David
Bohm, the physicist, was asked "What is the meaning of
meaning?"
Answer, "The meaning of meaning is the meaning you give
it."
Harry, know one can know what you
know. Only you can and that may or may not be myth.
REH
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Sunday, November 02, 2003 10:48
PM
Subject: RE: [Futurework] Our
mysterious universe
Keith,
I'm probably a lot closer to finding out
the truth than you are -- even with your emphysema. Yet, I find no evidence
at all for support of the myth, any myth. Even one to guide me, whatever
that may mean.
All my life I have enjoyed speculation
on the universe, and what it may
mean, if it means anything. But, always it is for entertainment purposes and
doesn't lead to much that is
important.
The major problem in discussions of
this sort is that you cannot
argue with faith. Faith requires no logical support, no significant
evidence, nothing.
The universe is in a period of
transition from what and to what nobody knows. When we are in this
transition nobody knows and we are unlikely to find out. This transition
will take 1000 generations, or one million generations, of human beings. How can we take a
snapshot of what is now and extrapolate in all directions with any
sense?
So, enjoy your myths, as without doubt
you will. Just remember they
are myths.
Harry
-----------------------------------------------------
For those who like to ponder on the mysteriousness
of the universe and the significance (or not) of our place within it, the
following article from the New York Times of a recent conference on
cosmology is fascinating indeed.
Even atheists have faith (in the
credibility of their own brains) but I feel sorry for them because they have
no myth to guide them. For the same reason, I feel sorry for agnostics
because they obviously would like to believe in a myth but haven't the
energy or imagination to search for, or to devise, their own. I don't have
much time for most beliefs, particularly for those which are associated with
formal religions, unless the believer can write about it briefly and defend
it adequately against criticism even if it can't be proved to be
true.
So, in two paragraphs, here's mine. It isn't true in any
absolute sense and if I lived long enough it would probably be described in
different metaphors as scientific ideas change, but it keeps me happy at the
present time, gives me purpose and doesn't hurt anyone -- and those are the
best criteria for any sort of valid belief. My belief owes a great deal to
the thinking of Freeman Dyson, Lee Smolin, and a few more and is also echoed
in some of the contributions to the conference described below. Here
goes:
I believe that the extraordinarily precise physical parameters
of the universe which gives rise to both black holes and lifeforms suggests
that their joint existence is connected in a significant way. I believe that
lifeforms, given an evolutionary chance, develop an informational database
which conjoins with the physical database of the universe itself. Along with
Lee Smolin, I believe that all matter descends into a black hole sooner or
later and form another universe with a slightly different physical database
from its parent. As a modification to Smolin's ideas, I believe that the new
physical database has been modified in one way or another by the
informational database of its previous lifeforms and thereby lays down
slightly different physical parameters in its progeny (summarised as the
"cosmological constant" as mentioned below)
If the new universe with
its new set of parameters also leads to life-forms which also evolve then it
will also possess black holes and will therefore be able to produce further
universes in due course. If a new universe has a set of parameters which
don't give rise to life then it won't also possess black holes and will not
give rise to a new generation of universes. It will become a corpse in due
course -- a body without a soul. The various universes which survive (of
which ours is one) will have different survivabilities according to the
informational contributions of its lifeforms. Therefore, it may be possible
that anything a lifeform does and thinks, even if it reduces to only one
significant quantum event, may be contributing to the future survivability
of the universe's offspring. Thus endeth my evolutionary theory.
Now
follows the article -- a superb description of an incredibly complex
subject:
<<<< ZILLIONS OF UNIVERSES? OR DID OURS GET
LUCKY?
Dennis Overbye
CLEVELAND -- Cosmology used to be a
heartless science, all about dark matter lost in mind-bending abysses and
exploding stars. But whenever physicists and astronomers gather, the subject
that roils lunch, coffee breaks or renegade cigarette breaks tends to be not
dark matter or the fate of the universe. Rather it is about the role and
meaning of life in the cosmos.
Cosmologists held an unusual debate on
the question during a recent conference, The Future of Cosmology, at
Case Western Reserve University here. According to a controversial notion
known as the anthropic principle, certain otherwise baffling features of the
universe can only be understood by including ourselves in the equation. The
universe must be suitable for life, otherwise we would not be here to wonder
about it.
The features in question are mysterious numbers in the
equations of physics and cosmology, denoting, say, the amount of matter in
the universe or the number of dimensions, which don't seem predictable by
any known theory yet. They are like the knobs on God's control console, and
they seem almost miraculously tuned to allow life. A slight tweak one way or
another from the present settings could cause all stars to collapse into
black holes or atoms to evaporate, negating the possibility of
biology.
If there were only one universe, theorists would have their
hands full trying to explain why it is such a lucky one. But supporters of
the anthropic principle argue that there could be zillions of possible
universes, many different possible settings ruled by chance. Their view has
been bolstered in recent years by a theory of the Big Bang, known as
inflation, which implies that our universe is only one bubble in an endless
chain of them, and by string theory the so-called theory of everything whose
equations seem to have an almost uncountable number of solutions, each
representing a different possible universe.
Only a few of these will
be conducive to life, the anthropic argument goes, but it is no more
surprise to find ourselves in one of them than it is to find ourselves on
the moist warm Earth rather than on Pluto. In short we live where we can
live, but those can be fighting words.
Scientists agree that the name
"anthropic principle," is pretentious, but that's all they agree on. Some of
them regard the idea as more philosophy than science. Others regard it as a
betrayal of the Einsteinian dream of predicting everything about the
universe.
Dr. David Gross regards it as a virus. "Once you get the
bug you can't get rid of it," he complained at the conference. Dr. Gross,
director of the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics in Santa Barbara,
Calif., had agreed to lead a panel discussion on the notorious principle.
Often found puffing on a cigar, he is not known to be shy about expressing
his opinion. "I was chosen because I hate the anthropic principle," he
said.
But playing a central role in defending the need for what he
called "anthropic reasoning" was Dr. Steven Weinberg, a Nobel laureate from
the University of Texas. Like Dr. Gross, Dr. Weinberg is a particle
physicist who is known for being a hard-core reductionist in his approach to
science, but he evinces a gloomy streak in his writings and his talks. He is
still famous for writing in his 1977 book, The First Three Minutes,
"The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems
pointless."
Dr. Weinberg is among the most prominent of theorists who
have reluctantly accepted, at least provisionally, the anthropic principle
as a kind of tragic necessity in order to explain the gnarliest knob of
all.
Called the cosmological constant, it is a number that measures
the amount of cosmic repulsion caused by the energy in empty space. That
empty space should be boiling with such energy is predicted by quantum
theory, and astronomers in the last few years have discovered that some
cosmic repulsion seems to be accelerating the expansion of the universe. But
theoretical attempts to calculate this constant, also known as lambda,
result in numbers 1060 times as high as those astronomers have measured.
So despairing are physicists of understanding the cosmological
constant that Dr. Weinberg joked earlier at the meeting that he would no
longer read papers about it. Back in 1989, before any cosmological constant
had been discovered, Dr. Weinberg used the anthropic principle to set limits
on the value of the constant. Suppose instead of being fixed by theory, it
was random from universe to universe. In that case the value of the
cosmological constant in our universe may just be an "environmental effect,"
he explained, and we shouldn't expect to be able to predict it exactly any
more than you can calculate how much rain will fall in Seattle this
Christmas.
In his paper, Dr. Weinberg argued that lambda in our
universe could not be too big or the repulsive force would have prevented
the formation of galaxies, stars and us. Since we are here, the constant
should be small. The recently discovered "dark energy" causing the cosmic
acceleration fits comfortably inside Dr. Weinberg's limits, vindicating in a
way the anthropic approach.
In his talk, Dr. Weinberg described the
anthropic principle as "the sort of historical realization scientists have
been forced to make from time to time. Our hope was to explain everything.
Part of progress is we learn what we can explain on fundamental grounds and
what we cannot."
Other panelists, including Dr. Alex Vilenkin, a
physicist from Tufts University, suggested that the anthropic reasoning was
a logical attempt to apply probabilities to cosmology, using all the data,
including the fact of our own existence. Dr. John Peacock, a cosmologist at
the University of Edinburgh, argued that the anthropic principle was not a
retreat from physics, but an advance. The existence of an ensemble of
universes with different properties, he explained, implies a mechanism to
produce variation, a kind of cosmic genetic code, the way that evolution
implies the existence of genes.
"You gain new physics," Dr. Peacock
said. But when his own turn came, Dr. Gross questioned whether the rules of
the anthropic game were precise enough. What were the parameters that could
vary from universe to universe? How many could vary at once? What was the
probability distribution of their values, and what was necessary for
"life"?
Anthropic calculations are inherently vague and imprecise, he
said. As a result, the principle could not be disproved. But he was only
getting warmed up. His real objection, he said, was "totally emotional."
Ascribing the parameters of physics to mere chance or vagaries of cosmic
weather is defeatist, discouraging people from undertaking the difficult
calculations that would actually explain why things are they way they are.
Moreover, it is also dangerous, he declared to ringing applause. "It smells
of religion and intelligent design," he said, referring to a variety of
creationism that argues that the universe is too complex to have evolved by
chance.
Dr. Lawrence Krauss, the astrophysicist from Case Western who
had organized the conference and recruited the panel, characterized the
anthropic principle as "a way of killing time" when physicists didn't have a
better idea. Dr. Krauss, who has battled creationists over biology
instruction in the public schools in Ohio, said he had encountered anthropic
arguments as an argument for fine-tuning, the idea that God had fixed the
universe just for us.
Dr. Weinberg replied that the anthropic
principle was not really a part of science, but rather "a guess about the
future shape of science. If we didn't have things in our universe that seem
peculiar, like the value of the cosmological constant, we wouldn't worry
about it." Dr. Weinberg compared the situation to a person who is dealt a
royal flush in a poker tournament. It may be chance, he said, but there is
another explanation "Namely, is the organizer of the tournament our
friend?"
"But that leads to the argument about religion," he said to
much laughter. In fact, Dr. Weinberg said, the anthropic principle was "a
nice non-theistic explanation of why things are as nice as they
are."
By then the audience was squirming to get in on the action.
Hands were waving as Dr. Gross called the session to an end. "Clearly there
is a diversity of opinion," he intoned. "Some people find the small value of
cosmological constant so bizarre that only the anthropic principle will pick
it out." Nobody who adheres to the anthropic principle, he said, would hold
on if there were "an honest old-fashioned calculation," that explained the
cosmological constant.
Given the floor for the last word, Dr.
Weinberg agreed that it was too soon to give up hope for such a
breakthrough. "I'm prepared to go on hoping that one will be found," he
said. "But after the passage of time one begins to entertain other
possibilities, and the anthropic explanation is another possibility."
Applying that mode of reasoning, he said, could help make the cosmological
constant less peculiar. "But we don't know if that's the help that we really
deserve to get," he concluded.
And it was time for lunch.
Dr.
Gross reported later that younger physicists had thanked him for his stand.
Dr. Weinberg said the panel had generated more fuss than the subject
deserved. "Those who favor taking the anthropic principle seriously don't
really like it," he said, "and those who argue against it recognize that it
may be unavoidable." >>>> New York Times -- 28
October 2003
Keith Hudson, Bath, England, <www.evolutionary-economics.org>, <www.handlo.com>,
<www.property-portraits.co.uk>
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