Designer Universe: A Quick Study Guide
The more you learn, the weirder it gets...
As we model the 'laws' of physics more and more accurately, we find that certain basic forces and ratios which govern critical features of our universe, such as the stability of subatomic particles and the lifetime of stars, are uncannily specific and sensitive- in some cases to the 3rd decimal place- and that any slight change would short circuit the development of a universe like ours. How could this come about by 'natural' processes? For scientists, the answer must be sought in new understandings of 'natural' phenomena- i.e. without a purposeful creative agency.
In fact, in order to avoid a purposeful agency of creation and fine-tuning, most scientists are ready to posit a most extravagant vision- that our universe is one of an infinite number number of universes!
Here is Martin J. Rees, Astronomer Royal:
"These six numbers constitute a "recipe" for a universe. Moreover, the outcome is sensitive to their values: if any one
of them were to be 'untuned', there would be no stars, and no life. Is this tuning just a brute fact, a coincidence? Or is it
the providence of a benign Creator? I take the view that it is neither. An infinity of other universes may well exist where
the numbers are different. Most would be stillborn or sterile. We could only have emerged (and therefore we naturally now
find ourselves) in a universe with the "right" combination."
-Martin J. Rees, Astronomer Royal, in "Just Six Numbers - The Deep Forces that Shape the Universe"
An interesting further area of the discussion stems from the idea that black holes may be the origins of new universes in a self reproducing fractal metaverse (Andrei Linde), that the population of universes has come to be dominated by those tuned to reproduce most effectively (Lee Smolin), thus explaining the fine-tuning we see as the result of a kind of evolutionary process.
What's more, it's thought that our universe began as a microscopic vacuum fluctuation (Alan Guth). We think it might one day be technically feasible to create such a quantum fluctuation, perhaps a black hole, and thus a new universe. We may therefore ask, is this how our universe came into being? By the agency of an unknown, highly advanced intelligence in a 'mother' universe? (Edward Harrison)
May 2003: Scientific American. 'Parallel Universes'- Max Tegmark describes A 4-level Multiverse, composed of infinite numbers of parallel universes... Article at Sci-Am ... Article at Max Tegmark's site.
"It should be noted that proponents of so-called "Intelligent Design" have successfully flummoxed the media so that the debate seems to be between atheist radical reductionists like Richard Dawkins and Steven Weinberg, and those who suspect there must be an Intelligence behind it all. This is not really the case. The actual struggle is between those who believe that however the issue of a Creator is finally resolved, our best way of advancing our knowledge of the cosmos is through the cumulative effort of science, and those on the other hand who believe we have all we need to know on that score in the Bible." -Peter Hillsmen
DesignerUniverse.com
A DVMX site