale may be made up by the authors of the paper, to achieve whatever defamation effect they are striving to achieve.  In other cases very dubious scales invented by others with a similar agenda may be evoked.  Often scales will be designed so that the targeted group will be as likely as possible to score highly on some scale in which higher numbers are represented as signs of pathology. So, for example, if a psychology professor wants to portray UFO witnesses as being "fantasy prone," he may devise or use a scale in which belief in UFOs scores a person a higher score of being "fantasy prone."  Or if a psychology wants to portray people having  out-of-body experiences as being "schizoid," he may devise or use a scale in which a belief in life-after-death or a belief in ever being outside of your body gets you a higher score on a "schizoid" scale. The possibilities for defamatory mischief are endless when professors can use or invent whatever scale furthers their deligitimization agenda. 

Another staple of weaponized psychology papers is the use of questionnaires with many examples of what lawyers call "leading questions," which are often questions designed to get someone to make some confession he would not naturally make. A person asked to describe his personality in a paragraph might never mention anything bad. But ask the same person a long series of questions such as "Do you sometimes stretch the truth to achieve your goals?" or "Do you sometimes feel angry towards others because of their success?" or "Do you sometimes fantasize about sexual behavior you would not want your mother to know about?" and you will probably get a few "yes" answers. This type of thing can be used as a springboard to defame the group that the questioned person belongs to. 

Another staple of weaponized psychology papers is a vague report of differences without any specific numbers being supplied about how great the difference was.  For example, both the title and the abstract of some paper may claim that one group (the group targeted by the weaponized psychology study) is "less intelligent" or "more Machiavellian" or "more selfish" or "less charitable" or "more angry" than control subjects, but we read no specific numbers indicating how great this alleged difference is.  Reading the paper (typically behind a paywall), one will find that the supposedly discovered difference is usually some trivial difference like 1% or 2%.  

A good general rule regarding weaponized psychology papers is that we should completely ignore all claims of differences between groups of people unless a specific degree-of-difference number is mentioned in the paper's abstract. When scientists get significant numbers in their studies, such numbers will be usually stated in the abstracts. When scientists don't get significant numbers, but only minimal borderline numbers such as 1% differences, such scientists will typically avoid telling us (in their paper abstracts) about how big a difference they found. So you should assume that if no exact figure is given about a difference in some group, then probably any difference found was only some tiny borderline difference.  

In recent years the titles and abstracts of weaponized psychology papers have often had a rather racist sound.  Again and again in such papers we hear of "dark traits" and "a dark triad" of characteristics, and such papers may refer to "the dark side" of this or that group or may distinguish normal members of some group and "dark" members of that group (the "dark" members being those who are regarded as having one or more undesirable traits).  In all of this language there is an underlying thinking of "dark=bad" or "dark=dysfunctional" or "dark=inferior," which has a kind of racist dog-whistle sound to it, which may produce a subliminal cascade of hate, fear or suspicion in the readers of the papers. 

I have not kept exact statistics on how many times there will be links to weaponized psychology papers on the Reddit science subreddit (www.reddit.com/r/science). But over the past few years I seem to have seen new links to such papers appear at a rate of about a few  times per week. 

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Here is an interesting question to ponder: if there were some deity who wanted to create an inhabited universe that had the fewest possible signs that it had been created or directed, what kind of universe would such a deity create? To answer this question we must imagine the strange hypothetical case of a deity who wants to create a universe with living beings, but who for some reason does not want any of those beings to ever suspect that they were part of a created universe or a designed universe or a directed universe.  I can't imagine why a deity would want to do that. But I do have an idea about the type of universe such a deity might create so that the fewest possible minds would get suspicions that they were in a universe that had been designed or created or directed. We can call such a universe a "no design appearances" universe.  

We can imagine this universe as consisting mainly of a featureless black plane, infinite in width and depth. The living beings in such a universe might consist of merely featureless balls. All of these balls might have different sizes and colors, leaving no impression that any mind was controlling the size or colors of such balls to create some uniformity. Such balls might float above the featureless plain. Physically about the most interesting thing that would happen in such a universe might be that some of these floating balls might occasionally group rather close together.  In such a universe there might be no sun, and no real concepts such as hot and cold and darkness and light. The temperature might be a constant uniform temperature that no one would notice as being either hot or cold. Any of these floating balls might be able to perceive other balls that were near them, and might also be able to see the featureless plain below them. 

Each such floating featureless ball might be a conscious observer, but none of them would have complex minds and complex memories such as humans have. There would be basically nothing to learn about in so simple a universe. It might be that none of these balls had any memory of anything that had happened earlier than about a week earlier. Each such ball might exist indefinitely. Or it could be that balls would just pop up from the featureless plain, and last a certain number of years. Or perhaps a new ball might arise from an unimpressive process when an existing ball split into two or three smaller balls.  Each of these balls might have a strange simple little life, but none of the balls would have any such concepts such as family, nation, tribe, science, religion and so forth.  

Within such a universe there might be no laws at all. There might be no law of gravity, with these balls floating around at random distances above the featureless plane. There might not be any type of laws of motion similar to Newton's laws of motion.  If two balls approached each other, they might simply pass through each other, like little ghost balls.  There might not even be a law requiring the balls to be above the plane, and the balls might exist both below and above the plane, passing through the featureless plane often. 

Now imagine yourself as one of these strange little featureless balls floating above such a featureless plain. There would probably never arise in your mind any such concept as the idea that your little universe of floating balls and a featureless plain had been created. For one thing, no one in your universe would ever have done any such thing as creating anything. So the whole idea of creation or design would probably be utterly foreign to you. Also nothing that you saw around you would look like anything that had been designed or created. The featureless plain below you would not look like anything that had been made with care. And neither yourself nor any of your fellow floating balls would look anything that had been created or designed. 

There would be nothing special about your mind that would cause you to think that beings such as yourself were caused by something other than yourself.  You would have no mind that analyzed complex facts, and you would probably have no language at all. The universe you inhabited would show no signs of design, no signs of ever having begun at some time in the past. So all in all, there would seem to be no reason at all for you to suspect that there existed anything greater than yourself and the type of floating ball being that you were. 

I think the paragraphs above are a pretty good stab at imagining the type of universe a deity might create if such a deity wanted to minimize the chance of any of the universe's inhabitants suspecting that they were part of a universe that had been created or designed. But now let's consider a question that is the opposite of the one I posed at the beginning of this post. What type of universe might a deity create if the deity wanted to create a universe that would maximize the chance of its inhabitants eventually suspecting that they were part of a universe that had been created or designed or directed, or that they had some great dependency on some metaphysical reality higher than themselves? We can call such a universe a universe that displays hugely demonstrative directedness. A dictionary defines "directedness" as "the state or quality of being directed." A universe with hugely demonstrative directedness would be one in which it was very obvious that some higher power was controlling things, and the source of wonders or order or organization in that universe. 

 What type of characteristics would a universe with hugely demonstrative directedness have? I can list some possible characteristics of such a universe. 

Possible characteristic #1 of a universe with hugely demonstrative directedness: living beings might have fantastically organized bodies that could not be explained by low-level causes.  

 We can imagine here a situation that is the exact opposite of the one described in the "no design appearances" universe imagined above. Instead of featureless balls raising no suspicions of any kind of design, living beings would be fantastically organized structures even more organized than the most organized things humans have made. 

Possible characteristic #2 of a universe with hugely demonstrative directedness: living beings might require for their existence fantastically complex and seemingly directed processes within them.  

Something that is static can be very impressive if it is very organized. For example, if the captain of an aircraft tells everyone to stop moving at noon, the aircraft carrier is still a very impressive example of organization, suggesting design and directedness. But something can be far more impressive if it is both extremely organized and also something in which enormously organized dynamic processes are continually occurring. Consider, for example, a huge factory that is both enormously organized (with many types of specialized machines) and also a center of great dynamic activity, with many different manufacturing processes occurring simultaneously. Such a thing even more dramatically suggests the idea of directedness. 

Possible characteristic #3 of a universe with hugely demonstrative directedness: there might be many complex uniformities and complex repeated patterns suggesting design or directedness. 

In a universe with hugely demonstrative directedness, there might be many uniformities suggesting things were being directed. There might also be many complex repeated patterns of a type that we would never expect chance to produce multiple times. 

Possible characteristic #4 of a universe with hugely demonstrative directedness: there might be many physical laws suggesting design or directedness.

The existence of rules of nature being mysteriously followed for no known reason would tend to suggest that the universe had been created or designed or directed, particularly if such laws were necessary for the living beings in the universe to exist. 

Possible characteristic #5 of a universe with hugely demonstrative directedness: there might be evidence the universe had begun in a state of perfect disorder, or as if it had appeared from nothing, and then progressed to enormous organization and order. 

One way to accentuate design and directedness is to have it mysteriously arising from non-order or chaos or from apparent nothingness. For example, it would be rather hard to make a more impressive display of supernatural power than for someone to pick up a blob of thick paint in his left hand and a blob of thick paint in his right hand, and to then throw them on to a canvas, instantly producing some beautiful painting looking like a purposeful work of art.  

Possible characteristic #6 of a universe with hugely demonstrative directedness: there might be evidence had begun in a state requiring very precise fine-tuning.  

Imagine you grow up living in a giant upside-down pyramid structure. You might have no idea how such a structure originated. But the physical condition would seem to tell you very dramatically that the structure had to have had a very fine-tuned and well-directed origin, or else the pyramid would never have properly balanced so that it could rest on its smallest point. 

Possible characteristic #7 of a universe with hugely demonstrative directedness: minds might have very rich capabilities that could not be physically explained.   

The richer the mental capabilities of living beings in a universe, and the greater the difficulty of explaining such mental capabilities physically, the more the inhabitants would tend to suspect came from higher power.  For example, if all humans had entirely empty skulls, or skulls filled only with sand, they might be more likely to think that their minds came from some high power rather than something inside their body. 

Now, let us consider the question: could our universe be such a universe with hugely demonstrative directedness? It seems that it might. In fact, our universe seems to have each of the characteristics mentioned above.  

Characteristic #1: "living beings might have fantastically organized bodies that could not be explained by low-level causes." 

Every human body is a state of physical organization more impressive than found in any object human beings can construct or manufacture. Humans know how to build fully equipped aircraft carriers from scratch. There is no nation or corporation in the world that knows how to build a living human body from scratch.  We do not understand how the vast organization of any adult body is able to arise. For decades we have told a false story about such a matter: that a human body arises because a DNA blueprint for such a body is read. No such blueprint or program or recipe for making a human body exists in DNA. Containing only low-level chemical information, DNA does contain any anatomy information, and does not tell how to make a human body or any of its organs or cells. 

Characteristic #2: "living beings might require for their existence fantastically complex and seemingly directed processes within them."

Nothing could be more erroneous than to imagine a human body as being like some state of enormous static organization, like some cathedral that is very impressive in its organization but almost entirely static (with the exception of ringing church bells and opening doors).  Instead the human body is as internally dynamic as some city. Imagine all of the internal activity within a city: people going to and from jobs, workers moving around as part of their work, 1000 buildings being torn down every day down in different parts of the city, 1000 other buildings being constructed or remodeled in other parts of the city.  That is a rough analogy for what goes on every day in the human body. Very many of the 200+ types of cells in the human body have relatively short lifetimes, and the average cell has a lifetime of only about seven years. In places such as the brain, protein molecules have an average lifetime of less than two weeks.  So the human body is like some city that is in a constant process of replacing and remodeling itself. Moreover, the continued existence of the human body requires the continual occurrence of fantastically complex chemical combinations and reactions, such as the very-hard-to-achieve thing called protein folding, and the combination of different types of proteins into protein complexes, and the construction of organelles from protein complexes, and the construction of new cells from organelles. 

But there's one big difference between the enormously dynamic internal purposeful activity of the human body and the enormously dynamic internal purposeful activity of a city. That difference is that we know what causes the enormously dynamic purposeful internal activity of a city: the purposeful action of many thousands or millions of intelligent agents inside the city. But we do not know what causes the enormously dynamic purposeful internal activity within a human body. For a long time our biologists told us a gigantic lie, that such activity was occurring because of a DNA script or gene script for how to keep a body alive. No such script or program exists in DNA or its genes. DNA and its genes only contains very low-level information such as which amino acids make up a protein. 

We do not know what causes the miracle of dynamic activity within the human body needed for a human body to survive. Why do the polypeptide chains (chains of amino acids) that are the starting points of protein molecules form into just the right hard-to-achieve folded 3D shapes needed for protein molecules to be functional? We do not know. Why do protein molecules form into just the right type of protein complexes needed for the body to operate? We do not know. Why do such protein complexes form into the organelles needed for cells to continue to exist and reproduce? We do not know. How is a cell even able to reproduce? We do not know. All of the vast internal purposeful dynamism within the body of humans and other large organisms is just what we might expect in a universe with hugely demonstrative directedness. 

Characteristic #3: "there might be many complex uniformities and complex repeated patterns suggesting design or directedness."  

In our universe there are some dramatic uniformities in the world of physics. All electrons have exactly the same mass. All protons have the same mass, which is 1836 times greater than the mass of each electron. All electrons have exactly the same charge, which is the very precise opposite of the charge on each proton. The speed of the light is the same everywhere. The gravitational constant is the same everywhere. There are numerous other uniformities and fundamental constants that have to be just right for the universe to be habitable. We can imagine other types of universes that might allow living beings to exist without such uniformities. But given the overall arrangement of our universe, each of the uniformities must exist, and must in many cases exist with numerical values very close to their existing values, or life could not exist in our universe. For example, a slight mismatch in the absolute value of the electron charge and the absolute value of the proton charge would make our universe uninhabitable. 

In addition to such purposeful-seeming uniformities in the world of physics, there are a host of purposeful-seeming uniformities or near uniformities in the world of biology.  Among these are the various structures of anatomy used by various different types of organisms. This is something we take for granted,  but something we have no credible explanation for. Why is almost every human born with ten toes, ten fingers, two arms, two legs, one head, two eyes, two lips, two ears and one mouth? Since neither DNA nor its genes have any anatomy specification nor even a specification of how to make a cell, the answer is "because they all started with the same DNA." We could go on and on asking similar questions. Why does every human use the same type of protein complexes, when neither DNA nor its genes specify which proteins belong to particular protein complexes? Why do such protein complexes so often form units of such complexity and apparent directedness that biochemists are now extensively using the term "molecular machines" to refer to them?  Why does every human have the same type of cells, when neither DNA nor its genes specifies how to make a cell? 

Characteristic #4: "there might be many physical laws suggesting design or directedness."  

Our universe is quite the opposite of the lawless universe imagined at the beginning of this post. Our universe has many laws, and most of them seem to be necessary in one or another for our universe's habitability. Some of these laws have names, and many others have no names.  For example, the precise laws known as Coulomb's law and Newton's universal law of gravitation are named laws absolutely necessary for life to exist in our universe, as is the law of the conservation of charge. If the law of the conversation of charge had not been in effect in the early universe, we probably would have ended up with a vast imbalance of positive charges and negative charges, which would have prevented planets and stars from ever forming. There are numerous other laws that have no name, but which seem necessary for life to exist in our universe. One law of nature guarantees that when high energy photons collide, they do not produce stable subatomic particles with a random range of masses, but only produce stable subatomic particles of a few types such as protons, electrons and neutrons. Without such a law the Big Bang would not have produced a habitable universe. I could write a long separate post on all the laws of nature, named and unnamed, which seem to suggest directedness and purpose in our universe. 

Characteristic #5: "there might be evidence the universe had begun in a state of zero organization, or as if it had appeared from nothing, and then progressed to enormous organization."  

Any universe that seems to have appeared from nothing is one that gives a strong sign of directedness, particularly if we track a progression from perfect disorganization to enormous organization. We see such things in the history of our universe. The Big Bang described by cosmologists is either a case of the universe apparently originating from nothing, or a facsimile of such a thing. Involving inconceivable temperatures, the Big Bang was a state of perfect disorganization, which we can define as one with zero systems of any type. From such a state has arisen our planet filled with vastly organized structures. The progression from perfect disorder to enormous order leaves a very strong impression of directedness. 

Characteristic #6: there might be evidence the universe had begun in a state requiring very precise fine-tuning.

Entropy can be roughly defined as the amount of waste mass-energy in a system or universe, energy that is unavailable for work. Entropy is increased when the stars burns up their nuclear fuel to radiate energy into space, and it is also increased when matter gets trapped in black holes. It is a fundamental law of nature that entropy gradually increases as time passes, a principle known as the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Scientists say this law will eventually lead in the incredibly distant future to a “heat death” of the universe, in which there is no usable energy. We know roughly how much entropy is now in the universe, and if we “rewind the film” backward all the way back to the time of the Big Bang, we then have a universe that begins with very, very little entropy. The diagram below illustrates the point.

Roger Penrose (one of the most famous cosmologists) has emphasized the fantastic specialness of the low-entropy state of the early universe. In the video clip below, he discusses the issue.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvV2Xzh11r8

At the end of this brief clip Penrose estimates that the chance of a random universe having entropy as low as the entropy in the early universe is some inconceivably small number such as 1 in 10^N, where N is a number greater than the total number of particles in the observable universe. Clearly, our universe matches characteristic #6 super-abundantly. 

Characteristic #7: "minds might have very rich capabilities that could not be physically explained." 

Human minds have an incredibly diverse and rich set of characteristics and capabilities that mostly cannot be explained as being a result of brain activity. The visual below mentions some of those characteristics and capabilities. 

1. As shown in the many examples given here, here, here, here and here, contrary to the predictions of materialism, human minds can operate very well despite tremendous damage to the brain, caused by injury, disease or surgery. For example, removing half of a person's brain in the operation known as hemispherectomy produces little change in memory or cognitive abilities. There have been quite a few cases of people (such as Lorber's patients) who were able to think and speak very well despite having lost more than 60% of their brain due to disease. Such cases argue powerfully that the human mind is not actually a product of the brain or an aspect of the brain.

2. Although it is claimed that memories are stored in the brain (specifically in synapses), there is no place in the brain that is a plausible storage site for human memories that can last for 50 years or longer. The proteins that make up both synapses and dendritic spines are quite short-lived, being subject to very high molecular turnover which gives them an average lifetime of only a few weeks. Both synapses and dendritic spines are a “shifting sands” substrate absolutely unsuitable for storing memories that last reliably for decades.

3. It is claimed that memories are stored in brains, but humans are able to instantly recall accurately very obscure items of knowledge and memories learned or experienced decades ago; and the brain seems to have none of the characteristics that would allow such a thing. The recall of an obscure memory from a brain would require some ability to access the exact location in the brain where such a memory was stored (such as the neurons near neuron# 8,124,412,242). But given the lack of any neuron coordinate system or any neuron position notation system or anything like an indexing system or addressing system in the brain, it would seem impossible for a brain to perform anything like such an instantaneous lookup of stored information from some exact spot in the brain.

4. If humans were storing their memories in brains, there would have to be a fantastically complex translation system (almost infinitely more complicated than the ASCII code or the genetic code) by which mental concepts, words and images are translated into neural states. But no trace of any such system has ever been found, no one has given a credible detailed theory of how it could work, and if it existed it would be a “miracle of design” that would be naturally inexplicable.

5. Contrary to claims that minds are merely an aspect of brains or a product of brains, we know from near-death experiences that human minds can continue to operate even after hearts have stopped and brains have shut down. As discussed here, such experiences often include observations of hospital details or medical details that should have been impossible if a mere hallucination was the cause of the experience.

6. If human brains actually stored conceptual and experiential memories, the human brain would have to have both a write mechanism by which exact information can be precisely written, and a read mechanism by which exact information can be precisely read. The brain seems to have neither of these things. There is nothing in the brain similar to the “read-write” heads found in computers.

7. We understand how physical things can produce physical effects (such as an asteroid producing a crater), and how mental things can produce mental effects (such as how a belief can give rise to another belief or an emotion). But no one has the slightest idea how a physical thing could ever produce a mental effect. As discussed here, no one has any understanding of how a brain or neurons in a brain could produce anything like a thought or an idea.

8. We know from our experience with computers the type of things that an information storage and retrieval system uses and requires. The human brain seems to have nothing like any of these things. 

9. As discussed here, humans can form new memories instantly, at a speed much faster than would be possible if we were using our brains to store such memories. It is typically claimed that memories are stored by “synapse strengthening” and protein synthesis, but such things do not work fast enough to explain the formation of memories that can occur instantly.

10. As discussed here, human brains do not show signs of working harder during thinking or memory recall, contrary to what we would expect if such effects were being produced by brains.

11. Contrary to the idea that human memories are stored in synapses, the density of synapses sharply decreases between childhood and early adulthood. We see no neural effect matching the growth of learned memories in human.

12. There are many humans with either exceptional memory abilities (such as those with hyperthymesia who can recall every day of their adulthood) or exceptional thinking abilities (such as savants with incredible calculation abilities). But such cases do not involve larger brains, very often involve completely ordinary brains, and quite often involve damaged brains, quite to the contrary of what we would expect from the “brains make minds” assumption.

13. The very strong laboratory evidence for psi (most notably extrasensory perception) shows that humans have abilities that cannot be explained by neural activity, and that must involve some higher consciousness reality beyond the brain.

14. Results from the animal kingdom are inconsistent with claim that minds are made from brains and memories stored in brains. For example, animals such as crows with very small brains (and no cerebral cortex) perform astonishingly well on mental tests; elephants with brains four times larger than ours are not nearly as smart as us; and flatworms that have been taught things and then decapitated can still remember what they learned, after regrowing a head.

15. Well-documented evidence for apparitions provides evidence that the human mind is not merely the result of brain activity. Such evidence includes (1) more than 100 cases of people who saw an apparition of someone they did not know had died, only to very soon learn that the corresponding person had died (as discussed here, here, here and here); (2) many additional cases of apparitions seen by multiple observers, contrary to the explanation of hallucination (discussed here and here); (3) many other cases of death-bed apparitions as discussed here and documented by researchers such as Haraldsson and Osis. 

16. Contrary to claims that the brain is the source of human thinking and memory recall, a full analysis of the signal delaying factors in the human brain (such as synaptic delays and synaptic fatigue) shows that signals in the brain cannot be traveling fast enough to explain human thinking and human memory recall which can occur instantaneously.

17.  The human brain experiences extremely severe levels of signal noise, so much signal noise that we should not believe that it is the brain that is producing human memory recall that can occur massively and flawlessly for people such as Hamlet actors and Wagnerian tenors. 

The topic of human minds and human mental experiences is a topic of oceanic depth. Besides failing to properly study the topic of brain physical shortfalls (something they should devote the greatest attention to), today's neuroscientists miserably fail to properly study the topic of paranormal phenomena, which provides gigantic further evidence that the human mind is incapable of being explained by anything physical. 

To summarize, our universe seems to have not merely some marginal evidence of directedness, but the most enormous and abundant evidence of directedness. Everywhere is the most abundant evidence of purposefulness and directness. The evidence pervades numerous different fields such as general biology, psychology, biochemistry, developmental biology, physics, parapsychology and cosmology. It seems  justified to use the phrase "hugely demonstrative directedness" to describe such a state of affairs.