Pick a Universe - any Universe (and it'll probably be DEAD - NO stars, NO life)
Thurs 04 June 2015 - Was interested to read that noted theoretical physicist Lee
Smolin [ Lee Smolin - Wikipedia and
www.perceptions.couk.com/smolin.txt ] has calculated the odds of a universe
being friendly to life - as ours is.
He wrote that there's only one chance in 10^229 (that's a 1, followed by 229
zeros) that randomly selected `laws of nature' could produce a universe with
galaxies of stars (sources of light and energy), along with elements like carbon
(bases of Earth-life), silicon and heavier metals (bases of rocky planets),
along with vital atmospheric constituents like carbon dioxide (for plants to
breathe) and oxygen (for animals to breathe).
Those odds are composed of many separate calculations, one which was earlier
discovered by Prof. Sir Fred Hoyle: i.e. the very unlikely reason there's so
much carbon in the universe.
The whole thing is a serious problem for physicists - and further considerations
make the situation much worse.
The same Fred Hoyle, along with his colleague Prof. Chandra Wickramasinghe (see
www.perceptions.couk.com/panspermia.html#data1), later wrote of the even worse
problem in biology:
"The outstanding question ... 2000 or more enzymes are crucial across a wide
spectrum of [Earth] life ... the chance of obtaining the necessary total of 2000
enzymes by randomly assembling amino acid chains is ... p to 1 against, with p
minimally an enormous superastrononomical number equal to 10^40,000 (1 followed
by 40,000 zeros).
The odds ... are only for enzymes ... if all other relevant molecules for life
are also taken account of in our calculation the situation for conventional
biology becomes ... intrinsically insuperable."
[Those numbers are enormous: it is calculated that all the atoms in the whole
observable universe amount to `only' about 10^80 (that's a 1, followed by 80
zeros).
How Many Atoms Are There in the Universe? - Universe Today]
Most scientists are either relatively ignorant and so never think about the
problem, or conformist and cowardly and so keep quiet about it (today's Big
Science is controlled by politicos: free-thinkers don't get jobs or funding -
see www.perceptions.couk.com/uef/badsci.txt for some US/UK background).
However a few knowledgeable scientists have been seriously thinking about the
subject for quite a while, following in the footsteps of Peirce:
"To suppose universal laws of nature capable of being apprehended by the mind
and yet having no reason for their special forms, but standing inexplicable and
irrational, is hardly a justifiable position. Uniformities are precisely the
sort of facts that need to be accounted for. That a pitched coin should
sometimes turn up heads and sometimes tails calls for no particular explanation;
but if it shows heads every time, we wish to know how this result has been
brought about. Law is par excellence the thing that wants a reason. The only
possible way of accounting for the laws of nature and for uniformity in general
is to suppose them results of evolution." - Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914)
Today a relatively small number of elite scientists, composed mainly of
theoretical physicists, particle physicists, astro-physicists, cosmologists and
the like, are not only aware of the problem but are forced to think about it as
part of their work, and, like Peirce, they have opted for some sort of mechanism
having `selected' the laws of nature as we see them today (maybe because
`natural selection' or `evolution' are safe concepts to hold, quite trendy these
days).
One group sticks with an easy option: the anthropic principle; its weak version
says "maybe there's lots of universes or distant parts of our universe where
life would be impossible - but - because we are alive, we had to evolve here
where life is possible"), which doesn't really answer the problem; just holds it
at arm's length so to speak.
Another group goes for quantum physics as a mechanism, under the rough heading
of "many worlds hypotheses' (IMHO these explanations are frankly mystical). They
all start with the premise that at a quantum event (the famous `quantum leap or
jump' when a measurement is taken) the whole universe actually `jumps' or splits
into all possible states (that's going to be an infinite number in most cases)
but we can only see one result, that of our `selected' universe, the rest of
them (an infinite number don't forget) being unseen and unavailable to us. And
that's happening millions or billions of times every minute, just here on
Earth - so there would be umpteen gazzillions of universes `somewhere' by now,
but of course we can't see them - they are supposed to exist on "other planes".
And the (last?) group opts for various sorts of selection mechanisms embodied in
the idea of successive `births' of new universes, either by cyclical collapses +
re-explosions of a single universe (ours - but NASA now says that can't happen),
or, like in Lee Smolin's case, by assuming that "black holes" exist and that
each black hole contains a hidden "white hole" which is exploding into a (or
more than one) new universe, but they're unseen by us because they exists on
"other planes" - perhaps like all those mystical "many worlds").
That's where Big Science seems to be now - and you might have some ideas about
how they've performed so far.
For me the important thing is: all their suggestions or claims are of some form
of `natural selection' of the laws of nature (maybe because it seems safe to
the politicos who hold the purse strings), yet there doesn't seem to be a
convincing mechanism for `natural selection' of the laws which doesn't depend on
wild assumptions and downright wishful thinking (i.e. stuff that's not supported
by any evidence or observations).
And that just leaves us with "selection".
Which might be a bit scary.
Ray D
PS - check www.perceptions.couk.com/creation.html#cre-ian and even
www.perceptions.couk.com/magic2.html#3 for informed updates and re-evaluations
maybe more realistic than those of Big-Science.