Letters to the Editor
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meant to be here?
Any musing that “we are meant to be here” may be comforting but it is most likely a comforting fiction and a poor cover for either a lack of imagination or an inability to appreciate the beauty of chance.
Actually, we are meant to be here. The universe isn't random.
The question is: if the universe was totally different, with entirely different physical laws, would something else be "meant to be here" and the answer is certainly: yes.
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"Meant" implies conscious intent--nonsense!
I find the analysis of Mr. Davies to be incredibly weak. We ARE HERE, so to argue that there is some intentionality or calibration involved presupposes that there aren't a lot of other places which do not present conditions which would sustain life. That's not a stretch: 99.999999999%+ of this Universe, right here, falls into that category. The rise of life is almost certainly a billion-to-one shot, but as its beneficiaries, it is the height of illogic and intellectual silliness to posit that it is somehow foreordained. If we were somewhere else, we wouldn't exist, and wouldn't be able to wax rhapsodic about what a longshot it is that conditions were right for our evolution. Mr. Davies indulges in cosmological tautology, pure and simple.
As for your headline, the idea that there is "intent" of any kind in the Universe is a long, long stretch of the evidence. We aren't "meant" to be here. We're just here. Like a cloud of dust in a nebula, or a slushball comet falling through darkness. Physics unfolds, and one result was us. End of story.
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Precisely!
TomRitchford:
But any theory of the universe needs a universe-generating mechanism. In fact, the many-worlds hypothesis is simpler because it doesn't have to answer the question, "Why this universe and no other?" -- if all possible universes exist, there's no need for a "distribution" system or any "algorithm" or decisions at all.
This is a very focused way of bringing my "Occam's Razor" argument down to brass tacks.
To mess things up again, a little:
The very notion of "this universe and no other" is for me just another artefact of Davies clinging to a set of monotheistic assumptions: one God, one universe, consciously, intentionally created, yadda, yadda, yadda. It's not just science that says otherwise. Non-theistic, pantheistic and polytheistic religions say otherwise as well.
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Meh
A lot of semantics and some frankly pretty poorly grasped Physics. I think we should stick to the falsifiable; unfalsifiable theories will never, ever bear fruit. They can't.
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To Healthyskeptic:
You said: "The question is: if the universe was totally different, with entirely different physical laws, would something else be "meant to be here" and the answer is certainly: yes."
I have to side with Dracowrym and say that 'meant' is misleading. You are correct in saying something else would be here but 'meant' gives 'meaning' and therefore intent to what is a purely causal relationship.
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What Banged!
The discussions and the article are wonderful forms of intertainment. To attempt to argue one way or the other for the existence of God or a Universe Generator is just something to occupy our human minds. From where we are, or from where I am, because how could I pretend to speak for anyone else, if there is anyone else, unless I was that anyone else...As I was saying, the meaning of the discussion is the meaning I give it. I may argue, project, manipulate or attempt to persuade what/who I perceive as outside myself 'til the virtual cows come home, and what is served by that? I, the one imagining this entire universe, will never complete the analysis of IT (Infinite Tangibility), for I AM IT, and there is nothing outside of ME (Mystical Expression). I am entertaining mySelf with all this speculation about what is and how it came to be What Is. I truly believe in the Presence of a Power which Informs all that is or is perceived to be by ME, and what I am here to do is discover how to use that Power Consciously. It matters not whether this is a virtual universe, multiverse or Infiniverse. It is here for MY entertainment because I said so. Am I claiming that I am God? Why not? If all that is, was, and ever will be is formed of the Only Stuff There Is, then if there is a God, I AM That I AM. Or Not. This is so much fun! Come play with me.
Peace,
St. John
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Fatuous logical fallacy
If my brain were just slightly different, then I would not be able to have the thought that there is no god; therefore, god must have made me an atheist.
"But more and more physicists point to various laws of nature that have to be calibrated just right for stars and planets to form and for life to appear."
Should have read, "A vanishingly small number of physicists. . ."
This idea has been thoroughly discredited. Salon ought to hire a real science reporter to cover science.
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Anthropic principle = theory of lazy scientists
The problem with the anthropic principle is that it's an "easy way out" of the hard questions of physics. It's the scientific equivalent of throwing the towel, and saying: "Well, I can't figure out why the universe is what it is and how life could appear out of a big blast of energy, so I'm just gonna leave it there and say that every possible universe exists anyway, so what's the point of scratching our heads over this one."
As a physicist, I can tell you this much: the brilliant minds in human history who figured out gravitational laws, relativity, and quantum physics, surely did not think like proponents of this anthropic principle.
Welcome to the era of postmodern science.
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Please let us not be caught in a tautology
We should all avoid the trap of an "intelligent design(ed)" universe. If we can ask all those questions, it because we EXIST in the first place. So no wonder everything seems top fit into place, because if it wasn't the case, we will not be here as human beings.
That doesn't mean there a GOD of there. It just means we are the result of a successful experiment. That puts your ego in perspective, doesn't it?
Patrice Weber