A Universe fit for Life
Recently I watched an interview of Paul Davies on BBC which made me think a lot about the life... and rekindled the desire to know about the fundamental questions that we keep asking ourselves. Hereby I am giving the gist of the book that he has written ......
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Professor Paul Davies' The Goldilocks Enigma tackles fundamental questions about the nature of the universe and our attempts to understand it. Scientific breakthroughs, he argues, have brought us to the brink of comprehending the underlying structure of nature or "a final 'theory of everything'".
A UNIVERSE FIT FOR LIFE
For thousands of years, human beings have contemplated the world about them and asked the great questions of existence: Why are we here? How did the universe begin? How will it end? How is the world put together? Why is it the way it is? For all of recorded human history, people have sought answers to such 'ultimate' questions in religion and philosophy, or declared them to be completely beyond human comprehension. Today, however, many of these big questions are part of science, and some scientists claim that they may be on the verge of providing answers.
Two major developments have bolstered scientists' confidence that the answers lie within their grasp. The first is the enormous progress made in cosmology - the study of the large-scale structure and evolution of the universe. Observations made using satellites, the Hubble Space Telescope, and sophisticated ground-based instruments have combined to transform our view of the universe and the place of human beings within it. The second development is the growing understanding of the microscopic world within the atom - the subject known as high-energy particle physics. It is mostly carried out with giant particle accelerator machines (what were once called 'atom smashers') of the sort found at Fermilab near Chicago and the CERN Laboratory just outside Geneva. Combining these two subjects - the science of the very large and the science of the very small - provides tantalizing clues that deep and previously unsuspected linkages bind the micro-world to the macro-world.
For thousands of years, human beings have contemplated the world about them and asked the great questions of existence: Why are we here? How did the universe begin? How will it end? How is the world put together? Why is it the way it is? For all of recorded human history, people have sought answers to such 'ultimate' questions in religion and philosophy, or declared them to be completely beyond human comprehension. Today, however, many of these big questions are part of science, and some scientists claim that they may be on the verge of providing answers.
Two major developments have bolstered scientists' confidence that the answers lie within their grasp. The first is the enormous progress made in cosmology - the study of the large-scale structure and evolution of the universe. Observations made using satellites, the Hubble Space Telescope, and sophisticated ground-based instruments have combined to transform our view of the universe and the place of human beings within it. The second development is the growing understanding of the microscopic world within the atom - the subject known as high-energy particle physics. It is mostly carried out with giant particle accelerator machines (what were once called 'atom smashers') of the sort found at Fermilab near Chicago and the CERN Laboratory just outside Geneva. Combining these two subjects - the science of the very large and the science of the very small - provides tantalizing clues that deep and previously unsuspected linkages bind the micro-world to the macro-world.
If almost any of the basic features of the universe, from the properties of atoms to the distribution of the galaxies, were different, life would very probably be impossible. Now, it happens that to meet these various requirements, certain stringent conditions must be satisfied in the underlying laws of physics that regulate the universe, so stringent in fact that a biofriendly universe looks like a fix - or 'a put-up job', to use the pithy description of the late British cosmologist Fred Hoyle. It appeared to Hoyle as if a super-intellect had been 'monkeying' with the laws of physics. He was right in his impression. On the face of it, the universe does look as if it has been designed by an intelligent creator expressly for the purpose of spawning sentient beings.
UNIVERSE A PUT UP JOB?
A good way to think about this is to imagine playing God and setting out to design a universe. Suppose you had already settled on the basic laws of physics but you still had some free parameters at your disposal. The values of these parameters could be set by twiddling the knobs of a Designer Machine. Turn one knob and the electron gets a bit heavier, turn another and the strong force becomes a bit weaker, and so on. You could do this and see what happened to the universe. When would it make a big difference, and when would it scarcely matter? Although physicists can't actually carry out the experiment (at least not yet!), they can perform simple calculations to see what - all else being equal - such changes would do to the prospects for life.
A good way to think about this is to imagine playing God and setting out to design a universe. Suppose you had already settled on the basic laws of physics but you still had some free parameters at your disposal. The values of these parameters could be set by twiddling the knobs of a Designer Machine. Turn one knob and the electron gets a bit heavier, turn another and the strong force becomes a bit weaker, and so on. You could do this and see what happened to the universe. When would it make a big difference, and when would it scarcely matter? Although physicists can't actually carry out the experiment (at least not yet!), they can perform simple calculations to see what - all else being equal - such changes would do to the prospects for life.
HOW COME EXISTENCE?
So, how come existence? At the end of the day, all the approaches I have discussed are likely to prove unsatisfactory. In fact, in reviewing them they all seem to me to be either ridiculous or hopelessly inadequate: a unique universe which just happens to permit life by a fluke; a stupendous number of alternative parallel universes which exist for no reason; a pre-existing God who is somehow self-explanatory; or a self-creating, self-explaining, self-understanding universe-with observers, entailing backward causation and teleology. Perhaps we have reached a fundamental impasse dictated by the limitations of the human intellect. I began this book by saying that religion was the first great systematic attempt to explain all of existence and that science is the next great attempt. Both religion and science draw their methodology from ancient modes of thought honed by many millennia of evolutionary and cultural pressures. Our minds are the products of genes and memes. Now we are free of Darwinian evolution and able to create our own real and virtual worlds, and our information processing technology can take us to intellectual arenas that no human mind has ever before visited, those age-old questions of existence may evaporate away, exposed as nothing more than the befuddled musings of biological beings trapped in a mental straightjacket inherited from evolutionary happenstance. The whole paraphernalia of gods and laws, of space, time and matter, of purpose and design, rationality and absurdity, meaning and mystery, may yet be swept away and replaced by revelations as yet undreamt of.
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So, how come existence? At the end of the day, all the approaches I have discussed are likely to prove unsatisfactory. In fact, in reviewing them they all seem to me to be either ridiculous or hopelessly inadequate: a unique universe which just happens to permit life by a fluke; a stupendous number of alternative parallel universes which exist for no reason; a pre-existing God who is somehow self-explanatory; or a self-creating, self-explaining, self-understanding universe-with observers, entailing backward causation and teleology. Perhaps we have reached a fundamental impasse dictated by the limitations of the human intellect. I began this book by saying that religion was the first great systematic attempt to explain all of existence and that science is the next great attempt. Both religion and science draw their methodology from ancient modes of thought honed by many millennia of evolutionary and cultural pressures. Our minds are the products of genes and memes. Now we are free of Darwinian evolution and able to create our own real and virtual worlds, and our information processing technology can take us to intellectual arenas that no human mind has ever before visited, those age-old questions of existence may evaporate away, exposed as nothing more than the befuddled musings of biological beings trapped in a mental straightjacket inherited from evolutionary happenstance. The whole paraphernalia of gods and laws, of space, time and matter, of purpose and design, rationality and absurdity, meaning and mystery, may yet be swept away and replaced by revelations as yet undreamt of.
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Now thinking about the things that he had said in his interview, one thing stood out quite interestingly. Answering to one question of the interviewer, he replied yes it’s possible to take the chemical and physical elements and create life... which is quite an amazing statement. Till recently the question was about who really created life, who really breathed life in the human beings was put up to prove that there is some one super intelligent form who can be GOD who made all things in the universe? But if humans can create life from Chemicals then each one of us can be the GOD. It’s really amazing to think in those lines as in our own Hindu Philosophy we are supposed to be the part of the universal consciousness... In each person or things God has his ANSH (Part) ..... is this thought process is going to be proved right?
Or the whole thing can be turned around and go on to prove that there is nothing like Supreme Consciousness that guides, governs and makes this earth go round...?
Just wondering ..... Is the Universe really a PUT UP job or just something that happened and out grown to start looking at the very foundations of beliefs....?
Om Namah Shivaya
Virtual
posted by Virtual at 1:43 PM
1 Comments:
your blog made me think of some very ancient Hindu words. i am sure you have thought of them as well.
Aum Poornamadah Poornamidam
Poornaath Poornam Udachyathe
Poornasya Poornamaadaaya
Poornameva Vasishyathe.
Meaning: God is perfect (infinite). This Universe is also perfect (infinite). If perfection(infinity) is taken from anything perfect (infifinite) what remains is still perfect (infinite).
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