Cosmologic philosophy: Howard A. Smith again (Introduction)

by David Turell , Sunday, December 11, 2016, 15:25 (2904 days ago) @ David Turell

He has another article on the subject of humans and their role in the universe:

http://cosmos.nautil.us/short/69/does-science-suggest-humans-have-a-cosmic-role?utm_sou...

"As a research astrophysicist, I can say without exaggeration that a day never goes by when I am not impressed by the amazing explanatory power of modern science. But I am also trained to be open to the world as it presents itself, not just as I would like it to be. So it is worth calling attention to two recent discoveries that suggest our place in the cosmos needs reconsideration. We might not be ordinary at all.

***

"From a purely scientific perspective, recent books and papers have shown that that it takes much more than a hospitable environment for life even to arise, much less to evolve and survive to become intelligent. At a minimum, it takes billions of years of relatively stable conditions. Any putative planet must at least be in a stable orbital system around a star that is neither short-lived nor an emitter of toxic X-rays. Numerous evolutionary biologists, writing on the remarkably contingent nature of the evolution of humanity, have added a biological caution: Even on the Earth, if evolution were repeated, it is not likely to produce intelligent beings again. Thus, even though the processes at work around the universe are more-or-less similar, some events are less likely than others to occur. Until we know more, we must acknowledge that the evolution of intelligent life could be the result of an astronomically unlikely sequence of events.

***

"The remarkable discovery of exoplanets has not increased the chances for finding aliens. Because so many of the known exoplanets are much more complicated than previously imagined, and are complex in ways seemingly detrimental to their evolving intelligence, all the previously rough estimates of the chances for producing intelligence are reduced even further. For all practical purposes we could be alone, with no one to talk to, for a long time.

***

"The second dramatic discovery is usually called the Anthropic Principle. The laws of the universe include fundamental numbers like the strengths of the four forces, the speed of light, Planck’s constant, the masses of electrons or protons, and others. Neither my physicist colleagues nor I have any idea why they take these particular values. They could be anything! But we do know that if those values were slightly different, even by a few percent, we would not be here. Carbon atoms could not exist, for example, or the sun might only burn for millions instead of billions of years. Life, much less intelligent life, could not exist. The most extreme example of precision are the parameters of the big bang creation for which it is estimated even an infinitesimal change would preclude life.

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"There are so far only three kinds of answers from science. One is just dumb luck. The second answer, proffered and defended by most of my theoretically minded colleagues, is the multiverse: There are an infinite number of universes spanning all logical possibilities. We just live in the one we can. The third answer touches on philosophy, and comes from quantum mechanics. (If you have taken any modern physics course, it is likely you will have heard this notion before.) Matter is composed of wave functions of probability that only become “real entities” when they are measured by a conscious observer. 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.

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"The point here is that if some process—perhaps quantum mechanics but maybe something else—steers the universe toward producing intelligence, then we humans are representatives of that teleological endpoint. It suggests that we play some cosmic role. I hope this is an eye-opener for you. It certainly was for me when I first read Wheeler’s paper, and it has become even more pressing today, as we learn more about exoplanets and fine-tuning. Modern philosophers have chimed in too: Thomas Nagel puts it this way in his 2012 book, Mind and Cosmos: “We have not observed life anywhere but on earth, but no natural fact is cosmologically more significant.”

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"I think the evidence, and the simplest conclusion, is that humanity is not ordinary and we may have a significant cosmic role. There are, therefore, ethical issues to consider, and religion can contribute a meaningful voice to this discussion. We should treat one another as the priceless beings we appear to be, and care for our rare cosmic home, the Earth. Modern science may have prompted this re‐evaluation, but addressing it will require the best of all our human abilities."

Comment: It is very hard to escape the facts he presents that the universe has allowed/caused the appearance of conscious beings who can study and understand to degree how the universe appeared and works.