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Yes but all men pee standing up and all women do
the opposite no matter where they are from. We have to get
beyond and accept our sameness before we can deserve our
uniqueness. In opera its called "conventional" and that is
what we must first learn and then add to.
REH
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday, November 03, 2003 10:58
AM
Subject: RE: [Futurework] Our mysterious
universe
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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