Life in the Cosmos

rev.goetz

I have no training in advanced physics, and I want to make sure that I
understand a couple of the concepts that I read in Smolin (1997) _The_
_Life_ _of_ _the_ _Cosmos_. Smolin proposes Cosmological Natural
Selection (CNS), where evidently a self-organizing mechanism makes a
black hole with entropy per baryon = 10^20 to generate a universe with
entropy per baryon = 10^<8. And as far as I can guess, he proposes an
origin of past-eternal oscillation where evidently there never was an
open universe that failed to generate a black hole until there were
multiple universes that started to generate multiple black holes. Does
this sound like a correct interpretation of CNS?

paulaireilly

>as far as I can guess, he proposes an
>origin of past-eternal oscillation where evidently there never was an
>open universe that failed to generate a black hole until there were
>multiple universes that started to generate multiple black holes. Does
>this sound like a correct interpretation of CNS?

I haven't read that book, but it sounds like Smolin. Now, I think you
have to think of a lot of "possible universes" some of which are
"stillborn". If a universe fails to generate even one black hole, it
dies without descendants. If it generates exactly one black hole, it's
an "oscillating universe" that can live "forever" (in the sense that it
has one child that has one child and so on.) But if it has two or more
'children', then we see a potential for growth.

Now look at the spectrum of all possible universes after a long time,
as it were. *Most* universes will arise from parents that had a lot of
children, in some sense.

Analogy: consider life on Earth (or in the Universe). *Most* life has
parents of some kind, but a few organisms did spontaneously arise (we
believe). If out of the space of "all possible life forms" you pick one
at random, it is very likely to be one with parents and a long history
of evolution behind it. Smolin posits that universes work the same way
- that if universes can reproduce via making black holes, (a viable
concept when you consider mass inflation) then if we pick a universe at
random, it's overwhelmingly probable to be one with a long history of
evolution behind it, evolution that shapes the initial conditions to
make universes that are good at making black holes, just as flies are
good at making lots of eggs.

One could argue for niche evolution, for example if there were a design
of universe that would spawn exactly two universes after 63 Planck
times, there could be an AWFUL LOT of those, but one imagines that such
a Wolframesque universe would fall afoul of the anthropic principle.
I.e., sure there are a lot of them, but none of them have physicists or
newsgroups for them to write in.

Torsten Becker

paulaireilly wrote:

> Analogy: consider life on Earth (or in the Universe). *Most* life
> has parents of some kind, but a few organisms did spontaneously
> arise (we believe). If out of the space of "all possible life forms"
> you pick one at random, it is very likely to be one with parents and
> a long history of evolution behind it. Smolin posits that universes
> work the same way - that if universes can reproduce via making black
> holes, (a viable concept when you consider mass inflation) then if
> we pick a universe at random, it's overwhelmingly probable to be one
> with a long history of evolution behind it, evolution that shapes
> the initial conditions to make universes that are good at making
> black holes, just as flies are good at making lots of eggs.

I haven't read the book either, but the analogy between universes
reproducing themselves via black holes and biological evolution seems
to be a bit far-fetched.
Taking for granted that black holes can somehow be regarded as
offspring of a parent universe, somehow inheriting the parent's
properties, I still miss the 'natural selection' part of biological
evolution.
All it seems to say is, that we should expect to see a universe pretty
good at making black holes. (are there good arguments for such a
claim?)

This scenario may resemble a colony of bacteria supplied with
unlimited resources. Of course, after a while chances are high that a
random pick yields a species pretty good at cell division. But one
shouldn't expect something more complex to evolve out of it. Here,
the best strategy is always to reproduce as fast as possible.

Things become more interesting, if there are limited resources. Then
you have to compete for them. In that case fast and numerous
reproduction becomes costly and is not necessarily a good strategy.
So it is true that flies 'are good at making eggs', but humans for
example aren't.
To me, the more interesting aspect of natural selection is not, that
it accounts for species being good at making eggs, but being able to
account for circumstances, where 'at lot of offspring' and 'few but
well kept offspring' are the better strategy to compete.

Regards,
Torsten Becker

island

Not that I see this as necessary, but you should read Lee Smolin's paper
on, "Black hole bounce".

Scientific alternatives to the anthropic principle, by Lee Smolin:
http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0407213

Black hole bounce results from quantum modifications on a classical
black hole collapse. Instead of collapsing down to a singularity, the
black hole eventually begins to expand, producing a new region of
spacetime that is not causally connected with the universe in which the
black hole was originally formed.

Smolin says:
"A multiverse formed by black holes bouncing looks like a family tree.
Each universe has an ancestor, which is another universe. Our universe
has at least 1018 children, if they are like ours they have each roughly
the same number of their own."


Torsten Becker wrote:


> This scenario may resemble a colony of bacteria supplied with
> unlimited resources. Of course, after a while chances are high that a
> random pick yields a species pretty good at cell division. But one
> shouldn't expect something more complex to evolve out of it. Here,
> the best strategy is always to reproduce as fast as possible.
>
> Things become more interesting, if there are limited resources. Then
> you have to compete for them. In that case fast and numerous
> reproduction becomes costly and is not necessarily a good strategy.
> So it is true that flies 'are good at making eggs', but humans for
> example aren't.
> To me, the more interesting aspect of natural selection is not, that
> it accounts for species being good at making eggs, but being able to
> account for circumstances, where 'at lot of offspring' and 'few but
> well kept offspring' are the better strategy to compete.
>
> Regards,
> Torsten Becker



The solution closest at hand that doesn't require extensions to
infinities or multiverse rationale, notes that human evolutionary theory
is very probably connected to the anthropic principle if the forces are
tuned for life for some good physical reason, and this indicates that
the universe should evolve in a similar fashion to the manner in which
humans did.

"Good physical reason" also makes it a biocentric principle... life will
be every bit as common as the need for it demands, and, in fact, it is a
biocentric principle, because the AP readily extends to, and cannot be
restricted from including every last banded spiral galaxy that exists on
the same evolutionarey "plane" as we do. That means that misplaced
geocentric arrogance is no longer a prejudicial factor, because
intelligent life becomes another "nitch" or level of occurrence,
"more-like bacteria'... except that "specialness" means that these are
also... "well kept offspring"... "the better strategy" [for the universe
to survive]'.

A force coupling with evolutionary theory, notes that a mechanism that
enables an expanding entropic universe to evolve to higher orders of the
same basic structure will enable it to increase entropy more
efficiently, as this projected connection to evolutionary theory is
supported by macroscopic evidence that the human evolutionary leap did
indeed enable us to *progressively* increase entropy more efficiently
since the moment that we harnessed fire.

There is no doubt that intelligence-enabled technological development
has permitted us to progressively tap into more-difficult energy sources
than we would otherwise have been able to touch, to the point now where
we routinely make high-energy contributions that even black holes can't
make with near the level of energy-efficiency as a biocentric structure can.

If we don't project beyond the second law of thermodynamics in a
near-flat expanding anthropically constrained universe, then increasing
entropy efficiently is what it is *all* about... "alfie", so we should
look for physics that explains how biocentric structuring defines a
mechanism that constrains the forces to enable the universe to evolve
characteristics inherently forward to perpetually higher orders of
entropic efficiency, rather than to assume that "maximum (universal)
energy" isn't exactly what's required for this to happen.

"Coincidentally"... that is also what is required by self-organizing
theories that use asymmetric transitions and environmental enablement to
guide the direction of evolution.

Stephen Harris

"island" <island5@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:43FD1BAF.5040908@earthlink.net...
> Not that I see this as necessary, but you should read Lee Smolin's paper
> on, "Black hole bounce".
>
> Scientific alternatives to the anthropic principle, by Lee Smolin:
> http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0407213
>
> Black hole bounce results from quantum modifications on a classical black
> hole collapse. Instead of collapsing down to a singularity, the black hole
> eventually begins to expand, producing a new region of spacetime that is
> not causally connected with the universe in which the black hole was
> originally formed.
>
> Smolin says:
> "A multiverse formed by black holes bouncing looks like a family tree.
> Each universe has an ancestor, which is another universe. Our universe has
> at least 1018 children, if they are like ours they have each roughly the
> same number of their own."
>
>

If the universes are "not causally connected" there is no reason to
assume that the physical laws of the baby universe are hospitable
to life. Andre Linde has a somewhat different theory than Smolin
which postulates that the baby universe is somewhat shaped by the
parent universe so that the baby universe would be more likely to
inherit physical laws suitable for life. There is also "Selfish Biocosm":

>From a review of "Biocosm" by James N. Gardner

"There is currently no plausible mechanism which can explain why
the new baby universes must possess any of the characteristics
of the parent spacetime. Biocosm attempts to remedy this by
suggesting (p. 120) that once life develops, it eventually becomes
smart enough to create a baby universe with desirable properties.
This is dubbed the "Selfish Biocosm" hypothesis, in analogy to
the biological theory that the actions of reproducing entities
can be understood by modeling them as "selfish" entities which
"seek" only to propagate themselves (Dawkins, 1989)."

I have doubts about the validity of extending Bayesian inferences
based on one physical sample which to me seem similar to making
arguments purporting to explain the infrequency of observed alien
civilizations and projecting therefore how often they should evolve.

non-Anthropomorphically yours,
Stephen

island

Stephen Harris wrote:

> "island" <island5@earthlink.net> wrote in message
> news:43FD1BAF.5040908@earthlink.net...
>
>>Not that I see this as necessary, but you should read Lee Smolin's paper
>>on, "Black hole bounce".
>>
>>Scientific alternatives to the anthropic principle, by Lee Smolin:
>>http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0407213
>>
>>Black hole bounce results from quantum modifications on a classical black
>>hole collapse. Instead of collapsing down to a singularity, the black hole
>>eventually begins to expand, producing a new region of spacetime that is
>>not causally connected with the universe in which the black hole was
>>originally formed.
>>
>>Smolin says:
>>"A multiverse formed by black holes bouncing looks like a family tree.
>>Each universe has an ancestor, which is another universe. Our universe has
>>at least 1018 children, if they are like ours they have each roughly the
>>same number of their own."
>>
>>
>>
>
> If the universes are "not causally connected" there is no reason to
> assume that the physical laws of the baby universe are hospitable
> to life.

I don't think that's what is meant by "not causally connected"...
more-like. "Not [currently] causally connected".

Andre Linde has a somewhat different theory than Smolin
> which postulates that the baby universe is somewhat shaped by the
> parent universe so that the baby universe would be more likely to
> inherit physical laws suitable for life. There is also "Selfish Biocosm":

James Gardner says:
"I began developing the Selfish Biocosm hypothesis as an attempt to
supply two essential elements missing from a novel model of cosmological
evolution put forward by astrophysicist Lee Smolin. Smolin had come up
with the intriguing suggestion that black holes are gateways to new baby
universes and that a kind of Darwinian population dynamic rewards those
universes most adept at producing black holes with the greatest number
of progeny. Proliferating populations of baby universes emerging from
the loins (metaphorically speaking) of black hole rich mother universes
thus come to dominate the total population of the multiverse a
theoretical ensemble of all mother and baby universes. Black hole prone
universes also happen to coincidentally exhibit anthropic qualities,
according to Smolin, thus accounting for the bio friendly nature of the
average cosmos in the ensemble, more or less as an incidental side effect."

> I have doubts about the validity of extending Bayesian inferences
> based on one physical sample which to me seem similar to making
> arguments purporting to explain the infrequency of observed alien
> civilizations and projecting therefore how often they should evolve.

I personally haven't even found a good reason to *believe* that there
can be more than one finite universe, but the anthropic principle
extends to a very specific region of the observed universe by way of
similar consequential effects of the force constants on the structure of
the universe, not the observed frequency of life. For a number of good
reasons, its biocentric form does make a prediction about why that is,
and when it will no logner be the case, as well.

> non-Anthropomorphically yours,
> Stephen

Into the fourth year exclusively studying the anthropic curse, I've
found x number of illogical reasons to dislike the anthropic principle,
and one very important reason to respect it like no other.

Here are the top 4:

1) Misplaced geocentric arrogance - Many good scientists simply don't
like the implication that we hold a special place in the universe. They
blame taoutologous form for not answering "why", yet I've found that
nobody bothers to try to find that reason because of the above
assumption about human arrogance... speaking of circular reasoning.

2) Ideological pre-conceived prejudice - Do a Google search, and it
quickly becomes quite evident that creationists are convinced that
"specialness" is evidence for god, or, counter-fanatically motivated
people are convinced that they'd better not give the creationists an
inch, so they strictly deny all possible interpretations of evidence
that we're not here by accident. Unfortunately, this pre-conceived
prejudice over-flows right into the mainstream.

3) Then there's string theory - oh.no.Lenny.What.Have.You.Done
It didn't take long for the attack against the multiverse to be
redirected to an attack against the AP.

4) It runs directly contrary to the flow of mainstream science toward a
universe that's created from a purely random process, as supported by
the uncertainty principle, as it is radically applied to just about
anything that anybody wants to use it to "explain", while enabling them
to successfully dodge the causality bullet. That sets-off alarm bells
for me.

~

One excellent reason to study the anthropic principle:

If the anthropic principle defines the most accurate cosmological
principle, then it also defines the ToE, because it either, unifies the
forces, or, more-probably... a complete non-tautologous form explains
"why" the forces cannot be unified.

As Uncle Al would say... "somebody should [not be afraid to] look"