The Universe evolved by gradual improvements from past universes

[Martin]

Creation doesn't cut it, dudes. The universe evolved!!!

 

Around 1836---judging from his notebooks---Darwin figured out an evolutionary process capable of explaining why all these species, and

thus he saved God the trouble of having to create them one at a time.

 

The analogous puzzle in our day is why the universe has all these numbers which seem to be "just right" in a certain vague sense. The most familiar example is the strength of electromagnetic interaction which is 1/137 in natural units. Longlived stars, the chemical elements, life chemistry, all depend on this being just what it is and not a percent off.

 

An evolutionary mechanism has been discovered, to spare God the trouble of adjusting those dozen or so key numbers one by one.

 

If you hated Darwinian evolution you will really hate this one!

 

The book containing this essay is about to be published by Cambridge. A preprint of the essay:

http://arxiv.org/hep-th/0407213

[Martin]

Didn't your parents tell you? We came out of somebody's black hole.

 

when stars collapse to form a black hole, spacetime at the singularity

extends to form a new universe, with slightly different (nearly the same) key numbers as the mother universe.

 

that's how little universes are made, and then they expand.

 

http://arxiv.org/gr-qc/0407097

(this says that a blackhole singularity isnt really a singularity

but continues)

http://arxiv.org/gr-qc/0407069

(this says inflation is generic in that situation, so rapid expansion starts)

[ydoaPs]

shouldn't this be pseudoscience?

[Martin]

People infected by the prevalent illusion that there is something

theistic or divinitarian about the Big Bang and about the anthropic or apparently life-favoring selection of fundamental constants (someone loves us because 1/137 is just right!) are liable to be ticked off by the next step

in the argument

 

You fools! It's that way because it promotes formation of black holes.

 

the number 1/137 is what it is (and not 1/136 or 1/138) NOT because that is necessary for life but because it's optimal for having lots of stars coallesce and eventually form black holes, so a universe with the right value will tend to have a lot of offspring.

 

Darwin's measure of fitness: reproductive success.

[Martin]

shouldn't this be pseudoscience?

 

hee hee, you should talk!

 

I am giving links to the work of qualified and respected people

 

Dass ist ja Legitimate Scholarship. Sieg heil! Inspekt der Bibliographie! (was fuer ein Dummkopf)

[NavajoEverclear]

When does this book come out? I want to read it. But are you trying to take God out of all this? Damn you. Brahm is everywhere. An evolving universe is neat, but it doesn't proove athiesim, you effing weasel whore

[Martin]

Joking aside, "What makes something pseudoscience?" would be

a good relevant topic of discussion.

 

the key thing is whether a theory or a hypothesis generates predictions by which it can be tested.

 

contemporary string theory, and the Anthropic Principle offered by Susskind to salvage string theory, have been challenged as pseudoscience because they do not lead to testable predictions.

 

the evolutionary hypothesis presented in this essay

http://arxiv.org/hep-th/0407213

is explanatory and predictive

It can, in fact, be tested with currently available means and

may be shot down-----otherwise it would not be worthy to be called a scientific theory.

 

A scientific theory bets its life on its predictions---if it is not falsifiable by a future experiment then it has no predictive value concerning future experiments, and is therefore meaningless.

 

Some concrete predictions---some actual numbers that could be found wrong which would kill the theory---are shown around pages 33-35 of the essay.

 

so this is real science and is in fact a paradigm of empirical science (unlike some popular scientific fads)

 

this particular essay will appear in a new book "Universe or Multiverse?" from Cambridge Univ. Press, edited by Bernard Carr.

Anyone who thinks it is pseudo is encouraged to contact the editors at Cambridge press.

[Martin]

...u trying to take God out of all this? Damn you. Brahm is everywhere. An evolving universe is neat, but it doesn't proove athiesim, you effing weasel whore

 

Everclear I love you

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Joking aside' date=' "What makes something pseudoscience?" would be

a good relevant topic of discussion.[/quote']

 

I believe it already has been discussed

[Martin]

also your sig and location are classic

 

the answer is Yes I am trying to take God out of the creation business

 

I have religious feelings too

 

so please don't sic the slaughtering rat people of Blorch on me

 

but I want to be free to pursue this idea that the basic numbers

(which incidentally determine whether the world is livable)

could have arisen by an evolutionary process-----like tigers did,

and frogs

I think this idea has to be explored.

I also think that it is a spiritual or philosophical idea---or has those repercussions----even though the cosmic evolution hypothesis can

also be seen as a purely scientific conjecture (not to be believed or

disbelieved but rather) to be tested by empirical observation.

 

But i really like and share your sense of outrage, Everclear. It is

almost so to speak necessary.

[Martin]

I believe it already has been discussed

 

that's good Cap'n, then we dont have to waste time on that one

Have a look at the essay and tell me what you think, why dont you?

[Martin]

When does this book come out? I want to read it...

 

Everclear,

 

you dont have to wait til the book "Universe or Multiverse?" comes out

if you can find a copy of Lee Smolin's book "The Life of the Cosmos"

 

Lee Smolin lives in Waterloo, Ontario and the book Life of Cosmos came out around 1996 if I remember right, and I think it is written for a wide audience (although it covers technical detail as well)

 

I will see if I can fetch a Smolin link that gives something about that book.

 

the gist of the idea that the world may have evolved from ancestor worlds, by worlds being born thru black holes forming, is in the Life of Cosmos book. the new thing now is the increased acceptance and interest in the idea---as indicated by the Cambridge publication.

[NavajoEverclear]

oh no. it appears you think a lot like me (one of my personalities anyway), how disgusting . . . .

 

by the way, the way in which i believe in God is not the classic way supported by most religions. Well to be precise, i mostly don't think about God's origin, because I don't think its productive to anything. But if i have to, i think God evolved. It seems inevitable as life is constantly evolving and improving that people will become advanced enough to be considered Gods.

 

My spiritual beliefs are more humanistic, than really caring about all that divination crap. And my reason for believing in God is because i love life, and want it to continue after death. And it is because i want this, someday my descendants will evolve into Gods, then come back in time to immortalize my soul . . . . . . (thats meant both serious and humorous at the same time). I know my beliefs are not logical---- but logic has its place, and so does non-logic, and . . . . now i'm going to stop digging this philisophical hole before i fall in and drown in the eternal darkness

 

Embrace the Dichotomy!

[NavajoEverclear]

you dont have to wait til the book "Universe or Multiverse?" comes out

if you can find a copy of Lee Smolin's book "The Life of the Cosmos"

sweet

[Martin]

Initial density at the bounce was 1094

 

 

According to calcluations in a recent paper, density at the bounce was around 10⁹⁴ times that of water. There's a link here:

 

http://www.scienceforums.net/forums/showthread.php?p=73183#post73183

 

It's probably more natural to imagine it as an equivalent energy density, the type you'd have in the core of the sun or at the instant of a thermonuclear explosion----light and particle kinetic energy---rather than to picture it as a material density

 

In terms of temperature, I reckon it about 10²⁵ times what is at the core of the sun---the fourth power gives some idea of how the bounce concentration of energy compares with sun core.

[admiral_ju00]

Good reads.

[Martin]

It's all a bunch of technobabble.

I won't bother reading it.

 

[bubble=ermy]Technobabble is why your ass works' date=' Cap'n. Get the lead out and learn something.[/bubble']

 

for starters, 1/137 is a key number. Anyone want to explain what it does?

[Martin]

heres a link to a 1/137 thread

http://www.scienceforums.net/forums/showthread.php?p=73258#post73258

[Martin]

to understand Smolin's Multi it probably helps to get familiar with

some of the absolute numbers that shape our universe---the

inherent proportions in nature. these are the same in any system of

units because they are ratios-----dimensionless parameters

characterizing the standard models of physics and cosmology (to quote

Smolin page 29)

 

so here's a worked example. Look at the NIST website of the fundamental constants of physics. you see a certain energy: planck energy.

It is 1.956 GJ

(actually they tell you planck mass but multiply by 299792458 squared)

 

the colors of the hydrogen atom, its ionization energy, all that stuff is determined by an energy called hartree and if you look up hartree in NIST you see its ratio to planck energy is 2.229E-27

this is a number anyone in the universe would discover as a built in proportion of nature if they got into hydrogen colors----it's the hartree in natural units.

-------pause-------

I dont want to have to remember that but I do remember 1/137

and the reciprocal proton mass 13E18 and the proton/electron mass ratio 1836.

 

What Im suggesting is square 137 and multiply by 1836 and 13E18 and take the reciprocal

You get 2.23E-27 which is the hartree to the indicated accuracy.

 

Swanson, I think, knows that this is trivial. maybe other people here do as well. the point is that it is extremely to calculate a lot about the world from just these 3 numbers.

 

these are 3 out of some 3 dozen basic numbers that determine the universe and Smolin says they go down the hole and come thru into the new baby universe just slightly changed------like genes passed from parent to child----and good sets of genes (or numbers) are those which encourage the formation of black holes.

 

so that conscious lifeforms is a byproduct produced incidentally with black hole formation. Some of the same things that help get you holes will incidentally be favorable to life

 

St Francis of Assisi who said brother sun and sister moon and brother fire and sister death would also be saying brother Black Hole----we are the black holes cousins because the same kind of universe that is good at making them is good at making us. Because it makes lots of stable, long-burning stars, and has a periodic table with carbon chemistry, and soforth. Chemistry with elements like C and O, it turns out, helps gas-clouds radiate off their heat so they can condense and coallesce into stars more comfortably.

 

Can anyone at SFN besides Everclear and me recognize the potential of the idea of this kind of evolution via Smolin Multiverse model?

[Martin]

You mean it was trying to make black holes and produced me by accident?

 

 

Lucky you, Homer! It optimized for making holes and inadvertently got Life in the bargain!

[NavajoEverclear]

when stars collapse to form a black hole, spacetime at the singularity

extends to form a new universe, with slightly different (nearly the same) key numbers as the mother universe.

 

how exactly does that work? Explain it to me as if i know nothing about the subject (which is basically true). Where does the matter for the new universe come from? Do the universes keep getting smaller and smaller (since theres obviously less matter in a black hole than in the entire universe). Or are you saying blackholes open some other dimension of the existing matter in the universe, or what are you saying?

[Martin]

... Where does the matter for the new universe come from?

 

I found an online article by Alan Guth that says what I was trying to say. Therefore I have erased my own clumsy attempt at simplification and will paste in his words.

 

Alan Guth's first article on Inflation was published in 1981 and this summary (non-mathematical, for general audience) was a talk given in 1999 at a conference at the Smithsonian including nonscientists, called

"Cosmic Questions" part of a dialog on Science, Ethics, and Religion organized by the AAAS.

 

Basically the 1981 article, which made Guth famous, would probably be indigestible but in the almost 20 years since then he had a chance to make it more communicative.

 

For me the gist is that at least if you look at it from a naive perspective (my favorite point of view!) the law of conservation of energy gets majorly broken at the beginning of anybody's universe no matter who is telling the story.

 

Guth has a kind of trick where he says that No NET energy is created because the positive energy in that flash of light so intense that it breeds quarks and electrons in a buzzing cloud and matter appears out of the very energy----the POSITIVE energy of that intense creative instant is balanced by the NEGATIVE gravitational potential energy.

 

At the same time matter is forming it is sinking headlong into an ever-deeping gravitational potential-well of its own making. No net energy creation.

 

here is the link to the paper

http://arxiv.org/astro-ph/0101507

Title: "Eternal Inflation"

 

Look on pages 3 and 4, the section called "How Does Inflation Work?"

I will paste in some exerpts, but if you can it is better to get the PDF

download and look at it in context of the whole 15-page talk.

[Martin]

the trick involves postulating a "scalar field" rather like the "dark energy" now imagined to be gently accelerating the expansion of space---but the scalar field was more concentrated: dark energy nowadays is very dilute by comparison

 

---quote from Guth---

So the patch of repulsive-gravity material expanded by a huge factor. Whenever a normal material expands its density goes down, but this material behaves completely differently. As it expands, the density remains constant. That means that the total amount of mass contained in the region increased during inflation by a colossal factor.

 

The increase in mass probably seems strange at first, because it sounds like a gross violation of the principle of energy conservation. Mass and energy are equivalent, so we are claiming that the energy of the matter within the patch increased by a colossal factor. The reason this is possible is that the conservation of energy has a sort of a loophole, which physicists have known at least since the 1930s [6], but haven’t talked about very much.

[Martin]

---more quote from Guth---

 

Energy is always conserved; there are no loopholes to that basic statement. However, we normally think of energies as always being positive. If that were true, then the large amount of energy that we see in the universe could not possibly have gotten here unless the universe started with a lot of energy. However, this is the loophole: energies are not always positive. In particular, the energy of a gravitational field is negative. This statement, that the energy of a gravitational field is negative, is true both in the context of the Newtonian theory of gravity and also in the more sophisticated context of general relativity. So, during inflation, total energy is conserved. As more and more positive energy (or mass) appears as the patch expands at constant density, more and more negative energy is simultaneously appearing in the gravitational field that fills the region. The total energy is constant, and it remains incredibly small because the negative contribution of gravity cancels the enormous positive energy of the matter. The total energy, in fact, could very plausibly be zero. It is quite possible that there is a perfect cancellation between the negative energy of gravity and the positive energy of everything else. For the theory to be successful, there has to be a mechanism to end the period of inflation—the period of accelerated expansion—because the universe is not undergoing inflation today.[edit: footnote, it actually is doing a kind of inflation, just much milder] Inflation ends because the repulsive-gravity material is fundamentally unstable. So it doesn’t survive forever, but instead decays like a radioactive substance....

---end Guth exerpt---

 

Since 2001, Bojowald in Loop Quantum Cosmology, and people following the research track he started, have shown that Inflation is generic in LQC and also that "graceful exit" happens automatically---so while Guth had to stretch imagination to postulate this and to talk about the "inflaton" scalar field decaying, nowadays some people have simpler math making inflation taper off with less gymnastic assumptions.

[Martin]

In effect, Guth has to assume something which he himself says is highly improbable but in an infinite expanse of space and time might have occurred despite this unlikelihood: the appearance of a patch with a scalar field of the right sort. His whole scenario was premised on an unlikely event.

 

But curiously enough in the Quantum Gravity picture of spacetime, that came along later, inflation is generic. that means it turns out to happen naturally with the minimum of extra assumptions

http://arxiv.org/gr-qc/0407069

"Genericity of inflation in isotropic loop quantum cosmology"

 

So what Guth imagined was an improbable bubble appearing (if you wait long enough) is actually something generic that happens at the bottom of any black hole!