DAVID: Your question: "It’s not clear to me, though, why he thinks we have a significant “cosmic” role, " relates to John Wheeler and quantum theory. the idea that without human consciousness to observe the universe it might not exist:
The quantum mechanical pioneer, John Wheeler, is one of several thinkers who have proposed that the unusual nature of the universe suggests it had to evolve conscious beings in order to become real."

dhw: Do you believe that the sun and Planet Earth may not have existed in reality before there was conscious life on Earth?

DAVID:…As long as God's consciousness is present everything in the universe exists. When we come along we don't take over from Him.

I am simply trying to bring some common sense into the discussion. I do not accept the view that without human consciousness, the universe might not be real, and I would just like to know whether you agree with me that the sun and Planet Earth existed in reality before humans came on the scene.

DAVID: Even our solar system is highly unusual compared to the ones currently discovered. But we can only know what is present in a small corner of our galaxy, two thirds of the way out on the second spiral arm. Of course other galaxies could have Earths, and God could be in charge of all of it.

dhw: I’m surprised by your final comment. In the past, you have always insisted that God IS in charge of all of it, indeed that he created all of it, and that all of it was created with a view to producing humans. My complaint has been that I don’t see the relevance of billions of other solar systems that come and go, if all he wanted to do was produce humans. (Though I think you also acknowledge the possibility that there may be other forms of life out there.)

My comment implies that God created the universe but my underlying thought, not expressed, was that He took special interest in our solar system and made sure it was created to allow for the Earth to develop in a way to prepare for life to appear. It is certainly possible that in other galaxies there are other Earths with life developed by Him. I would think those Earths would also be very unusual planets in order to support life. The type of planet and life's presence are tightly related.

Another view of this pause in physics not understanding how our universe fits into reality. String theory predicts 10^500 universes using ten dimensions and has not advanced beyond that supposition while trying to combine classical and quantum physics, which are as much apart as ever, into a theory of quantum gravity:

http://cosmos.nautil.us/short/90/we-have-pushed-physics-too-far

"So hope those who pursue a final theory, a theory that would weave together the many layers of physical reality into one mathematical wholeness. We can call this the ultimate Platonic dream, the quest for a single simple and broad-ranging theory of physics. Indeed, during the past four decades, the search for such a theory has inspired many of the brightest physicists in the world. But today we are seeing the limits of this Platonic thrust to mathematize nature, due to a lack of experimental validation and several theoretical obstacles—including the possibility of multiple universes and the troubling questions they pose.

"The modern version of the unifying quest is string theory, which supposes that the fundamental entities in nature are vibrating tubes of energy instead of point-like particles of matter.....The appeal was the uniqueness of the solution—there would be one geometry of the extra dimensions, and this geometry would tell us all. No theory could be simpler and broader-ranging; no theory could be more beautiful.

"Alas, it wasn’t meant to be. Fast-forward three decades, and the scenario has changed dramatically. Physicists were shocked to find, instead of a single solution, a huge number of solutions—by some estimates, a 1 followed by 500 zeros, each a different twist in the extra-dimensional space, each generating a different universe.

***

"String theory went from being the theory that would mathematically prove the uniqueness of our universe to a theory that allows a countless number of possible universes, none more compelling than the other.

"We need to reconsider the line of thinking that led us to this moment of crisis. The problem is rooted in a much deeper philosophical issue, that of the First Cause. Being creatures immersed in the passage of time, with a clear beginning and an end, humans have been forever dumbfounded by initial conditions. How could something come out of nothing? And what sets the properties of this something (read “values of fundamental constants”) at the beginning? Who ordered that? Who ordered us?
Our mistake is that, within a scientific context, these are the wrong questions to ask.

"Physics works under a very clear framework. In order to determine the time evolution of a system, we need to state its initial conditions, the state of the system at time zero. This implies knowledge of the system at the beginning, something we obtain through measurement. In cosmology, that becomes impossible. We may restrict the initial conditions and the values of the fundamental constants given what we know about the universe today, but we can’t be sure that our conclusions are in any way final. The clues we gather today about the universe’s distant past can only give us a fragmented picture of what happened. The multiverse only pushes the issue of initial conditions to a higher level, without solving it.

"Any theory that attempts to determine unambiguously the initial conditions of the universe and, with them, the values of the fundamental constants, is doing something physics is not cut out to do. Are we stuck then, having to accept the values of these constants for what they are? Within the current framework, yes. Attempts around this issue, even if inspiring, will amount to not much more than epicycles.

"But all is not lost. The search for a simple all-encompassing theory has eclipsed a more enduring insight about the nature of physics. Physics is the building of an ever-changing, self-correcting description of natural phenomena. In its practice, it sets aside metaphysical expectations about the nature of reality, which have more to do with how we search for meaning as humans than with how nature actually works. In other words, physics is an expression of intellectual humility. We learn to live with ignorance and, in return, gain the ability to make progress incrementally.

"So, it’s okay to live with the seeming arbitrariness of our present laws of physics, moving beyond the aesthetic dogma that simple is beautiful and beauty is truth. If physics is understood as a descriptive mode of explanation, free of the unifying quest, the angst of not knowing it all is exorcised. Maybe our current dilemma is a symptom of something bigger, a deep change in the methodological nature of physical theories. We may have to see them historically, tossing aside First Cause explanations and timeless truths as fruitless pursuits. Quite possibly, the nature of physical theories mirrors their own narrative construction, piecewise and gradual, creations of our imperfect and incomplete grasp on physical reality. And there’s nothing wrong with that."

Comment: Rather than shrug one's shoulders that we cannot know it 'all' through physics, one can consider that God is the creator of life, which is so complex, it cannot be the result of natural chance. There is more than one set of evidence to be considered to answer the question of why we exist.

First Post

DAVID: Multiverse theory is appealing because it provides solutions to questions we cannot answer, and may never:
http://cosmos.nautil.us/feature/103/even-physicists-find-the-multiverse-faintly-disturbing

David’s comment: He is putting the best face he can on a real problem. we cannot test for the multiverse unless we find 'bump circles' in the CMB as they touch each other. None so far, and more than likely in my opinion, never. I find the concept of multiverse as nebulous as the God concept in a sense, but design is just as explanatory as multiverse. We cannot test for either. So it is take your choice, or not.

A brilliant summing up! Thank you. It amazes me that scientists who scoff at the God theory as unscientific (which it is) can regard the multiverse as scientific (which it is not). Bearing in kind that we don't know the extent of our universe or what happened before the big bang (if there was one), I don't know why the multiversers don't seem to consider the hypothesis of an infinite and eternal universe. Too simple perhaps?

Second post

QUOTE: "But all is not lost. The search for a simple all-encompassing theory has eclipsed a more enduring insight about the nature of physics. Physics is the building of an ever-changing, self-correcting description of natural phenomena. In its practice, it sets aside metaphysical expectations about the nature of reality, which have more to do with how we search for meaning as humans than with how nature actually works. In other words, physics is an expression of intellectual humility. We learn to live with ignorance and, in return, gain the ability to make progress incrementally.”

DAVID’s comment: Rather than shrug one's shoulders that we cannot know it 'all' through physics, one can consider that God is the creator of life, which is so complex, it cannot be the result of natural chance. There is more than one set of evidence to be considered to answer the question of why we exist.

The question of why we exist relates to “how we search for meaning as humans”. There is no way physics can answer this question, and there is no way any other scientific or philosophical approach can provide an answer without relying on irrational faith. Just as you find satisfaction in “God”, the atheist can find satisfaction in the claim that we got here by chance and there is no “meaning” as such. I would apply the author’s words concerning physics to this website as well: “Agnosticism is an expression of intellectual humility. We learn to live with ignorance and, in return, gain the ability to make progress incrementally.” Thanks to good folk like yourself and BBella, I can vouch for my own incremental progress!

DAVID: I firmly believe that our universe is conscious and our consciousness is a part of that overall state of the universe and our brain is a receiver of that ability. But the universe obviously preceded our appearance.

BBELLA: At the very least, the universe preceded the appearance of the human form, but not necessarily preceded our conscious awareness. We cannot know how long our consciousness has been aware.

dhw: For me, consciousness is bound up with identity, and so how can anything exist as a human if no human has ever existed? I think all forms of life have their own identity (and their own particular form and degree of consciousness), and – if we pursue Sheldrake’s theory – their morphic field is initially the product of that identity before it helps to shape the identity of the individuals that follow.

True human consciousness began with the first enlargement of the hominin brains. It is a requirement to have some degree of neuronal complexity for our form of consciousness to be received.

QUOTE: There can be no doubt that the Universe is governed by laws, constants, and the initial conditions that gave rise to it. This very same Universe then, in turn, gave rise to us. But that does not necessitate the Universe was required to have the exact properties it does in order to admit our existence, nor does it imply that a Universe that was different in some fundamental way would be an impossibility for observers. Most importantly, we cannot use the Anthropic Principle to learn why the Universe is the way we see it, as opposed to any other way.
"The Anthropic Principle may be a remarkable starting point, allowing us to place constraints on the Universe's properties owing to the fact of our existence, but that is not a scientific solution in and of itself. Our goal in science, remember, is to understand how the Universe arrived at its current properties through natural processes.If we replace scientific inquiry with anthropic arguments, we'll never get there. The multiverse may be real, but the Anthropic Principle cannot scientifically explain why our Universe's properties are what they are." (dhw's bold)

DAVID: Exactly how I feel.

dhw: I’m amazed by your comment. The sections I have bolded are a complete rebuttal of your own arguments. First bold: the fact that we are here does not mean the universe was created for us (“in order to admit our existence”). Second bold: the fact that we are here does not offer any scientific proof that we are the reason for the universe being as it is. Third bold (which I find unacceptable) is that as a scientist Ethan Siegel clearly believes that his goal is to show that the universe is the result of natural processes, which is the very opposite of allowing for your God as the creator. However, I would argue that the goal of every scientist should be first and foremost to get as close as possible to objective truths rather than seek confirmation of their own beliefs (that everything can be explained by "natural processes"). His statement reeks of what you call confirmation bias. But I agree with him that the Anthropic Principle itself proves absolutely nothing about the origin and nature of the universe. (See also under “Big brain evolution".)

DAVID: My very brief comment is as I meant, agreeing with his main point. I agree with the point that the Anthropic Principle explains nothing. Naturally I think his naturalistic approach is wrong, but his conclusion about its value is right on. My obvious belief system does not change. You take my writing much too literally and pounce every time I leave out the background explanation where the differences are. Just remember I'm not a waffler.

dhw:I am always grateful to you for bringing our attention to such articles, and I take your comments seriously. Since the anthropic principle as Ethan Siegel has presented it supports your belief that the universe was designed specially for humans, and he therefore mounts a direct attack on it, I was amazed that you appeared to agree with him. I don’t think you can reasonably expect me to extrapolate differences from the comment “exactly how I feel”, and I hope you don’t regard my disapproval of his “goal of science” as waffle.

Anthropic Principle is contorted thinking. Thank you for understanding my view.

QUOTE: "One of the more frequent challenges I get from non-theists is the following: "If there is a God who wanted to create a home for human beings, why would he create hundreds of billions of useless galaxies?" The quick answer is that, given the laws of physics God chose for the universe, it is not possible to make a planet on which humans can live and thrive without the hundreds of billions of galaxies. In fact, it is not possible for any kind of physical life to exist without hundreds of billions of galaxies.

dhw: How the heck does he know?

The entire article covers the need for an exact level of carbon created by how carbon was formed in stars and then distributed, noting that too much carbon dos not allow for life, and all those galaxies gave the right mix. Hugh Ross is a believing scientist who follows exact science in his thinking.

DAVID's comment: Fred Hoyle was an atheist, but he recognized the design. Design requires a mind to plan the design. That is logic.

dhw: But in the words of his fellow atheist, Richard Dawkins: who designed the designer? And in the words of I know not who: You don’t solve one mystery by creating another. Maybe Hoyle should have been an agnostic.

Almost every mystery we solve presents new mysteries to solve.

David: I'll bet you are right and he ended up as an agnostic.

--
What is the purpose of living? How about, 'to reduce needless suffering. It seems to me to be a worthy purpose.

Our solar system was chaotic in the beginning in arranging planet arrangements:

https://nautil.us/were-it-not-for-cosmic-good-fortune-we-wouldnt-be-here-18446/

"Scientists suspect the solar system, some time in its early years, underwent a violent seismic shift. The orbits of the gas giants—Jupiter and Saturn—got tweaked big time, and the aftershocks affected all the planets, including Earth and Mars, as well as the asteroid and Kuiper belts.

"In our new study, published in Nature, we rewrite the origins of this massive shift—called a “dynamical instability”—and explain how everything in the solar system today found its place. What’s more, our idea is broadly applicable and may explain the orbits of exoplanets.

***

"Did our solar system get lucky? Our planets have near-circular orbits—did we somehow avoid instability? Several signs point to no. The most compelling is that the giant planets’ orbits appear to have been re-shuffled since they grew out of the sun’s gaseous, planet-forming disk. Simulations show that the giant planets’ orbits should have been near-circular and much more compact. Jupiter’s orbit would be about the same as today, but the orbits of the other giant planets would be shrunk-down, putting Saturn much closer to Jupiter, Uranus close to Saturn’s present-day orbit, and Neptune just a bit farther from the sun. Clearly, the orbits of the giants shifted a lot between their birth and today.

***

"An analysis of the rocks Apollo astronauts brought back from the moon suggested there was a delayed burst of impacts on the rocky planets about 500 million years after they formed, around 4.1 to 3.8 billion years ago. By that time, the oceans were already around, potentially harboring life.

***

"our only hint is that the seismic shift in the early solar system must have happened within the first 100 million years—although this doesn’t tell us whether it happened before Earth and the other rocky planets finished forming or afterward. What triggered the big shift? We show, in our new paper, that it was likely the dispersal of the sun’s planet-forming disk.

***

"The sun’s disappearing donut is what shook the orbits of the already-formed planets. As the outward-sweeping inner edge of the gaseous disk passes by each planet in turn, it drags the planet outward with it. (Jupiter is an exception, as its large mass clears out a gap in the disk near its orbit, blocking the “push” from the sweeping inner edge.) In our simulations, we saw that as Saturn is pushed outward, it approaches the orbits of ice giants Uranus and Neptune. The net effect is to squeeze the planets’ orbits closer together. The stability of planets’ orbits depends on the spacing: More widely-separated orbits are far more stable. The squeezing of the system eventually triggers dynamical instability by causing one ice giant’s orbit to cross that of another, or of Saturn’s.

"The gravitational effects of the instability would have stunted Mars’ growth, potentially explaining why it’s so much less massive than Earth. What’s more, the instability would have led asteroids and comets to bombard the growing Earth, rather than one potentially already hosting primitive life. All of this means that planetary systems are bitten by the hand that feeds them, as instabilities among planets are triggered by the disks that spawned them.

"The instability was a big deal for our solar system but, compared to those in other exoplanet systems, it was far weaker. Fortunately, Jupiter and Saturn must have avoided any close encounters, because if they had scattered off of each other, Jupiter’s present-day eccentricity would be 5 to 10 times greater—similar to many giant exoplanets. In that case, there would be no Earth. Its building blocks would have been scattered into the sun."

Comment: Planned chaos or plain luck? We are here and there is so much contingency in chance events, it is easily seen as planned by the designer.

DAVID: Because it matters to us, not Him.

dhw: I think we can agree that God is not human. And since we have also agreed on a definition of time, we should be able to agree now that it is meaningless to say God is “outside time”, and wrong to say time does not exist. You simply happen to know that although time exists, and God participates in its passing by creating befores and afters, he doesn’t care about it. I wonder what else you happen to know about what matters and doesn't matter to your God!

BBella: Seems to me, the question should be where is time not what is time?

A 'where' for time in a material sense, a reality sense? I'm not following.

dhw: I don’t see how recognition of before, now and after makes him human.

DAVID: Because it matters to us, not Him.

dhw: I think we can agree that God is not human. And since we have also agreed on a definition of time, we should be able to agree now that it is meaningless to say God is “outside time”, and wrong to say time does not exist. You simply happen to know that although time exists, and God participates in its passing by creating befores and afters, he doesn’t care about it. I wonder what else you happen to know about what matters and doesn't matter to your God!

DAVID: Humans matter to God

Since you think he created the universe just for us, I guess that’s a logical conclusion!

Hydrogen helium hydride found, as theorized:

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/apr/17/helium-hydride-most-ancient-molecule-in...

"The most ancient type of molecule in our universe has been detected in space, scientists have revealed, backing up theories of how the early chemistry of the universe developed after the big bang.

"The positively charged molecule known as helium hydride is believed to have played a starring role in the early universe, forming when a helium atom shared its electrons with a hydrogen nucleus, or proton. Not only is it thought to be the first molecular bond, and first chemical compound, to have appeared as the universe cooled after the big bang, but it also opened up the path to the formation of molecules of hydrogen.

***

“'Although [helium hydride] is of limited importance on Earth today, the chemistry of the universe began with this ion,” the authors write. “The lack of definitive evidence for its very existence in interstellar space has been a dilemma for astronomy.”

"Now experts say they have finally spotted helium hydride in a small but bright 600-year-old planetary nebula about 3,000 light years away in the constellation of Cygnus. While this helium hydride was formed by a different process to that in the early universe, the team say its presence backs up theories of what was going on at the “dawn of chemistry”, bringing a “decades-long search to a happy ending at last”.

***

“'Another reason it is exciting is that HeH+ [helium hydride] is the first molecule ever to form in the universe, about 380,000 years after the big bang, in an era known as the recombination epoch,” said Loreau, adding that molecules that appeared in this period, as the universe cooled, later led to the formation of stars and galaxies. “It is therefore very exciting to have finally observed one of the building blocks of the molecular universe.'”

Comment: At first the heat of the Big Bang didn't allow the formation of atoms and molecules to explain the 'recombination epoch' comment. More proof of the Big Bang theory.

A strange article proposing dark matter before everything else:

https://www.newswise.com/articles/dark-matter-may-be-older-than-the-big-bang-study-sugg...

" Dark matter, which researchers believe make up about 80% of the universe’s mass, is one of the most elusive mysteries in modern physics. What exactly it is and how it came to be is a mystery, but a new Johns Hopkins University study now suggests that dark matter may have existed before the Big Bang.

***

“'The study revealed a new connection between particle physics and astronomy. If dark matter consists of new particles that were born before the Big Bang, they affect the way galaxies are distributed in the sky in a unique way. This connection may be used to reveal their identity and make conclusions about the times before the Big Bang too,” says Tommi Tenkanen, a postdoctoral fellow in Physics and Astronomy at the Johns Hopkins University and the study’s author.

"While not much is known about its origins, astronomers have shown that dark matter plays a crucial role in the formation of galaxies and galaxy clusters. Though not directly observable, scientists know dark matter exists by its gravitation effects on how visible matter moves and is distributed in space.

"For a long time, researchers believed that dark matter must be a leftover substance from the Big Bang. Researchers have long sought this kind of dark matter, but so far all experimental searches have been unsuccessful.

“'If dark matter were truly a remnant of the Big Bang, then in many cases researchers should have seen a direct signal of dark matter in different particle physics experiments already,” says Tenkanen.

"Using a new, simple mathematical framework, the study shows that dark matter may have been produced before the Big Bang during an era known as the cosmic inflation when space was expanding very rapidly. The rapid expansion is believed to lead to copious production of certain types of particles called scalars. So far, only one scalar particle has been discovered, the famous Higgs boson. (my bold)

"We do not know what dark matter is, but if it has anything to do with any scalar particles, it may be older than the Big Bang. With the proposed mathematical scenario, we don’t have to assume new types of interactions between visible and dark matter beyond gravity, which we already know is there,” explains Tenkanen.

"While the idea that dark matter existed before the Big Bang is not new, other theorists have not been able to come up with calculations that support the idea. The new study shows that researchers have always overlooked the simplest possible mathematical scenario for dark matter’s origins, he says.

"The new study also suggests a way to test the origin of dark matter by observing the signatures dark matter leaves on the distribution of matter in the universe.

“While this type of dark matter is too elusive to be found in particle experiments, it can reveal its presence in astronomical observations. We will soon learn more about the origin of dark matter when the Euclid satellite is launched in 2022. It's going to be very exciting to see what it will reveal about dark matter and if its findings can be used to peak into the times before the Big Bang.”

Comment: Most folks in cosmology think time started with the Big Bang. Note my bold. Inflation is thought to have appeared after the Big Bang, not before. I think this reporter is confused about the mathematical study or the study is confused in its conjectures.