How
can we know? And who loaded the dice?
arthur
Life
is a crapshoot.
Yes, but sometimes the dice may be
loaded.
Ed
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday, November 03, 2003 11:09
AM
Subject: RE: [Futurework] Our
mysterious universe
P.S.: Merton met his end in
a most ironic of possible ways. He was electrocuted while plugging in
an appliance in a hotel room. A great and powerful mind overcome by a
toaster. Try to explain that!
arthur
Life is a
crapshoot.
OK, here's my take on it. It's something I
posted to a friend recently:
Ken, one of my reference points on this kind of
thing is Thomas Merton, the American Trappist monk, who argued that people
have to approach the mystery of their being by using both rationality and
faith. As ever so many great scientific minds have demonstrated,
rational thought and science can give us an enormous amount of
information about the universe and our place in it. However, there
will always be a boundary between what we can explain and understand and
what we can't, and we really have no way of knowing whether we have
explained much about the state of our reality or just a tiny bit of
it. So, Merton argues, there is a boundary and, no matter how far we
push out into the unknown, there always will be. He argues, further,
that what lies beyond that boundary can be treated in two different ways,
either by denial or by faith. Denial is the approach of the atheist
- there is nothing out there that we can't ultimately explain in rational
terms. Faith is a little harder to explain.
The fundamentalist has faith, but his faith is very close to the
approach of the atheist in that he defines and delineates what lies beyond
the boundary and therefore excludes mystery. Even though I'm a
deacon in a Baptist church, my own preference and path is
agnosticism. I want to believe that there is something immense,
eternal and purposeful beyond the boundary, but of course I cannot
know.
Personally, I think that the two most
important components of religion are respect for mystery and
compassion for all living beings that share the mystery with us. A
book I read while in the slums of Sao Paulo a few years ago puts it this
way:
... in a creative universe God would
betray no trace of his presence, since to do so would be to rob the
creative forces of their independence, to turn them from the active
pursuit of answers to mere supplication of God. And so it is: God's
language is silence. The Old Testament suggests that God fell silent in
response to the request of the terrified believers who said to Moses,
"Speak thou with us, and we will hear: but let not God speak with us,
lest we die." Whatever the reason, God ceases speaking with the book of
Job, and soon stops intervening in human affairs generally, leading
Gideon to ask, "If the Lord be with us, why then . . . where be all his
miracles which our fathers told us of?" The author of the Twenty-second
Psalm cries ruefully, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken
me?"
Whether he left or was ever here I do not
know, and don't believe we ever shall know. But one can learn to live
with ambiguity - that much is requisite to the seeking spirit - and with
the silence of the stars. All who genuinely seek to learn, whether
atheist or believer, scientist or mystic, are united in having not a
faith but faith itself. Its token is reverence, its habit to respect the
eloquence of silence. For God's hand may be a human hand, if you reach
out in loving kindness, and God's voice your voice, if you but speak the
truth. (Timothy Ferris, The Whole Shebang, Simon & Schuster,
1997, p.312)
Hope this helps.
Ed
P.S.: Merton met his end in a most ironic of
possible ways. He was electrocuted while plugging in an appliance in
a hotel room. A great and powerful mind overcome by a toaster.
Try to explain that!
----- 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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