What is the role of life in the universe?

[turbo]

This would be like saying that since I don't play the lottery I can't lose, therefore I must win if I don't play!

A very good friend of mine once told me that he was way overdue to win the state lottery. Like a sucker, I fell right into it and asked him why he thought this might be true, and he told me that since you either win or lose when you play, it was a 50:50 proposition, and he hadn't won yet despite playing every week for several years.

 

[Mike2]

What is the probability that a universe exists? The only alternative to something (the universe) is NOTHING. In other words, there is no alternative. So the probability of the universe existing is 100%. Right?

This would be like saying that since I don't play the lottery I can't lose, therefore I must win if I don't play!

OK then, what is 100% certain? It is only those things without alternatives, only those truths that are a tautology. You've not mentioned what alternatives could possibly exist to the existence of the universe. I think it is a no-brainer to assert the 100% certainty that the universe exists. We simply haven't examined the consequences of that yet.

 

[Mike2]

According to your post above, the existence of something with a 100% probablility of existence holds NO information. Must we therefore assume that NO information is encoded in the existence of our universe? Do you somehow need to total up the information contained in our universe and arrive at a grand total of NO infomation? Just wondering where this might go...

That's how I read it.

Let's see. If the entropy of the universe as a whole always increases, then where does that leave the uncertainty of its continuted existence? Does the uncertainty increase or decrease? Is it possible that the universe may one day pop out of existence?

 

[marcus]

This passage is located in Susskind's paper: "I make a number of comments about Smolin's theory of Cosmic Natural Selection."

[quote from paragraph 8 of Susskind 29 July paper]

From the final (side by side) statements:

[quote about Overbye, Gerald 't Hooft, etc etc. information that goes in hole can't be lost]

I find this statement to be a bit tough to take. Indeed, "nothing can be lost from the outside world"? If a black hole strips the matter from an orbiting star, and that matter ends up on the opposite side of the BH's event horizon, then matter (and the information that it represents) has disappeared from our universe. In contrast, Hawking radiation - promotion of virtual particles to real status just outside the event horizon, results in a net gain of information in our universe, if we regard virtual pairs as quantum probabilities and real particles as information-bearing entities. Susskind is a smart man, and he drags 't Hooft (a Nobel laureate) in as ballast for his ideas on this point, but I sense a disconnect in his definition of "information". Perhaps it arises from some fundamental differences in the way information is handled in String and QFT as opposed to GR.

Turbo, thanks for pointing me to the right spot. I see that the two black holes coallescing business is harmless. It's just a quibble about how you do the statistics, or indicates Susskind hasnt understood the CNS idea.
If you stipulate in the model that for one hole you get one baby universe then the model will predict parameters that maximize the total number of holes formed----the total number of galaxies times the average number of holes per galaxy.

About the information loss point----your second quote---Smolin answered that in his half of the side-by-side statement. I will bold the relevant passage about information preservation or loss.

---quote---
The rest of this note concerns Susskind's comments about black holes. He says, "...we have learned some things about black holes over the last decade that even Stephen Hawking agrees with [13]. Black holes do not lose information." From this he draws the conclusion that "the quantum state of the offspring is completely unique and can have no memory of the initial state. That would preclude the kind of slow mutation rate envisioned by Smolin."


This is the central point, as Susskind is asserting that black holes cannot play the role postulated in CNS, without contradicting the principles of quantum theory and results from string theory. I am sure he is wrong about this. I would like to carefully explain why. This question turns out to rest on key issues in the quantum theory of gravity, which many string theorists, coming from a particle physics background, have insufficiently appreciated.


The discussion about black holes "losing information" concerns processes in which a black hole forms and then evaporates. Hawking had conjectured in 1974 that information about the initial state of the universe is lost when this happens. Susskind and others have long argued that this cannot be true, otherwise the basic laws of quantum physics would break down.


As Hawking initially formulated the problem, the black hole would evaporate completely, leaving a universe identical to the initial one, but with less information. This could indeed be a problem, but this is not the situation now under discussion. The present discussion is about cases in which a black hole singularity has bounced, leading to the creation of a new region of spacetime to the future of where the black hole singularity would have been. In the future there are two big regions of space, the initial one and the new one. If this occurs then some of the information that went into the black hole could end up in the new region of space. It would be "lost" from the point of view of an observer in the original universe, but not "destroyed", for it resides in the new universe or in correlations between measurements in the two universes.


The first point to make is that if this happens it does not contradict the laws of quantum mechanics. Nothing we know about quantum theory forbids a situation in which individual observers do not have access to complete information about the quantum state. Much of quantum information theory and quantum cryptography is about such situations. Generalizations of quantum theory that apply to such situations have been developed and basic properties such as conservation of energy and probability are maintained. Using methods related to those developed in quantum information theory, Markopoulou and collaborators have shown how to formulate quantum cosmology so that it is sensible even if the causal structure is non-trivial so that no observer can have access to all the information necessary to reconstruct the quantum state [c]. Information is never lost — but it is not always accessible to every observer.


So there is nothing to worry about: nothing important from quantum physics [d] is lost if baby universes are created in black holes and some information about the initial state of the universe ends up there.


A second point is that there is good reason to believe that in quantum gravity information accessible to local observers decoheres in any case, because of the lack of an ideal clock. In particle physics time is treated in an ideal manner and the clock is assumed to be outside of the quantum system studied. But when we apply quantum physics to the universe as a whole we cannot assume this: the clock must be part of the system studied. As pointed out independently by Milburn [e] and by Gambini, Porto and Pullin [f], this has consequences for the issue of loss of information. The reason is that quantum mechanical uncertainties come into the reading of the clock — so we cannot know exactly how much physical time is associated with the motion of the clock's hands. So if we ask what the quantum state is when the clock reads a certain time, there will be additional statistical uncertainties which grow with time. (In spite of this, energy and probability are both conserved.) But, as shown by Gambini, Porto and Pullin, even using the best possible clock, these uncertainties will dominate over any loss of information trapped in a black hole. This means that even if information is lost in black hole evaporation, no one could do an experiment with a real physical clock that could show it.


I believe this answers the worries about quantum theory, but I haven't yet addressed Susskind's assertion that "we have learned some things about black holes over the last decades. Black holes do not lose information."


I've found that to think clearly and objectively about issues in string theory it is necessary to first carefully distinguish conjectures from the actual results. Thus, over the last few years I've taken the time to carefully read the literature and keep track of what has actually been shown about the key conjectures of string theory. The results are described in two papers [g].


In this case, I am afraid it is simply not true that the actual results in string theory — as opposed to so far unproven conjectures — support Susskind's assertions [h]...
---end quote---

 

[turbo]

That's how I read it.

Let's see. If the entropy of the universe as a whole always increases, then where does that leave the uncertainty of its continuted existence? Does the uncertainty increase or decrease? Is it possible that the universe may one day pop out of existence?

It would seem that given your model of information, the universe cannot ever cease to exist. It is 100% guaranteed to exist (with an information value of exactly zero) and unless the "information value" of the universe somehow increases, the likelihood of its demise has to be nil. This implies a static infinite universe. I certainly don't have any trouble with such a cosmology, but this model of information has some severe implications for the standard big bang model!

 

[turbo]

The discussion about black holes "losing information" concerns processes in which a black hole forms and then evaporates. Hawking had conjectured in 1974 that information about the initial state of the universe is lost when this happens. Susskind and others have long argued that this cannot be true, otherwise the basic laws of quantum physics would break down.

As Hawking initially formulated the problem, the black hole would evaporate completely, leaving a universe identical to the initial one, but with less information. This could indeed be a problem, but this is not the situation now under discussion. The present discussion is about cases in which a black hole singularity has bounced, leading to the creation of a new region of spacetime to the future of where the black hole singularity would have been. In the future there are two big regions of space, the initial one and the new one. If this occurs then some of the information that went into the black hole could end up in the new region of space. It would be "lost" from the point of view of an observer in the original universe, but not "destroyed", for it resides in the new universe or in correlations between measurements in the two universes.

The first point to make is that if this happens it does not contradict the laws of quantum mechanics. Nothing we know about quantum theory forbids a situation in which individual observers do not have access to complete information about the quantum state. Much of quantum information theory and quantum cryptography is about such situations. Generalizations of quantum theory that apply to such situations have been developed and basic properties such as conservation of energy and probability are maintained. Using methods related to those developed in quantum information theory, Markopoulou and collaborators have shown how to formulate quantum cosmology so that it is sensible even if the causal structure is non-trivial so that no observer can have access to all the information necessary to reconstruct the quantum state [c]. Information is never lost — but it is not always accessible to every observer.

I would argue for the relativistic situation (which may be contained as a subset of Fotini M.'s work) that information may be lost or gained in our reference frame but that this is not a simple zero-sum game. There is not a simple accounting that can be made saying that information no longer available in one reference frame is automatically available in another.

 

[Mike2]

It would seem that given your model of information, the universe cannot ever cease to exist. It is 100% guaranteed to exist (with an information value of exactly zero) and unless the "information value" of the universe somehow increases, the likelihood of its demise has to be nil. This implies a static infinite universe. I certainly don't have any trouble with such a cosmology, but this model of information has some severe implications for the standard big bang model!

I don't get the implication of a static infinite universe. First of all, I don't think it would be possible to even calculate information for an infinite universe. And because of entanglement of all particles I don't think it depends on the size of the universe or the speed of expansion.

This would be like saying that since I don't play the lottery I can't lose, therefore I must win if I don't play!

No, it's more like: I can guarantee a winner as long as someone plays the game.

 

[NeutronStar]

No, it's more like: I can guarantee a winner as long as someone plays the game.

Well, in the case of the lottery even that conclusion would be incorrect. There are often times when no one wins even though thousands of people may have played.

I just don't get your original premise that it would be impossible for the universe not to exist. Yet you seem to have absolutely no problem accepting that idea that information does not exist. (i.e. you claim that the total information of the universe must be zero)

Why would it be impossible for the universe not to exist? Just because you personally view the idea of NOTHING as an impossibility?

I personally find it much more impossible that anything exists at all. Yet it obviously does. The universe is impossibe yet it exists, and that's the mystery. A mystery that I dare say no human will ever know the anwser to. At least not via the use of logical reasoning, because whatever the answer is, it must necessarily be illogical.

 

[Vast]

I don't understand how there is a case against "black hole universe" idea based on black hole merger.

Recent analysis (like by Modesto, Hosain, ...) suggests that spacetime continues at the former-singularity and undergoes a bounce----that is, it re-expands. Conditions for inflation are present generically (Date, Hussain).

We don't know that the Loop gravity picture is true (of what goes on at center of black hole, or at big bang) or if the bounce is real. But this is the most detailed model we have of how space behaves at these events.


Indeed black holes do sometimes merge, and their inner regions (which used to be considered singularities, before quantization) merge.
If they merge then they merge, regardless. The consequences might well be awful to inhabitants if there were any, totally screwing up the physics of both universes, but that's the breaks. I hope it never happens to our universe.

I can only speculate as to what a merger between two black hole universes might be like. that seems like a good problem for theorists to work on AFTER they get a workable quantum gravity (theory of spacetime) and then build something like the Standard Model into that new framework.
the fundamental physical constants must be intrinsic to however space is represented. I don't see how two universes with different fundamental constants could ever blend, but if they have to blend then it is up to the possessors of a unified theory (a general relativistic quantum physics) to predict the outcome.

This is just my personal opinion, and it may not mean much, but in the speech by Stephen Hawking given at the GR17 conference he made the statement that whatever enters a black hole remains firmly within our own universe. Now even though there’s nothing conclusive yet and I think even Kip Thorne has not yet reached any definite answer, I find that theories of space and time make much more sense if black holes are nothing more than regions of space, which have undergone extreme warping.

I think its good that physicist explore different theories, and not necessarily confine themselves to one particular model. This argument between Smolin and Susskind shows how concepts can generate devotion to one particular idea instead of being flexible and considering all the different theories.

Not only do I not understand CNS all that well myself, but I also have my doubts that fine-tuning is involved within the universe.

 

[Vast]

I was hearing at the BBC this weekend an interview with James Lovelock, the crator of the Gaia hypothesis, I wonder if some other PF member heard this interview
If you don't know what's about (improbable), its the fact of treating the Earth as a living system able of autoregulation. Wikipedia gives the definition of Gaia according to Lovelock:
"a complex entity involving the Earth's biosphere, atmosphere, oceans, and soil; the totality constituting a feedback or cybernetic system which seeks an optimal physical and chemical environment for life on this planet."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaia_theory
I will like to hear opinions of PF members about this, and about the possibility of other high scale structures having life as one of their characteristics

I find interesting that Wikipedia says that there's a distinction between strong Gaia theories and weak Gaia theories

My first reaction to this theory, (and I’ve only really come across it a few times) is that many different organism cannot essentially act as one single organism, or behave the same way as an individual organism. Earth is however an ecosystem and it does function together, but I think in a very different way than the individual parts of an organism function together. To me there seems to be a greater degree of organization in an organism, if you look for organization in an ecosystem, you will find patterns, but probably not any organization.

 

[Mike2]

Well, in the case of the lottery even that conclusion would be incorrect. There are often times when no one wins even though thousands of people may have played.

Well, I was assuming of course that the probabilities were distributed amongst the players, so that even if only one player bought a ticked he was sure to win.

I just don't get your original premise that it would be impossible for the universe not to exist. Yet you seem to have absolutely no problem accepting that idea that information does not exist. (i.e. you claim that the total information of the universe must be zero)

Why would it be impossible for the universe not to exist? Just because you personally view the idea of NOTHING as an impossibility?

Here's an argument that should put the matter to rest: When the universe was the size of an atom, no one has any trouble understanding that it would have been described by a single wave equation, complicated as that may be. We are told that the universe was at this quantum size for a short time where it expanded faster than light during inflation. So all the time the universe was at the size of the quantum scale, it was described by a single wave function THAT WAS NORMALIZED TO 1. At what size, then, did that normalization cease to be in effect?

I personally find it much more impossible that anything exists at all. Yet it obviously does. The universe is impossibe yet it exists, and that's the mystery. A mystery that I dare say no human will ever know the anwser to. At least not via the use of logical reasoning, because whatever the answer is, it must necessarily be illogical.

You've gone off the deep end here. Now you're claiming the universe is illogical. Nothing is so absurd. But even if it were so, that would have nothing to do with things after the universe came into being. For now that it does exist, it is impossible for it to cease to exist. Its existence as a whole is a 100% certainty.

 

[meteor]

I don't think his coacervates are still considered part of the early history of life. Rather than trying to mimic cell walls, reseachers are now thinking of two-base RNA's and self-catilyzing molecules.

However, Oparin theory is still considered a possibility, i deduce it from this web
http://library.thinkquest.org/28343/prebio.html
"One of the reasons that Oparin's theory remains sound, is that as a hypothesis, it could be proved wrong"

Maybe Oparin theory has to compete with the with the two-base RNA theory that you're saying, and also with a theory proposed by Lake in 1988

"The January 16, 1988 Science News carried an article proposing another idea for the formation of life on earth. James A. Lake, a molecular biologist at UCLA, proposed that all living things evolved from a single-celled organism which lived in boiling sulfur springs"
http://www.georgiasouthern.edu/~etmcmull/CHEM.htm

 

[turbo]

Here is a nice page giving an overview of the state of pre-biotic chemistry.

http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Lab/2948/orgel.html

 

[meteor]

One of the latest models of the origin of life is this:
http://arxiv.org/abs/nlin.AO/0108025
"Jigsaw model of the origin of life"

 

[RAD4921]

Your question could be turned around to ask "what is the role of the universe in life?"

The question your orignially proposed goes on the presumption that there is a dualistic nature to the universe, meaning that there is a physical and mental realities . The question also puts consciousenss as a secondary phenomena, which if one subscribes to the anthropic principal is unrealistic.

I can question the "physical" nature of the universe just as you can question the "mental" nature of the universe. Once again duality stalks about and then one has to ask as to whether there really is an "inner" and "outer" world of physical and mantal phenomena which is still a hotley debated issue in philosophy.

 

[marcus]

What is the role of turkeys in the universe?

Your question could be turned around to ask "what is the role of the universe in turkeys?"

... The question also puts turkey-awareness as a secondary phenomena, which if one subscribes to the turkey principal is unrealistic.

...

Let us be specific when we talk about life. Let us focus on one particular life form. And the consciousness of that one particular biological organism.

Say, for instance, turkeys.

 

[turbo]

Let us be specific when we talk about life. Let us focus on one particular life form. And the consciousness of that one particular biological organism.

Say, for instance, turkeys.

We should perhaps examine the turkey/life thing a bit more. My expectation is that the average turkey will be a lot less likely to experience life in the coming week, but will be a lot more likely to play a role in enhancing the lives of physicists and their families. The physicists may not pay attention well enough to hold up their end of the dead turkey/happy physicist dichotomy, but I'm pretty sure that the turkey population will fully appreciate their contribution before it's over.

 

[Chronos]

It appears the universe exists just fine without observers or opinions to constrain whetever the heck it thinks it is doing.

 

[Garth]

It appears the universe exists just fine without observers or opinions to constrain whetever the heck it thinks it is doing.

But as Stephen Hawking asked, "Why does the universe bother to exist?”
Garth

 

[DaveC426913]

The purpose of life in the universe is very simple.

It's purpose is to provide an observer to cause the infinity of quantum wavefunctions to collapse. If not for an observer, all phenomena will remain in a superposition of states - Schrodinger's Cat will be both dead and alive and plunging into a Sun and floating in vacuum. The whiole universe would be in all possible states without collapsing. Not a dignified state for any self-respecting universe to be in.

 

[turbo]

The purpose of life in the universe is very simple.

It's purpose is to provide an observer to cause the infinity of quantum wavefunctions to collapse. If not for an observer, all phenomena will remain in a superposition of states - Schrodinger's Cat will be both dead and alive and plunging into a Sun and floating in vacuum. The whiole universe would be in all possible states without collapsing. Not a dignified state for any self-respecting universe to be in.

OK, but how did the universe know we would show up? According to standard cosmology, the universe was about a million years old before it was cool enough to allow the first atoms to form. Then we had to have a period of condensation (perhaps 100My), and another period (maybe another 100-200My or so) to allow the formation of the first generation of super-massive stars to provide heavy elements from which life could arise. Then, those materials had to be dispersed and cooled, you get the picture... By the time some rudimentary form of life could have arisen (to play the role of observer), the universe would have had to evolve in an orderly fashion for probably at least a billion years without an observer.

 

[Mike2]

The purpose of life in the universe is very simple.

It's purpose is to provide an observer to cause the infinity of quantum wavefunctions to collapse. If not for an observer, all phenomena will remain in a superposition of states - Schrodinger's Cat will be both dead and alive and plunging into a Sun and floating in vacuum. The whiole universe would be in all possible states without collapsing. Not a dignified state for any self-respecting universe to be in.

Roger Penrose talks about how there must be some sort of Objective Reduction, some principle that collapses the wave function at some level of complexity. He talks about how this might be accomplished by the system becoming entangled with the environment as the mechanism that collapses the wave functions.

I suppose that if there were a conservation of information or entropy principle in the universe, then that might require that the wave function should collapse to one of the alternatives when it becomes entangled with the complex environment of the many particles involved with a measurement process. When reporting the state to the aggregate, the information of the many states of the measurement device (humans, life) become dependent on the state of the system being measured. Information, it seems, is being passed from the system being measured to the system doing the measurement. Information about the system being measured becomes incorporated in the many particles of the measurement device, for otherwise there would be no report to the outside aggregate world. If there were not a loss of information in the system being measured corresponding to the gain of information to the aggregate measuring device, then information would only increase and entropy would not increase with the act of measuring.

I cannot guarantee that this is correct.

 

[Entropy]

Why do we exist? For the enjoyment of existing. That or because atoms are trying to become more stable through chemical reactions.

Try this experiment. Go up to a very high cliff, stand on the edge and jump off. If you hesitate for some reason then for that reason, you exist.

 

[setAI]

I've always thought that the question of why isn't there nothing may have an answer when considering the basis for probability-

the reason why a glowing pink beach ball- or some similar outlandish thing- doesn't just suddenly pop into existence beside your head is becasue the phyiscis of this universe make it HIGHLY improbable- the physics establishes what and where forms are likely to exist and what is impossible or highly unlikely-

however- if there were truly no existence- NoThing- then there would be no space or time or anything like that with physics to establish probablities-

so true NoThingness wouldn't just "remain nothing" [which is absurd to even consider- since there is nothing to remain- and remaining is only something that existing things can do]- instead NoThing may behave like an infinitely berzerk form of the Infinite Improbability Drive in the Hitchihhiker's Guide to The Galaxy - becasue there is no foundational structure which establishes the nature or probability of possible forms/being there would be an infinite eruption of random form/being spontaneously coming into existence- forming a Chaos space of infinite noise- universes would emerge within areas of order forming near the boundaries of attractors in the random noise follwing the dynamics observed in chaotic systems


this would indicate that Nonexistence is impossible- theCosmos had no choice in existing as any nonexistence would immediatly become Chaos- which is Existence- hence the ancient wisdom of NEQUAQUAM VACUUM- Nowhere a void

 

[Garth]

this would indicate that Nonexistence is impossible- theCosmos had no choice in existing as any nonexistence would immediatly become Chaos- which is Existence- hence the ancient wisdom of NEQUAQUAM VACUUM- Nowhere a void

The ancient philosophers applied this to a void within the receptacle of space and time. Are we not here considering the creation of spacetime itself?

Garth

 

[setAI]

The ancient philosophers applied this to a void within the receptacle of space and time. Are we not here considering the creation of spacetime itself?

Garth

Nequaquam vacuum is usually translated as "the Void does not exist" and more accurately described by some scholars as "the Void should not exist" but I suspect that a true meaning would be "the Void cannot exist"

the concept can be routed in the transition of the ancient semitic ideas of Ain [Nothing] to Ain Soph [No Limit]- absolute concepts which establish Being and Action prior to the formation of the Universe- first manifest in the sephiroth of kether [which means "beginning" but does not emerge until "after" the matrix of absolutes Ain/Ain Soph yields Ain Soph Aur [Limitless light] ]

essentially the eruption of infinity [Ain Soph Aur] out of a Nothingness that CANNOT exist results in the Existence of Being/Action where worlds can then form-


seeing as how the universe DOES exist- [if it were an illusion- or virtual- it would still exist as an illusion or a simulation] then the only possibilities are that Nothingness is itself is an absurd error of logic by humankind [which is most likely the case] or Nothing has this lack-of-ability to prevent Existence from erupting into Being- and in a way that is the SAME THING- there are no other possibilities-

 

[Garth]

As Nequaquam vacuum is Latin I was routing its meaning back through the Latin and Greek thinkers, to
1. Aristotle who thought it incoherent (the Void cannot exist), but also to the
2. Stoics who posited a limited universe embedded in the Void and the
3. Epicureans who used it to separate bounded objects within the universe.

The modern versions of these points of view would be –

1. the answer to the question, "What lies beyond the universe?" – Ans. no-thing.
2. the answer to the question, "Where did the Big Bang come from?" – Ans. from a random quantum fluctuation in a primordial “Ylem”.
3. the answer to the question, “What lies between physical objects, such as the space between atoms in the thin plasma of the IGM?” – Ans. Vacuum.

Garth

 

[NeutronStar]

Try this experiment. Go up to a very high cliff, stand on the edge and jump off. If you hesitate for some reason then for that reason, you exist.

I gave some serious thought to your suggested experiment and can't help but laugh at my conclusion. If I went up to a very high cliff and stood on the edge the main reason that I would hesitate to jump off is because I don't like pain!

So I suppose that my reason for existing is that I don't like pain.

Actually I'm not afraid of death at all if I can die painlessly. I wouldn't hesitative to take a nice little lethal injection that would merely end my existence painlessly (at least not for the same reason that I would hesitate to jump off a cliff).

My hesitation for dying painlessly would be more subtle. The reason for my hesitation in that case would probably be because I'm still having fun studying physics and math so I'd rather stick around and have more fun than cease to exist.

So I suppose that my main reason for living is to study physics and math. Pretty sad huh? Actually enjoy petting the dog once in a while too so I suppose that there are other bonuses to life as well.