Cosmologic philosophy (Introduction)

by David Turell , Wednesday, June 11, 2014, 16:31 (3818 days ago)

A well thought out commentary on fine-tuning, multiverses,and cosmologic natural selection, which takes an atheistic side, but raises philosophic issues that suggest atheism is not the answer:-"The odds of randomly hitting upon a life-permitting universe seem infinitesimal. When discussing how a relatively small change in the magnitude of dark energy would preclude life, physicist and author Paul Davies wrote, "The cliché that 'life is balanced on a knife-edge' is a staggering understatement in this case: no knife in the universe could have an edge that fine." The problem is to explain why the universe's constants and laws are so precisely fine tuned as to allow for complexity and life. Even if, as another physicist and author Victor Stenger argued, this "fine tuning problem" can largely be explained by established physics, the deep mystery of why our universe has specific parameters and laws that allow complexity and life to emerge in the first place still remains."
 ................-"The real criticism of cosmological natural selection as a scientific hypothesis is its lack of direct evidence at this point. There is no direct evidence that the universe reproduces. Without that, no natural selection, even before issues of variation and selection come into play. True enough. But keep in mind that from a direct evidence perspective, cosmological natural selection is no worse off at this point than proposed scientific alternatives. There is no direct evidence that universes are created by quantum fluctuations in a quantum vacuum, that we live in a multiverse, that there is a theory of everything, or that string theory, cyclic universes or- brane cosmology even exist.
 
"And the major proposed alternatives in cosmology do not directly or logically explain the "fine tuning" problem for the existence of complexity and life. Instead, they suggest things like some sort of inevitability, design, unimaginably incalculable luck or an infinite number of multiple universes where every possible universe exists. That last one is enough to make Occam cut his throat with his razor."- ............-"If cosmological natural selection proves true, we would not live in a determined world, but in a changing cosmos with an open future. This can be interpreted as optimistic and hopeful. But while processes such as natural selection may allow for the development of life—and there is something spectacularly marvelous about that—there is no evidence that the universe as a whole has consciously planned anything, has life as its conscious goal or consciously cares about our fate. The human tension between the heroic and the humble, this blending of the significant and the insignificant, can be a source for comedy, tragedy or inspiration.
 
"Ultimately, it will come down to evidence. Science rules by evidence. Our minds expand, while the God of the gaps gasps."-
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2014/06/10/the-logic-and-beauty-of-cosmological-natural-selection/