Biocosm, The New Scientific Theory of Evolution

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Biocosm, The New Scientific Theory of Evolution
Intelligent Life Is the Architect of the Universe

by	James N. Gardner

Why is the universe life-friendly? Columbia physicist Brian Greene says it's the deepest question in all of science. Cosmologist Paul Davies agrees, calling it the biggest of the Big Questions.

This is a transcript of a lecture originally delivered at Hayden Planetarium, as part of the "Distinguished Authors in Astronomy" lecture series. Reprinted on KurzweilAI.net February 10, 2006.

It is, in the view of Columbia physicist Brian Greene, the deepest question in all of science. Renowned cosmologist Paul Davies agrees, calling it the biggest of the Big Questions.

And just what is this momentous question?

Not the mystery of life’s origin, though the profundity of that particular puzzle prompted Charles Darwin to remark that it was probably forever beyond the pale of human comprehension. A dog, Darwin commented famously, might as easily contemplate the mind of Newton.

Not the inscrutable manner in which consciousness emerges from the interaction and interconnection of neurons in the human skull, though a cascade of Nobel prizes will undoubtedly reward the teams of neuroscientists who achieve progress in understanding this phenomenon.

And not even the future course of biological and cultural evolution on planet Earth, though the great Darwinian river is surely carving a course that today’s most visionary evolutionary theorist will have difficulty even imagining.

No, the question is more profound, more fundamental, less tractable than any of these. It is this—why is the universe life-friendly?

Life-friendly, you might ask incredulously? The universe is life-friendly? The heck it is!

We have been taught since childhood that the universe is a horrifyingly hostile place. Violent black holes, planets and moons searing with unbearable heat or deep-frozen at temperatures that make Antarctica look tropical, and the vastness of interstellar space dooming us to perpetual physical isolation from our nearest starry neighbors—this is the depressing picture of the cosmos beyond Earth that dominates the popular imagination.

This vision is profoundly wrong at a fundamental level. As scientists are now beginning to realize to their astonishment, the truly amazing thing about our universe is how strangely and improbably life-friendly or anthropic it is. As Cambridge evolutionary biologist Simon Conway Morris puts it in his new book Life’s Solution, “On a cosmic scale, it is now widely appreciated that even trivial differences in the starting conditions [of the cosmos] would lead to an unrecognizable and uninhabitable universe.”

Simply put, if the Big Bang had detonated with slightly greater force, the cosmos would be essentially empty by now. If the primordial explosion had propelled the initial payload of cosmic raw materials outward with slightly lesser force, the universe would long ago have recollapsed in a Big Crunch. In neither case would human beings or other life forms have had time to evolve.

As Stephen Hawking asks, “Why is the universe so close to the dividing line between collapsing again and expanding indefinitely? In order to be as close as we are now, the rate of expansion early on had to be chosen fantastically accurately.”

It is not only the rate of cosmic expansion that appears to have been selected, with phenomenal precision, in order to render our universe fit for carbon-based life and the emergence of intelligence. A multitude of other factors are fine-tuned with fantastic exactitude to a degree that renders the cosmos almost spookily bio-friendly. Some of the universe’s life-friendly attributes include the odd proclivity of stellar nucleosynthesis—the process by which simple elements like hydrogen and helium are transmuted into heavier elements in the hearts of giant supernovae—to yield copious quantities of carbon, the chemical epicenter of life as we know it.

As British astronomer Fred Hoyle pointed out, in order for carbon to exist in the abundant quantities that we observe throughout the cosmos, the mechanism of stellar nucleosynthesis must be exquisitely fine-tuned in a very special way.

Yet another bio-friendly feature of the cosmos is the physical dimensionality of our universe: why are there just three extended dimensions of space rather one or two or even the ten spatial dimensions contemplated by M-theory? As has been known for more than a century, in any other dimensional setup, stable planetary orbits would be impossible and life would not have time to get started before planets skittered off into deep space or plunged into their suns.

For centuries, it seemed that the dimensionality of the universe—three dimensions of space plus one dimension of time—was a matter of axiomatic truth. Rather like the propositions of geometry. In fact, precisely like the propositions of geometry. That was before the birth of superstring theory, and its successor, M-theory. I am going to get into M-theory more deeply in a moment but for now I want to highlight its insistence on the fact that there are, in fact, ten dimensions of space and one dimension of time. The mystery is why only three of the spatial dimensions got inflated into cosmic proportions by the Big Bang while the remaining seven stayed inconceivably minuscule. If anything else had happened—if only two spatial dimensions had been inflated or if four had been inflated—then the universe would not have been set up to allow the emergence of life and mind as we know them.

Collectively, this stunning set of coincidences render the universe eerily fit for life and intelligence. And the coincidences are built into the fundamental fabric of our reality. As British Astronomer Royal Sir Martin Rees says, “There are deep connections between stars and atoms, between the cosmos and the microworld . . . . Our emergence and survival depend on very special ‘tuning’ of the cosmos.” Or, as the eminent Princeton physicist John Wheeler put it, “It is not only that man is adapted to the universe. The universe is adapted to man. Imagine a universe in which one or another of the fundamental dimensionless constants of physics is altered by a few percent one way or the other? Man could never come into being in such a universe.”

Scientists have been aware of this set of puzzles for decades and have given it name—the anthropic cosmological principle—but there is a new urgency to the quest for a plausible explanation because of two very recent discoveries—the first at nature’s largest scale and the second at its tiniest.

The first was the discovery of dark energy, which resulted from the observations of supernovae at extreme distances. Contrary to all expectations, the evidence showed that the expansion of the universe was speeding up, not slowing down. No one knows what is causing this phenomenon, although speculative explanations like leakage of gravity into extra unseen dimensions are beginning to show up in the scientific literature.

But for our purposes, what is particularly puzzling is why the strength of dark energy—which the new Wilkinson microwave probe has revealed to be the predominant constituent of our cosmos—is so vanishingly small, yet not quite zero. If it were even a tad stronger, you see, the universe would have been emptied long ago, scrubbed clean of stars and galaxies well before life and intelligence could evolve.

The second discovery occurred in the realm of M-theory, whose previous incarnation was known as superstring theory. Those of you who have read Brian Greene’s terrific book The Elegant Universe or watched the Nova series based on it will know that M-theory posits that subatomic particles like quarks, electrons and neutrinos are really just different modes of vibration of tiny one-dimensional strings of energy. But what is truly strange about M-theory is that it allows a vast landscape of possible vibration modes of superstrings, only a tiny fraction of which correspond to anything like the sub-atomic particle world we observe and that is described by what is known as the Standard Model of particle physics.

Just how big is this landscape of possible alternative models of particle physics allowed by M-theory? According to Stanford physicist and superstring pioneer Leonard Susskind, the mathematical landscape is horrifyingly gigantic, permitting 10⁵⁰⁰ power different and distinct environments, none of which appears to be mathematically favored, let alone foreordained by the theory. And in virtually none of those other mathematically permissible environments would matter and energy have possessed the qualities that are necessary for stars, galaxies and carbon-based living creatures to have emerged from the primordial chaos.

This is, as Susskind says, an intellectual cataclysm of the first magnitude because it seems to deprive our most promising new theory of fundamental physics—M-theory—of the power to uniquely predict the emergence of anything remotely resembling our universe. As Susskind puts it, the picture of the universe that is emerging from the deep mathematical recesses of M-theory is not an “elegant universe” at all! It’s a Rube Goldberg device, cobbled together by some unknown process in a supremely improbable manner that just happens to render the whole ensemble miraculously fit for life. In the words of University of California theoretical physicist Steve Giddings, “No longer can we follow the dream of discovering the unique equations that predict everything we see, and writing them on a single page.” Or a tee-shirt! “Predicting the constants of nature becomes a messy environmental problem. It has the complications of biology.” Note the key word Giddings uses—“biology”—because we will be coming back to it shortly.

This really is, as Brian Greene says, the deepest problem in all of science. It really is, as Paul Davies says, the biggest of the Big Questions: why is the universe life-friendly?

If we put to one side theological approaches to this ultimate issue, what rational pathways forward are on offer from the scientific community? I suggest that three basic approaches are available. Two are familiar while the third is radically novel.

The first approach is to continue searching patiently for a unique final theory—something that you really could write on your tee-shirt like E = mc²—which might yet, against the odds, emerge from M-theory or one of its competitors (like loop quantum gravity) aspiring to the status of a so-called “theory of everything.” This is the fond hope of virtually every professional theoretical physicist, including those who have been driven to desperation by the horrendously messy and complex landscape of theoretically possible M-theory-allowed universes that distresses Susskind and other superstring theorists. Perhaps the laws and constants of nature—an ensemble the late New York Academy of Sciences president and physicist Heinz Pagels dubbed the cosmic code—will, in the end, turn out to be uniquely specified by mathematics and thus subject to no conceivable variation. Perhaps the ultimate equations will someday slide out of the mind of a new colossus of physics as slickly and beautifully as E = mc² emerged from Einstein’s brain. Perhaps, but that appears to be an increasingly unlikely prospect.

A second approach, born of desperation on the part of Susskind and others, is to overlay a refinement of Big Bang inflation theory called eternal chaotic inflation with an explanatory approach that has been traditionally reviled by most scientists which is known as the weak anthropic principle. The weak anthropic principle merely states in tautological fashion that since human observers inhabit this particular universe, it must perforce be life-friendly or it would not contain any observers resembling ourselves. Eternal chaotic inflation, invented by Russian-born physicist Andrei Linde, asserts that instead of just one Big Bang there are, always have been, and always will be, zillions of Big Bangs going off in inaccessible regions all the time. These Big Bangs create zillions of new universes constantly and the whole ensemble constitutes a multiverse.

Now here’s what happens when these two ideas—eternal chaotic inflation and the weak anthropic principle—are joined together. In each Big Bang, the laws, constants and the physical dimensionality of nature come out differently. In some, dark energy is stronger. In some, dark energy is weaker. In some, gravity is stronger. In some, gravity is weaker. This happens, according to M-theory-based cosmology, because the 10-dimensional physical shapes in which superstrings vibrate—known as Calabi-Yau shapes—evolve randomly and chaotically at the moment of each new Big Bang. The laws and constants of nature are constantly reshuffled by this process, like a cosmic deck of cards.

And here’s the crucial part. Once in a blue moon, this random process of eternal chaotic inflation will yield a winning hand, as judged from the perspective of whether a particular new universe is life-friendly. That outcome will be pure chance—one lucky roll of the dice in an unimaginably vast cosmic crap shoot with 10⁵⁰⁰ unfavorable outcomes for every winning turn.

Our universe was a big winner, of course, in the cosmic lottery. Our cosmos was dealt a royal flush. Here is how the eminent Nobel laureate Steve Weinberg explained this scenario in a New York Review of Books essay a couple of years ago: “The expanding cloud of billions of galaxies that we call the big bang may be just one fragment of a much larger universe in which big bangs go off all the time, each one with different values for the fundamental constants.” It is no more a mystery that our particular branch of the multiverse exhibits life-friendly characteristics, according to Weinberg, than that life evolved on the hospitable Earth “rather than some horrid place, like Mercury or Pluto.”

If you find this scenario unsatisfactory—the weak anthropic principle superimposed on Andrei Linde’s theory of eternal chaotic inflation—I can assure you that you are not alone. To most scientists, offering the tautological explanation that since human observers inhabit this particular universe, it must necessarily be life-friendly or else it would not contain any observers resembling ourselves is anathema. It just sounds like giving up.

In my view, there are two primary problems with the Weinberg/Susskind approach. First, universes spawned by Big Bangs other than our own are inaccessible from our own universe, at least with the experimental techniques currently available to scientists. So the approach appears to be untestable, perhaps untestable in principle. And testability is the hallmark of genuine science, distinguishing it from fields of inquiry like metaphysics and theology.

Second, the Weinberg/Susskind approach extravagantly violates the mediocrity principle. The mediocrity principle, a mainstay of scientific theorizing since Copernicus, is a statistically based rule of thumb that, absent contrary evidence, a particular sample (Earth, for instance, or our particular universe) should be assumed to be a typical example of the ensemble of which it is a part. The Weinberg/Susskind approach flagrantly flouts the mediocrity principle. Instead, their approach simply takes refuge in a brute, unfathomable mystery—the conjectured lucky roll of the dice in a crap game of eternal chaotic inflation—and declines to probe seriously into the possibility of a naturalistic cosmic evolutionary process that has the capacity to yield a life-friendly set of physical laws and constants on a nonrandom basis. It is as if Charles Darwin, contemplating the famous tangled bank (the arresting visual image with which he concludes The Origin of Species), had confessed not a magnificent obsession with gaining an understanding of the mysterious natural processes that had yielded “endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful,” but rather a smug satisfaction that of course the earthly biosphere must have somehow evolved in a just-so manner mysteriously friendly to humans and other currently living species, or else Darwin and other humans would not be around to contemplate it!

Indeed, the situation that confronts cosmologists today is eerily reminiscent of that which faced biologists before Charles Darwin propounded his revolutionary theory of evolution. Darwin confronted the seemingly miraculous phenomenon of a fine-tuned natural order in which every creature and plant appeared to occupy a unique and well-designed niche. Refusing to surrender to the brute mystery posed by the appearance of nature’s design, Darwin masterfully deployed the art of metaphor to elucidate a radical hypothesis—the origin of species through natural selection—that explained the apparent miracle as a natural phenomenon.

The metaphor furnished by the familiar process of artificial selection was Darwin’s crucial stepping stone. Indeed, the practice of artificial selection through plant and animal breeding was the primary intellectual model that guided Darwin in his quest to solve the mystery of the origin of species and to demonstrate in principle the plausibility of his theory that variation and natural selection were the prime movers responsible for the phenomenon of speciation. So, too, today a few venturesome cosmologists have begun to use the same poetic tool utilized by Darwin—the art of metaphorical thinking—to develop novel intellectual models that might offer a logical explanation for what appears to be an unfathomable mystery: the apparent fine-tuning of the cosmos.

The cosmological metaphor chosen by these iconoclastic theorists is life itself. What if life, they ask in the spirit the great Belgian biologist and Nobel laureate Christian de Duve, were not a cosmic accident but the essential reality at the very heart of the elegant machinery of the universe? What if Darwin’s principle of natural selection were merely a tiny fractal embodiment of a universal life-giving principle that drives the evolution of stars, galaxies, and the cosmos itself?

This, as you may have guessed, is the headline summarizing the third (and radically novel) approach to answering the biggest of the Big Questions: why is the universe life-friendly? It is the approach outlined at length in my new book BIOCOSM.

Before I get into this third approach in more detail, I want to say something upfront about scientific speculation. The approach I am about to outline for you is intentionally and forthrightly speculative. Following the example of Darwin, I have attempted to crudely frame a radically new explanatory paradigm well before all of the required building materials and construction tools are at hand. Darwin had not the slightest clue, for instance, that DNA is the molecular device used by all life-forms on Earth to accomplish the feat of what he called “inheritance.” Indeed, as cell biologist Kenneth R. Miller noted in Finding Darwin’s God, “Charles Darwin worked in almost total ignorance of the fields we now call genetics, cell biology, molecular biology, and biochemistry.” Nonetheless, Darwin managed to put forward a plausible theoretical framework that succeeded magnificently despite the fact that it was utterly dependent on hypothesized but completely unknown mechanisms of genetic transmission.

As Darwin’s example shows, plausible and deliberate speculation plays an essential role in the advancement of science. Speculation is the means by which new scientific paradigms are initially constructed, to be either abandoned later as wrong-headed detours or vindicated as the seeds of scientific revolutions.

Another important lesson drawn from Darwin’s experience is important to note at the outset. Answering the question of why the most eminent geologists and naturalists had, until shortly before publication of The Origin of Species, disbelieved in the mutability of species, Darwin responded that this false conclusion was “almost inevitable as long as the history of the world was thought to be of short duration.” It was geologist Charles Lyell’s speculations on the immense age of Earth that provided the essential conceptual framework for Darwin’s new theory. Lyell’s vastly expanded stretch of geological time provided an ample temporal arena in which the forces of natural selection could sculpt and reshape the species of Earth and achieve nearly limitless variation.

The central point is that collateral advances in sciences seemingly far removed from cosmology can help dissipate the intellectual limitations imposed by common sense and naïve human intuition. And, in an uncanny reprise of the Lyell/Darwin intellectual synergy, it is a realization of the vastness of time and history that gives rise to the crucial insight. Only in this instance, the vastness of which I speak is the vastness of future time and future history. In particular, sharp attention must be paid to the key conclusion of Princeton physicist John Wheeler: most of the time available for life and intelligence to achieve their ultimate capabilities lie in the distant cosmic future, not in the cosmic past. As cosmologist Frank Tipler bluntly stated, “Almost all of space and time lies in the future. By focusing attention only on the past and present, science has ignored almost all of reality. Since the domain of scientific study is the whole of reality, it is about time science decided to study the future evolution of the universe.”

That is exactly what I have attempted to do in BIOCOSM in order to explore, in a tentative way, a possible third pathway to an answer to the biggest of the Big Questions. I call that third pathway the Selfish Biocosm hypothesis.

Originally presented in peer-reviewed scientific papers published in Complexity, Acta Astronautica, and the Journal of the British Interplanetary Society, my Selfish Biocosm hypothesis suggests that in attempting to explain the linkage between life, intelligence and the anthropic qualities of the cosmos, most mainstream scientists have, in essence, been peering through the wrong end of the telescope. The hypothesis asserts that life and intelligence are, in fact, the primary cosmological phenomena and that everything else—the constants of nature, the dimensionality of the universe, the origin of carbon and other elements in the hearts of giant supernovas, the pathway traced by biological evolution—is secondary and derivative. In the words of Martin Rees, my approach is based on the proposition that “what we call the fundamental constants—the numbers that matter to physicists—may be secondary consequences of the final theory, rather than direct manifestations of its deepest and most fundamental level.”

I began developing the Selfish Biocosm hypothesis as an attempt to supply two essential elements missing from a novel model of cosmological evolution put forward by astrophysicist Lee Smolin. Smolin had come up with the intriguing suggestion that black holes are gateways to new “baby universes” and that a kind of Darwinian population dynamic rewards those universes most adept at producing black holes with the greatest number of progeny. Proliferating populations of baby universes emerging from the loins (metaphorically speaking) of black hole-rich “mother universes” thus come to dominate the total population of the “multiverse”—a theoretical ensemble of all mother and baby universes. Black hole-prone universes also happen to coincidentally exhibit anthropic qualities, according to Smolin, thus accounting for the bio-friendly nature of the “average” cosmos in the ensemble, more or less as an incidental side-effect.

This was a thrilling conjecture because for the first time it posited a cosmic evolutionary process endowed with what economists call a utility function (i.e., a value that was maximized by the hypothesized evolutionary process, which in the case of Smolin’s conjecture was black hole maximization).

However, Smolin’s approach was seriously flawed. As the computer genius John von Neumann demonstrated in a famous 1948 Caltech lecture entitled “On the General and Logical Theory of Automata,” any self-reproducing object (mouse, bacterium, human or baby universe) must, as a matter of inexorable logic, possess four essential elements:

1. A blueprint, providing the plan for construction of offspring;

2. A factory, to carry out the construction;

3. A controller, to ensure that the factory follows the plan; and

4. A duplicating machine, to transmit a copy of the blueprint to the offspring.

In the case of Smolin’s hypothesis, one could logically equate the collection of physical laws and constants that prevail in our universe with a von Neumann blueprint and the universe at large with a kind of enormous von Neumann factory. But what could possibly serve as a von Neumann controller or a von Neumann duplicating machine? My goal was to rescue Smolin’s basic innovation—a cosmic evolutionary model that incorporated a discernible utility function—by proposing scientifically plausible candidates for the two missing von Neumann elements.

The hypothesis I developed was based on a set of conjectures put forward by Martin Rees, John Wheeler, Freeman Dyson, John Barrow, Frank Tipler, and Ray Kurzweil. Their futuristic visions suggested collectively that the ongoing process of biological and technological evolution was sufficiently robust, powerful, and open-ended that, in the very distant future, a cosmologically extended biosphere could conceivably exert a global influence on the physical state of the entire cosmos. Think of this idea as the Gaia principle extended universe-wide.

A synthesis of these insights lead me directly to the central claim of the Selfish Biocosm hypothesis: that the ongoing process of biological and technological emergence, governed by still largely unknown laws of complexity, could function as a von Neumann controller and that a cosmologically extended biosphere could serve as a von Neumann duplicating machine in a conjectured process of cosmological replication.

I went on to speculate that the means by which the hypothesized cosmological replication process could occur was through the fabrication of baby universes by highly evolved intelligent life forms. These hypothesized baby universes would themselves be endowed with a cosmic code—an ensemble of physical laws and constants—that would be life-friendly so as to enable life and ever more competent intelligence to emerge and eventually to repeat the cosmic reproduction cycle. Under this scenario, the physical laws and constants serve a cosmic function precisely analogous to that of DNA in earthly creatures: they furnish a recipe for the birth and evolution of intelligent life and a blueprint, which provides the plan for construction of offspring.

I should add that if the fabrication of baby universes, which is the key step in the hypothesized cosmic reproductive cycle that I just outlined, sounds to you like outrageous science fiction—an “X-file too far,” in the words of one of my critics—you should be aware that the topic has begun to be rigorously explored by such eminent physicists as Andrei Linde of Stanford, Alan Guth of MIT (who is the father of inflation theory), Martin Rees of Cambridge, eminent astronomer Edward Harrison, and physicists Lawrence Krauss and Glenn Starkman.

This central claim of the Selfish Biocosm hypothesis offered a radically new and quite parsimonious explanation for the apparent mystery of an anthropic or bio-friendly universe. If highly evolved intelligent life is the von Neumann duplicating machine that the cosmos employs to reproduce itself—if intelligent life is, in effect, the reproductive organ of the universe—then it is entirely logical and predictable that the laws and constants of nature should be rigged in favor of the emergence of life and the evolution of ever more capable intelligence. Indeed, the existence of such propensity is a falsifiable prediction of the hypothesis.

Now, at this point you are probably saying to yourself, “Wow, with a theory that crazy and radical, this Gardner fellow must have been shunned by the scientific establishment.” And indeed some mainstream scientists have commented that the ideas advanced in my book BIOCOSM are impermissibly speculative or impossible to verify. A few have hurled what scientists view as the ultimate epithet—that my theory constitutes metaphysics instead of genuine science.

On the other hand, some of the brightest and most far-sighted scientists have been extremely encouraging. John Barrow and Freeman Dyson have offered favorable comments and reviews. In particular, BIOCOSM has received outspoken endorsements from Sir Martin Rees (the UK Astronomer Royal and winner of the top scientific prize in the world for cosmology) and Paul Davies (the prominent astrophysicist and author and winner of the Templeton Prize).

As I continue to explore this hypothesis in the future, what will be of utmost interest to me and my sympathizers is whether it can generate what scientists call falsifiable implications. Falsifiabiliy or testability of claims, remember, is the hallmark of genuine science, distinguishing it from metaphysics and faith-based belief systems.

I believe that the Selfish Biocosm hypothesis does qualify as a genuine scientific conjecture on this ground. A key implication of the hypothesis is that the process of progression of the cosmos through critical thresholds in its life cycle, while perhaps not strictly inevitable, is relatively robust. One such critical threshold is the emergence of human-level and higher intelligence, which is essential to the scaling up of biological and technological processes to the stage at which those processes could conceivably exert an influence on the global state of the cosmos.

The conventional wisdom among evolutionary theorists, typified by the thinking of the late Stephen Jay Gould, is that the abstract probability of the emergence of anything like human intelligence through the natural process of biological evolution was vanishingly small. According to this viewpoint, the emergence of human-level intelligence was a staggeringly improbable contingent event. A few distinguished contrarians like Simon Conway Morris, Robert Wright, E. O. Wilson, and Christian de Duve take an opposing position, arguing on the basis of the pervasive phenomenon of convergent evolution and other evidence that the appearance of human-level intelligence was highly probable, if not virtually inevitable. The latter position is consistent with the Selfish Biocosm hypothesis while the Gould position is not.

In my book BIOCOSM and in a preceding scientific paper delivered at the International Astronautical Congress, I suggest that the issue of the robustness of the emergence of human-level and higher intelligence is potentially subject to experimental resolution by means of at least three realistic tests: SETI research, artificial life evolution, and the emergence of transhuman computer intelligence predicted by computer science theorist Ray Kurzweil and others. The discovery of extraterrestrial intelligence, the discovery of an ability on the part of artificial life forms that exist and evolve in software environments to acquire autonomy and intelligence, and the emergence of a capacity on the part of advanced self-programming computers to attain and then exceed human levels of intelligence are all falsifiable implications of the Selfish Biocosm hypothesis because they are consistent with the notion that the emergence of ever more competent intelligence is a robust natural phenomenon. These tests don’t, of course, conclusively answer the question of whether the hypothesis correctly describes ultimate reality. But such a level of certainty is not demanded of any scientific hypothesis in order to qualify it as genuine science.

Let me conclude by asking whether the Selfish Biocosm hypothesis promotes or demotes the cosmic role of humanity. Have I introduced a new anthropocentrism into the science of cosmology? If so, then you should be suspect on this basis alone of my new approach because, as Sigmund Freud pointed out long ago, new scientific paradigms must meet two distinct criteria to be taken seriously: they must reformulate our vision of physical reality in a novel and plausible way and, equally important, they must advance the Copernican project of demoting human beings from the centerpiece of the universe to the results of natural processes.

At first blush, the Selfish Biocosm hypothesis may appear to be hopelessly anthropocentric. Freeman Dyson once famously proclaimed that the seemingly miraculous coincidences exhibited by the physical laws and constants of inanimate nature—factors that render the universe so strangely life-friendly—indicated to him that “the more I examine the universe and study the details of its architecture, the more evidence I find that the universe in some sense knew we were coming.” This strong anthropic perspective may seem uplifting and inspiring at first blush but a careful assessment of the new vision of a bio-friendly universe revealed by the Selfish Biocosm hypothesis yields a far more sobering conclusion.

To regard the pageant of life’s origin and evolution on Earth as a minor subroutine in an inconceivably vast ontogenetic process through which the universe prepares itself for replication is scarcely to place humankind at the epicenter of creation. Far from offering an anthropocentric view of the cosmos, the new perspective relegates humanity and its probable progeny species (biological or mechanical) to the functional equivalents of mitochondria—formerly free-living bacteria whose special talents were harnessed in the distant past when they were ingested and then pressed into service as organelles inside eukaryotic cells.

The essence of the Selfish Biocosm hypothesis is that the universe we inhabit is in the process of becoming pervaded with increasingly intelligent life—but not necessarily human or even human-successor life. Under the theory, the emergence of life and increasingly competent intelligence are not meaningless accidents in a hostile, largely lifeless cosmos but at the very heart of the vast machinery of creation, cosmological evolution, and cosmic replication. However, the theory does not require or even suggest that the life and intelligence that emerge be human or human-successor in nature.

The hypothesis simply asserts that the peculiarly life-friendly laws and constants that prevail in our universe serve a function precisely equivalent to that of DNA in living creatures on Earth, providing a recipe for development and a blueprint for the construction of offspring.

Finally, the hypothesis implies that the capacity for the universe to generate life and to evolve ever more capable intelligence is encoded as a hidden subtext to the basic laws and constants of nature, stitched like the finest embroidery into the very fabric of our universe. A corollary—and a key falsifiable implication of the Selfish Biocosm theory—is that we are likely not alone in the universe but are probably part of a vast, yet undiscovered transterrestrial community of lives and intelligences spread across billions of galaxies and countless parsecs. Under the theory, we share a possible common fate with that hypothesized community—to help shape the future of the universe and transform it from a collection of lifeless atoms into a vast, transcendent mind.

The inescapable implication of the Selfish Biocosm hypothesis is that the immense saga of biological evolution on Earth is one tiny chapter in an ageless tale of the struggle of the creative force of life against the disintegrative acid of entropy, of emergent order against encroaching chaos, and ultimately of the heroic power of mind against the brute intransigence of lifeless matter.

In taking full measure of the seeming miracle of a bio-friendly universe we should obviously be skeptical of wishful thinking and “just-so” stories. But we should not be so dismissive of new approaches that we fail to relish the sense of wonder at the almost miraculous ability of science to fathom mysteries that once seemed impenetrable—a sense perfectly captured by the great British innovator Michael Faraday when he summarily dismissed skepticism about his almost magical ability to summon up the genie of electricity simply by moving a magnet in a coil of wire.

As Faraday said, “Nothing is too wonderful to be true if it be consistent with the laws of nature.”

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Mind·X Discussion About This Article:


	cool posted on 02/09/2006 4:09 PM by G'khan	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
WOW!


	Re: cool posted on 02/09/2006 4:38 PM by maryfran^	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
impressive !


	Re: cool posted on 02/11/2006 3:38 PM by Bradski	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
Neat idea, I like it... but: (1) This theory still suffers from the bane of all intelligent design theories: Who designed the designer? (2) There is a second problem: Why aren't we smarter faster? That is, just how long has this design and spawn relay been going on? Are we relatively near the start of the whole process and so relativley slow to get to super intelligence? If this process has been going on "forever", I'd expect the design to have been much improved, 10B odd years until the first Sony play station seems a tad stately. I have some possible answers to (1), that there are real things that do not exist ("possibilities" for example) and so "nothingness" is itself an unstable state. Number (2) is harder. Perhaps it has to do with the nature of what you can encode in a spawned universe. Gary


	Re: cool posted on 02/11/2006 7:48 PM by maryfran^	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
' (1) this theory still suffers from the bane of all intelligent design theories: who designed the designer? ' who? we have the eternal enigma here, we see the effect, but the cause must be hidden because nobody can observe it. indeed our 'heads may explode' while making this searching. anyway, the evolutionary tools of science may reveal in short some clues on this issue. it is like if we pretend to look for bacteria without a microscope. so we need more tools yet to see more evidences in the cosmos spectrum. and nothing is resolved yet '. '(2) there is a second problem: why aren't we smarter faster?' the entropy involving our local world would be intended to increase the emotional/intelligence complexity of the system to reach deeper stages of computational intelligence, due to some specific reasons which are now beyond our comprehension. 'i have some possible answers to (1), that there are real things that do not exist ("possibilities" for example) and so "nothingness" is itself an unstable state. number (2) is harder. perhaps it has to do with the nature of what you can encode in a spawned universe.' well, in principle from nothingness it is very strange that something could emerge. again the missing 'cause'. we could imagine for example this scenario, that of course does not explain the cause, but serves as mere speculation with the intention to find some slight clue (probably none clue is found) : the 'possibilities' you are referring to, could be a quasi primary cause called 'omniversal computation unit' which generated a first instruction to construct the substratum of all existance. the omniversal computation unit is a quantum abyss (i remember that this is a pure speculation, because this is unknown at this time). all finite domains are hosted in the abyss. the abyss is a non-fluid-beyond-space/time dimension which lend the functionality that all local worlds can or not be connected. both the interaction of local worlds via 'black holes' and the evolutionary patterns of every finite domain do print a kind of dynamic/continuum trace or mark in the abyss. here the abyss could be interpreted as an indicator of the cosmological events and the evolutionary patterns derived from such events, as well. the mentioned 'trace or mark' is a quanta dynamic formula encoded in a non-physical 'logical function' or omniversal computing/non physical unit. the local worlds function in spinning-expansion and contraction cycles, and the time flow of the several? worlds are not running in the same direction, thus the abyss does not contemplate any specific space-time direction, but all conceivable continuum combinations. thus our local universe is tunned with us in a forward direction time flow. but the black-holes are the only way out to reverse the swivels of the space/time and the unique possibility to interact with the outer worlds. also the black-holes may give the possibility for an advanced intelligent civilization to observe its own position hosted in the abyss = being able to experience the ubiquity phenomenum. some quotes about black holes related to our local universe: ' http://tahti.mit.edu/blackhole/ januray 9 2006 scientists detect indentation in spacetime from a spinning black hole mit scientists and their colleagues have found a black hole that has chiseled a remarkably stable indentation in the fabric of space and time, like a dimple in one's favorite spot on a sofa. the finding may help scientists measure a black hole's mass and how it spins, two long-sought measurements, by virtue of the extent of this indentation. using nasa's rossi x-ray timing explorer, the team saw identical patterns in the x-ray light emitted near the black hole over a nine-year period, as captured in archived data from 1996 and in a new, unprecedented 550-hour observation from 2005. another quote: ucla astronomers provide new insights into massive black hole at center of the milky way and surrounding region date: january 10, 2006 contact: stuart wolpert ( swolpert@support.ucla.edu ) phone: 310-206-0511 ucla astronomers can determine, for the first time, orbits of massive young stars located a few light months from the enormous black hole at the center of our milky way galaxy ' stars that hold an imprint of how they were born. the origin of young stars at the center of our galaxy has puzzled astronomers, but the orbits may be the key to unlocking the mystery, ucla astronomy graduate student jessica lu reported today at the annual meeting of the american astronomical society in washington, d.c. the astronomers use a new laser virtual star at the w.m. keck observatory in hawaii.''


	Re: cool posted on 02/12/2006 5:06 AM by Extropia	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
Gary, The book we are referring to is best thought of as an extension of Lee Smolin's 'Life of The Cosmos'. Smolin's work shows how Universes whose laws of physics do not favour black hole production are 'unfit' and thus do not pass on their 'genes'. The 'genes' (the laws of physics- Smolin assumes they are mutable) that code for efficient black hole production also happen to make the universe suitable for the emergence of Carbon-based life-forms. You could then throw in Simon Conway Morris's argument that biological evolution follows rules of constraint and convergence that inevitably ends up with a humanoid form of life, Kurzweil's argument that humanoid life kickstarts technological evolution that evolves computers until they are running at the maximum capacity allowed by the laws of physics and, finally, the argument that one could manufacture a black hole computer, which would be the most powerful computer possible. So, Gardner's 'techno-universe' evolution only became possible after X amount of Smolin natural selected universes had refined the laws of physics through cummulative selection. But the whole premise still falls down. Because black holes don't really exist.


	Re: cool posted on 02/13/2006 1:56 AM by Bradski	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
I think Gardner is suggesting that intelligent life takes the roll of the control function for the 'DNA' of the universe, it's physical laws ' sort of like a regulatory gene that universes have evolved and perhaps he's suggesting that intelligent life is something like the germ line too. This is all a way of just pushing the problem back: Then why is the meta-verse of such form that it can support this process of evolving universes? I'm surprised he doesn't throw in ideas from Stuart Kauffman's modification of evolution ' that it sits on top of a self-organizing system in the first place. For Stuart, life started as an autocatalytic set of chemicals, almost any rich enough set of chemicals will do. Only later did life acquire a control system that allowed more orderly evolution. Summary of Kauffman's ideas is at http://home.wxs.nl/~gkorthof/kortho32.htm If such an autocatalytic set functions also for the physical laws that make up Universes, then each one would appear mysteriously balanced. Later they acquire the control system that allows systematic evolution. In this sense, Von Neumann was wrong. You don't need a control system to evolve, but it has selective advantages to get a control system. We still bump into the question of where we are in the whole process. If things have been going on virtually 'forever' (which one would assume from the mediocrity principle) then why is the process still so seemingly inefficient?? 13B years is a long time to let your program run. That to me is a harder question. As an aside, I don't know why you assert black holes don't exist since the observational evidence seems to be growing in their favor. If we end up with strong observational evidence of black holes but also a theory that says they can't exist, I'd suggest it is the theory not the black holes which must cease to exist. But either way. What would kill the Gardner's premise would be for there to be no way to spawn another cosmos. That is, if we are indeed living in the one and only 'Universe' rather than in a multi-verse. Black holes might not exist and yet a multi-verse still might exist by other means.


	Re: Wrong model=wrong conclusion. posted on 02/13/2006 7:01 AM by Extropia	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
The reason why I assert that black holes do not exist is twofold: 1: The nuclear fusion model of stars is WRONG. The correct model of electric stars does not seem to allow for the kinds of gravitational collapse associated with black holes: '(In a star) the nucleus of each atom, which is thousands of times heavier than the electrons, will be gravitationally offset from the centre of the atom. The result is that each atom becomes a small electric dipole. These dipoles align to form a radial electric field that causes electrons to diffuse outwards to enormously greater numbers than simple gravitational sorting allows. That electric repulsion balances the compressive force of gravity without the need for a central heat source in the star. An electric star will be roughly the same density throughout, or isodense'. If you check out www.electric-cosmos.org/hrdiagr.htm, you will see how the electric star model can easily explain stars that have been observed that are IMPOSSIBLE according to the nuclear fusion model. Black holes, then, are nothing more than mathematical constructs created by pursuing a false assumption. 2: When they say we have observed a black hole, we have in fact done nothing of the sort. All we have detected is a burst of X-Rays. The assumption is that ONLY a black hole is capable of producing these Xrays, yet plasma physics has shown how dense plasma focus is capable of producing high-energy X-ray and gamma-ray radiation and simple plasma scaling laws show why it is that the source of such prodigious outpouring of energy from an active galactic centre is so small. So basically cosmologists using the wrong model are misinterpreting the data provided by their instruments. Black holes do not exist.


	Re: Wrong model=wrong conclusion. posted on 09/06/2006 10:23 AM by donjoe	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
Wasn't a huge gravitational effect with some darkness at its center the first observation prompting the creation of this "black hole" concept? Does ES explain the gravitational effect currently attributed to "black holes"? (I don't see anything about "black holes" on the ES site you linked to.)


	Re: Biocosm, The New Scientific Theory of Evolution posted on 02/10/2006 12:35 AM by Binro the Heretic	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
Just a thought... We are encouraged to think that the universe is "Life-friendly" for reasons that seem to consist mainly of "we're here"; we certainly aren't seeing much in the way of hard evidence that there's life anywhere else. Personally, I believe that Life is everywhere, in the grander sense, and that we haven't seen it solely because of our inability to go anywhere but that's a faith matter, no different from those who think that our presence somehow enobles the universe. Here's an alternate point of view: perhaps we're here because we're here and if the cosmic constants were just slightly different some other form of life would be here...probably speculating on how unlikely something like us would be. Perhaps Life has always existed, in forms we can't recognize or imagine; perhaps whole civilizations have risen and fallen in a blink of our eyes; to exclude any possibility in the face of infinite space and time seems the grandest hubris. It would be handy if we could call up God and say: "What the heck were you thinking of?" Failing that-and I think we can exclude that possibility-perhaps our best idea is simply to try and explore, in the hope that we might find out something useful. Cheers


	Re: Biocosm, The New Scientific Theory of Evolution posted on 02/10/2006 5:52 AM by Extropia	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
I've read this book. Several times. And I thought it was really cool as well. You can think of it as an extension of Lee Smolin's black hole-is-baby-universe theory of natural selection applied to universes, with the added flavour of intelligence perhaps acting as some sort of 'midwife' or even 'genetically engineering' super-fit 'offspring'. Satisfying in a philosophical sense...partly. (See my post on Sub VS Set/Ai for an overview of the failings) but in a practical sense... Well, black holes don't really exist. They are a mathematical figment. So the whole edifice collapses. Sorry.


	Re: Biocosm, The New Scientific Theory of Evolution posted on 02/15/2006 10:52 AM by hartleyjim	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
I have called up God to ask "what was he thinking" and the answer was: To create a beautiful place. It seems unlikely that this tool we use to understand; The mind, could ever be so enhanced as to grasp infinity. Life and all the questions posed by inquiring minds, can be understood. Socrates injunction, "Know Thyself" is a clue. This insight produces a way of knowing that does not depend entirely on calculations or mental gymnastics. Disabuse yourself of the notion that what we call science is the only valid way of knowing. Understanding and appreciating that this stage on which we act, may have been created by a benevolence not comprehendable by a finite mind, For the purpose of enjoying... Existance in a human form. To make any sense of this one must know the mind of God, which is possible by focusing within and understanding Life itself. Becoming one with the creator we then see... Consciousness is what we are. DNA is the script of a play we have written. Disguising ourself as ignorant fragments of the whole, born on the earth to learn our way back home to God Consciousness... Is the Play At the point where we can be both audience and actor, life presents an opportunity to experience gratitude, humility and fulfillment. As delightful as science may be, the why of things is best answered by knowing the Self.


	Re: Biocosm, The New Scientific Theory of Evolution posted on 02/15/2006 9:53 PM by falgiano	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
I love your point of view here Jim. I'd describe myself as agnostic, but inclined towards 'anything is possible'. I find myself leaning towards the idea that things have meaning, b/c when I trust what I am feeling, then it feels like I am in harmony with the world around me. Thus, 'knowing thyself' leads to accepting the apparent contradictions of life and learning to ride the waves as both actor and audience. (Is this perhaps a Zen point of view? I am not really familiar with that philosophy. Not that labeling it is particularly important.) I have no idea if anything I wrote makes sense. But I understood what you wrote and I like it. And I will think on it some more. So thanks.


	Re: Biocosm, The New Scientific Theory of Evolution posted on 08/09/2008 5:55 PM by SailFree	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
It is all fun cogitating along with the breeze, but at heart we are generalizing from a sample of one. Not very scientific, but it's the only sample we have--so far.


	Re: Biocosm, The New Scientific Theory of Evolution posted on 02/16/2006 10:06 PM by Binro the Heretic	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
I imagine that everyone who thinks at all sooner or later thinks of themselves in relation to the universe and of the universe in relation to themselves. Someone looks at themselves and says: I exist. They look around and label everything they see as the Universe...and that's where I would suggest the trouble begins: the obsession with labels, as though putting a name to a thing means that we actually know the thing. "The beginning of knowledge is calling a thing by its true name"...the beginning, not the end, the completion, the whole. The Universe as we seem to know it is vast and old beyond our ability to comprehend. As time progresses we doubtless will deepen what understanding we have but to assert that we will ever truly know something so grand looks like vain ambition at best and unbelievable arrogance at worst, for if we truly understood the universe, what would we be but God? This would seem to be the chief problem with introducing unnecessary elements into a consideration of reality. Maybe there's a God, maybe there isn't, but thinking that the Universe is here because it's here requires a lot less in the way of mental gymnastics. I certainly don't dispute anyone's right to view reality in a fashion that they feel comfortable with but I'm similarly free to question whether mystifying things will lead to any greater clarity. "DNA is the script of a play we have written."...indeed, if you can prove that one explaining the Universe in toto should be pretty easy. Looking for God may be satisfying on a number of levels but such activity hasn't much advanced our understanding of objective reality...quite the opposite, in fact. On the other hand, trying to understand objective reality is why we've advanced to whatever degree we have; to me that presents a clear choice. I've often wondered where we might be if we hadn't spent so much time on an endless parade of "gods". Well, to each his own. Cheers


	Re: Biocosm, The New Scientific Theory of Evolution posted on 02/17/2006 1:21 PM by conrad	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
Hi Binro, Conceptual thinking (and an opposable thumb) is/are our advantage to survive in the world. After all we really did go to the Moon. But, it (conceptual thinking) is noise to the realization of the spiritual source that transcends the world. How do I know that? When you KNOW it is the seeker you seek YOU've found it. Jim stated it clearly, Know thyself. Dogen Zenji said, 'To study Buddhism is to study the self, to study the self is to forget the self, to forget the self is to become one with all things.'. Witness without judgment is how to establish nondual awareness. The faculty of awareness is itself the source. But, you still need a knife to slice the tomato. Technology is what we need to know about the world to survive long enough as individuals and as a culture to become Human Beings. We don't even know what a healthy diet is yet. Much less how to share the prosperity across the spectrum of the bell curve of talant and strength of the oneness that we are. Too many of the smart and the strong believe they have a license to steal. The Masons have sold out. Honest government is an oxymoron on par with military intelligence. Where's the hope?? That we take charge of our evolution and become Human Beings. And that we love the Homo Sapians who haven't seen the light yet. Love is the way, not the goal. Let's start a race to become Human Beings!! And Falgiano, you made a lot of sense to me.


	Re: Biocosm, The New Scientific Theory of Evolution posted on 02/10/2006 11:26 AM by bionicutopia	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
I like to think of things in terms of systems and generalities. If we think back to Schrodinger's cat experiment, we look at the existence of duality. The cat is either dead or alive. In fact though, the cat could be in any state in between as well at any one point in time. The cat may still be alive but already poisoned and sick, or the cat may be taking it's last breath as we lift the lid to the box. In that sense, there is not just a duality existance, but rather an infinite number of realities within the definite realms of the cat being totally dead or completely healthy and alive. If we parallel what was said about the number of possible string vibrations, it would seem that although we are literally inside the box, we would be in a box of immense proportions indeed. If each mode of string vibration has an infinite number of realities due to the properties of duality, it would be inevitable that life would indeed form at some point in every single mode of string vibration that would allow life to form. Fortunately we happen to exist in one of those realities which would allow life to exist. I would bet my bottom dollar that there are other realities co-existing which also spurn life, although not necessarily as we know it. If one looks within our own universe, at ourselves in particular, we push our own evolution to the limits, soon to merge with our own technology to become more than the sum of our parts. When this happens, our evolution will push ahead even faster, almost immeasurably to our current knowledge. In other existances, it is quite possible that the property of time has a direct effect on the evolution of life. The faster time pushes, the faster life evolves. The slower it lags, the longer it takes. What I suppose I'm trying to say is that I think life is much more adept to the universe than the universe is to life.


	Re: Biocosm, The New Scientific Theory of Evolution posted on 04/22/2007 2:53 PM by Brian H	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
"Fortunately we exist in ..." Nope; NECESSARILY we exist in a life-friendly universe. That's the irrefutable core of the weakest of weak anthropic cosmology. If you don't believe me, describe an alternative existence (for us). Anent the rest of what you say, I'll just interject my Definition Of The (Any) Brain: That organ responsible for devising means and justifications for doing what we feel like doing. ;)


	Re: Biocosm, The New Scientific Theory of Evolution posted on 02/10/2006 12:31 PM by zukunft	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
The problem is of course that we are always seeing the rest of the universe from our unique perspective. Perhaps we are just a tiny part of a much larger "life" organism or some other paradym that we can't even image. Clearly, intuition would cause us to speculate that entropy would favor disipation of order and not the possiblity of life and the apparent growing "intelligence" that we have observed in "our" universe. Perhaps we are just riding a wave in the ebb and flow of energy and matter in the the Universe, that favors the formation of "life"......... Perhaps there other many other Universes at much smaller or larger dimensions that are completely unavaliable to our current state of existence....


	Re: Biocosm, The New Scientific Theory of Evolution posted on 02/10/2006 3:26 PM by mind_Imminst	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
It is a fine theory, however, philosophically it doesn't seem all that novel to me. It is the same play, only this time with a couple different interesting actors. The philosophical end result of the selfish biocosm is the same as all other meta-theories of the universe. It is interesting that Fred Hoyle is mentioned in this article, because his elegant theory of constant creation ends up at the same philosophical conclusion that as the selfish biocosm, and it is stated clearly in this quote from above: "The inescapable implication of the Selfish Biocosm hypothesis is that the immense saga of biological evolution on Earth is one tiny chapter in an ageless tale...." The inescapable conclusion of all meta-theories of the universe is that it is "ageless". It has no beginning and has no end. Big Bang theorists have grappled with the question of what came before the big bang ever since the theory was first proposed. The answer is...something. Something came before, and something will come after. The selfish biocosm proposes that something intelligent came before and now has given birth to more intelligence/life, and we will repeat that process, ad infinitum.


	Re: Biocosm, The New Scientific Theory of Evolution posted on 02/10/2006 4:35 PM by dagonweb	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
This article says nothing. It is just a statement that pops up in the way the human mind works. It may be just a fata morgana, a misunderstanding. Eventually we may find the universe teeming with all sorts of statistical anomalies, including other lifeforms and including really weird things you would have no a priori idea they would exist.


	Re: Biocosm, The New Scientific Theory of Evolution posted on 02/10/2006 9:39 PM by Walter	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
It's interesting to see these ideas. But I think they don't really answer the ultimately biggest questions about the origins of the universe and the human beings. Who designs the so-called von Neumann elements of the universe??? Why there are good and bad in the universe & living beings? Why the universe and the living beings can't be perfect at the very beginning and no need for the so-called evolution? Maybe the universe (including human beings) is the Creator itself. All the so-called evolution is just for fun. Then the good and the bad in the universe (or in the human beings) are just part of the Creator. One funny thing I am thinking about is that human beings (or living beings) should not fight for the survival (or anything) because there are infinite resources in the (infinite) universe. In one sentence, all beings should get what they need and have the free lunches. (Well, then some people might ask what they should do, if not necessary to work or fight.) It just doesn't make sense that the beings are created or evolved to fight for the survival. Human beings should be born to know everything and get everything (including highest-level self-fulfillment) they need freely. It doesn't make sense that we need to gradually improve our world/universe through technology development.


	Re: Biocosm, The New Scientific Theory of Evolution posted on 02/12/2006 3:08 PM by island	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
<quote>It doesn't make sense that we need to gradually improve our world/universe through technology development.</quote> No, but it does make sense that we would need to progressively improve technology in order to keep up with time, per the second law of thermodynamics in an expanding universe. Supporting macroscopic evidence for this is apparent with our leap from apes to humans, where intelligence enabled us to harness fire, and to progressively tap into more difficult energy sources that we would otherwise not been able to touch. That's a valid, evidenced, "natural" design hypothesis. There are a growing number of scientists that are becoming aware of this, like Scott Sampson, museum curator, assoc. prof. of geology &geophysics at the Utah Museum of Natural History. http://www.edge.org/q2006/q06_3.html#sampson James Kay, Eric Schneider, and Dorion Sagan are also saying this: http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/edit/archives/2004 /09/30/2003204990 ...and I personally have independently derived this theory from physics which notes that... No desinger is necessary if information is never lost. The theory very simply explains causality, as well... among other things...


	Re: Biocosm, The New Scientific Theory of Evolution posted on 02/15/2006 12:03 PM by conrad	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
Hi Walter, Your thread resonates with some of my own considerations of the importance of this topic. This is what came to me after I read your piece. What is intelligence? That life should spontaneously arise from matter suggests that matter itself is intelligent (Gibb's free energy is a design feature). However it happened, here we are. Biologically driven behavior is clearly evident in the seperated twin studies (University of Minnesota, et al). Technology is essential to live long enough to transend biological drives as individuals (Homo Sapians) and manifest a culture of adults (Human Beings) sharing this precious gift of life. Consider the next astroid, global warming, the next ice age or a world war with the Moslems. Clearly, we need a lot more time to become the Human Beings we aspire to be. Read The Field, by Lynne McTaggart. We are One with the universe so it's not a surprise that it's 'life friendly'. You don't need black holes as an agent for evolution. The Zero Point Field is Here Now. The history of the world is; Plutocracy dominates Homo Sapian affairs. The evolution of Homo Sapian into Human Being is the current crisis and each us makes our contribution. What is your dream and how will you make it come true? Is it gratification of the bioself or service to Self (the Oneness that we are)? The question is: Are you the driver or the driven?


	Re: Biocosm, The New Scientific Theory of Evolution posted on 02/16/2006 4:33 AM by Walter	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
Hi. Conrad, I agree that there is something common between all non-living and living beings. Maybe it''s called intelligence or consciousness or whatever. I think there are some common connections between all microscopic and macroscopic objects/beings in the whole world/universe. Such common connections should enable us to find some way to change the whole world/universe just by pressing one button (of course, this is not the button to launch the nuclear weapons or WMDs). For example, we can press one button and all living beings become perfect and no need to do anything (like eating/sleeping etc.). In summary, all beings can become something like ''god'' in paradise. It''s like a magic. I am still thinking about how to do it. Maybe you think I am just dreaming. As long as we don''t really know why/how human beings come to this world, we can not rule out this possibility that we can change the whole world like a magic.


	Re: Biocosm, The New Scientific Theory of Evolution posted on 02/16/2006 9:39 AM by conrad	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
Hi Walter, I agree with your summary that 'all sentient beings are from the very beginning Buddha' (paraphrasing) and that the operative mechanism is magic (be careful what you wish for!). That the Devine in training requires its own realization precludes a 'button' solution to this demolition derby. Your observation that I might think you are a dreamer remainds me of John Lennon's 'Imagine'. The individual is sovereign and realizing the Oneness that we are is liberation. My own view on this has been to Be Here Now and wish that every heart be opened. Now I'll add to hit the Conscious of Conscience button. Thanks for the inspiration!!


	Re: Biocosm, The New Scientific Theory of Evolution posted on 02/19/2006 8:40 AM by Walter	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
Hi, Conrad, What you said is quite reasonable and maybe the probable way to improve this world/universe gradually. Unfortunately it (including technology) can''t really eliminate all misfortunes (including crimes, natural disasters, all kinds of bad things etc.) in this world/universe. Maybe people can only accept this world/universe ''as is'' and try to improve it through the so-called evolution (like technology etc.). But I think the best way to see the origins of the universe and the human beings is like a magic (no matter with the Creator or not). The so-called evolution can''t really explain such biggest questions. Maybe this magic still exists somewhere waiting for human beings to find it and change the whole world/universe again (like re-origin). The current world/universe is not a perfect one. Then this magic provides some parameters for human beings to adjust (that''s what I say ''pressing a button''). And the world/universe can become a perfect one after re-adjustment. As I said, the universe and the living beings should be perfect at the very beginning and no need for the so-called evolution. I don''t think human beings can only follow the so-called evolution gradually. There should be some way for human beings to change all microscopic (including smallest particles) and macroscopic objects/beings (including biggest galaxies and living beings) in the whole world/universe once and for all.


	Re: Biocosm, The New Scientific Theory of Evolution posted on 02/20/2006 9:51 AM by conrad	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
Hi Walter, Following your joy and your inspiration is the only way to be true to yourself. I've heard 'it can't be done' often enough only to see it accomplished to be weary of conventional wisdom. That the illusion of a separate self can be transcended by all sentient being is a Bodhisattva's vow. May karmic relations become complete, Here, Now!! This One wishes you joy and success.


	Re: Biocosm, The New Scientific Theory of Evolution posted on 02/11/2006 8:38 AM by hi1gamma	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
My thoughts approximately! Ubiquity of "life" which to me is an inexcusable term, where such as our assemblage of DNA in process, seeks hubris as a release. Our assembly of experiences achived issues forth with mathmatical predictablity, exactly the wondrousness of this article. Bravo for calling in round after round from those discomforted by your inexorably destined conclusion. DNA in its process, exponentially non exclusive, mimics pre-destination as conclusion after conslusion seems to be a new dawn, as opposed to simply one more day in the big bang's chronology. We as a part of the DNA process, as opposed to rare, are beginning to asymptotically arise to the conclusion, we are singularly not.


	Re: Biocosm, The New Scientific Theory of Evolution posted on 02/13/2006 12:56 PM by quizzical	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
Here's where I have problems. First the author sets up two objections to the Weinberg/Susskind theory that don't hold up. The first objection is that it's untestable. Just because something is untestable with the tools we currently have available doesn't make it untrue. The fault lies with the tools. So dismissing something as untrue simply because we can't test it is illogical. Second, the violation of the mediocrity principle is a red herring. Of course Weinberg/Susskind violates the principle, but again it's because we lack the tools to sample beyond our own universe. I can understand why a working scientist would devote his or her time to something that can actually be proven or falsified. But positing a theory whose reason for existing is the inadequacy of our tools seems to me philosopically unsound. My real objection to the Selfish Biocosm Theory, though, is that it appears to me to be another in a long series of scientific theories that boil down to "it's all about us". One by one, each of these "all about us" theories have been debunked. Earth was not created for the sole purpose of producing humans. The sun does not revolve around the Earth. If you define "us" as "life" - or rather "life as it is currrently understood by humans in this universe " - then the Selfish Biocosm Theory is just more of the same. This doesn't mean it's not worth pursuing; you definitely learn something by being wrong. It's just that I think we're once again barking up the same, wrong philosophical tree.


	Re: Biocosm, The New Scientific Theory of Evolution posted on 02/13/2006 1:23 PM by island	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
[i]The first objection is that it's untestable. Just because something is untestable with the tools we currently have available doesn't make it untrue. The fault lies with the tools. So dismissing something as untrue simply because we can't test it is illogical.[/i] No, but it is acceptable to object to using uproven theoretical speculation against the special implications of the anthropic principle, which fall from hard facts of the observed universe. It's a different story if said speculation ever produces any testable predictions, but until then... you're stuck with the observed universe when considering implications for specialness. I personally think that it's lame-science to automatically bi-pass the implications by reaching into an infinite sea of rationale in order to lose anthropic specialness, rather than to first make every effort to find out why they might be important to the physics of our observed universe. [i]My real objection to the Selfish Biocosm Theory, though, is that it appears to me to be another in a long series of scientific theories that boil down to "it's all about us". [/i] Not so much about us, really... it isn't commonly understood that the AP is actually biocentric, not geocentric, because it readily extends to, and cannot be restricted from every last banded spiral galaxy that exists on the same evolutionary "plane" as us, with respect to the requirement that we occupy a preferred place and time in the history of the universe. If there is some good reason why intelligent life is necessary to the physics of our universe, then it will be as "common" as the physical need requires. Not so special... it's more arrogant to think that we can separate ourselves from the process.


	Re: Biocosm, The New Scientific Theory of Evolution posted on 04/22/2007 3:05 PM by Brian H	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
Hah! As Hoyle observed, "The universe is a put-up job." Someday we'll figure out who did the putting. Maybe.


	Re: Biocosm, The New Scientific Theory of Evolution posted on 02/13/2006 5:29 PM by rsp123	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
So, like the chickens and eggs, life is simply a universe's way of creating another universe? A case of: what came first, life or the universe? As others have commented, this does beg the question: Where, or rather, when did this all start? Do we need to rethink time too? Certainly elevates intelligent design to a whole new level.


	Re: Biocosm, The New Scientific Theory of Evolution posted on 02/14/2006 12:18 AM by Cadymom	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
One question about Gardner's assumption: Who's to say the progression is toward greater intelligence? Whence we came is an as-yet imponderable and to where we are going. Is going from human to machine intelligence greater intelligence? If humans or machines destroy their own island, is that going to greater intelligence?


	Re: Biocosm, The New Scientific Theory of Evolution posted on 02/15/2006 9:46 PM by man-down	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
I just have one question, how many of you geniuses have read The Singularity Is Near? I just finished reading it and it makes the Selfish Biocosm theory seem brilliantly fitting.


	Re: Biocosm, The New Scientific Theory of Evolution posted on 02/15/2006 5:42 PM by hughbristic	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
I just don't get this line of thinking. Isn't the universe, by definition, all there is? As such, on what basis do you assign a probability value to it being the way it is? Positing extra universes that are completely cut off causally from "our" universe seems a non-theory with no testable consequences--even in principle. He compares his theory to Darwin's and to those who have expanded on it. There is a big difference though. Our planet is one of a set of all planets in the universe and, thus, you can find confirming or diconfirming evidence for the likelihood of our particular planet being the way it is and the reasons why. For instance, if Kauffman and others are right, then as we explore the universe, we should find it teeming with life. If not, that argues aginst his theory. What could count as a testable consequence of the Biocosm theory? It seems he considers a falsifiable test to be that, if it is true, life should be abundant. This is a consequence of Kauffman's ideas, not his. All these cosmological natural selection theories make the unstated and, in principle, unprovable assumption that our universe is one of a set of universes in an effort to explain why our universe is the way it is given it is so unlikely. The only problem is, it only seems unlikely if you posit other universes. This is extravagently unnecessary and circular. The eventual suffusion of the universe with intelligence due to factors like Kauffman's autocatalytic set theory, game theoretical considerations, and Kurzweil's Law of Accelerating Returns is an interesting hypotheis. It's exciting and may have a great deal of explanatory power. However, that deals with the knowable world. The Biocosm goes beyond that into metaphysics. As an aside, I find his constant name-dropping to be an unseemly and irrelevant distraction from an honest evaluation of his ideas. I mean, who cares what someone who won the Templeton prize thinks? All that means is some rich eccentric with an agenda thinks you can lend an air of respectability to his unconventional ideas.


	Re: Biocosm, The New Scientific Theory of Evolution posted on 02/15/2006 8:41 PM by someday69	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
Well Ive spent like 4 1/2hrs reading this one thread,and I did'nt even start by readin the theory at the top/that started it,,,cause I thought oh-I'll get the gist of it by reading the responecs,,yea well,As usuall I get lost,but I push on,,really liked Island's stuff,so I went to his web site,,Man,,I got about 1/2way down the first page,,Its great but,even thou I went to wikapedia,and looked up the meaning of entropy,,which I must say did kinda clear up a few things,,,I got'a say,,,So far Im still stuck with my intuition,and Hopefull-imageination,,from my life as a hippy-now 57yr old-work'in man/servant-,, I still gota hope that there are other humaniods,,who have already made the trip to and throu the singularity--They finally came to the conclution that,they wanted to See the actuall Glory of God/see his/her face--ect,ect..So they ,make the trip,,but to get there,,they have to go throu so many changes,,,and the trip itself ,,Well anyway,,,when they finally Get There,,,its really lights them up,,,Totally moves them,,and they realize SOoo much,,,,Then they turn around,,and go back ,,,in search of doing his Will,,,(doing Good),,,,happy ending...someday. But just because Im slow to learn,,just means,that a computer thats really user friendly,,will help me understand What all you gifted people already know,,,someday...


	Re: Biocosm, The New Scientific Theory of Evolution posted on 02/16/2006 1:49 PM by island	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
Entropy is essentially just a measure of the disorder of a system, or of the non-availability of heat energy for work, "someday69". Hang in there and keep learning... you'll get it.


	Re: Biocosm, The New Scientific Theory of Evolution posted on 02/16/2006 8:46 PM by AsuraWeapon	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
black holes, as common astronomy has defined them, are still not definite features of our universe... i have not read Biocosm, but assuming that black holes do in fact exist and that they are the greedy "end of information", how does one even gather that they birth a new cosmos? i find mediocrity principle to be lacking as it assumes that life as we know it in our limited capacity, (be it either our Earthly confines or our human intellects) is the ONLY kind of life, and that perhaps that we (as a form of life) are the peek function and thus most complex construct of universal machinery... i believe that the double helix, is merely a circumstantial pattern much like a crystal lattice... given the right environment and resources, both can replicate... i also believe that there lies a possibility that infinitely more complicated patterns exists beyond our own set of blue prints which could yield results that we would fail to recognize as life at all... so, i find the mix of eternal chaotic inflation and the weak anthropic principle more analogous to my own beliefs...


	Re: Biocosm, The New Scientific Theory of Evolution posted on 02/17/2006 1:15 PM by island	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
AsuraWeapon said: black holes, as common astronomy has defined them, are still not definite features of our universe... i have not read Biocosm, but assuming that black holes do in fact exist and that they are the greedy "end of information", how does one even gather that they birth a new cosmos? Not that I see this as necessary, but it's called, "Black hole bounce". Scientific alternatives to the anthropic principle, by Lee Smolin: http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0407213 Black hole bounce results from quantum modifications on a 'classical' black hole collapse. Instead of collapsing down to a singularity, the black hole, at some point, begins to expand'producing a new region of spacetime that is not causally connected with the universe in which the black hole was originally formed. It is, in fact, a new universe. Smolin says: A multiverse formed by black holes bouncing looks like a family tree. Each universe has an ancestor, which is another universe. Our universe has at least 1018 children, if they are like ours they have each roughly the same number of their own. AsuraWeapon said: i find mediocrity principle to be lacking as it assumes that life as we know it in our limited capacity, (be it either our Earthly confines or our human intellects) is the ONLY kind of life, and that perhaps that we (as a form of life) are the peek function and thus most complex construct of universal machinery... There is good reason why "life as we know it" is the only kind of life that is expected, and the principle of mediocrity actually only applies to galaxies that are on the same evolutionary "plane" as we are. i believe that the double helix, is merely a circumstantial pattern much like a crystal lattice... Who said that a crystal lattice is "circumstantial"...? given the right environment and resources Like saying... "given a crystal principle, instead of the weak anthropic principle", which is like saying nothing. both can replicate... i also believe that there lies a possibility that infinitely more complicated patterns exists beyond our own set of blue prints which could yield results that we would fail to recognize as life at all... You have to have more than "possibilities" when you're challenging known facts of the observed universe. Got any proof? so, i find the mix of eternal chaotic inflation and the weak anthropic principle more analogous to my own beliefs... I find that eternally increasing entropy via an evolutionary universe, make a lot more sense in context with the known facts of the observed universe.


	Re: Biocosm, The New Scientific Theory of Evolution posted on 02/17/2006 3:20 PM by AsuraWeapon	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
"Black hole bounce results from quantum modifications on a 'classical' black hole collapse. Instead of collapsing down to a singularity, the black hole, at some point, begins to expand'producing a new region of spacetime that is not causally connected with the universe in which the black hole was originally formed. It is, in fact, a new universe." i was unaware of that theory... thank you... "Smolin says: A multiverse formed by black holes bouncing looks like a family tree. Each universe has an ancestor, which is another universe. Our universe has at least 1018 children, if they are like ours they have each roughly the same number of their own." if that's just from observation, the number is definitely up for adjustment as new "bodies" are found all the time... so, what math gathered roughly 1018 blackholes have been born or will be born? "Who said that a crystal lattice is "circumstantial"...?" sorry, for a lattice to continue, it must be in the right environment... that's "circumstantial"... it's common knowledge that different materials form in different environments based on pressure, gravity, temperature, etc, even if they have common elements... oh, sorry, i think i just got your point that the actual seemingly random circumstances were all part of universal design... "Like saying... "given a crystal principle, instead of the weak anthropic principle", which is like saying nothing." i don't follow? "You have to have more than "possibilities" when you're challenging known facts of the observed universe. Got any proof?" you can hardly say a lot of what is said is "known fact" since it's just another competing theory based on mathematical and astronomical observation of objects inconceivably far away... and besides, i hardly said my belief was the be-all-end-all truth of the universe... it is what i "believe"... it's part of my philosophy as i find the random formation of order in chaos much more believable than some grand design that provides for the machinations of order perceivable by us, and the machinations of us... it just lends itself too close to theology in my opinion... "I find that eternally increasing entropy via an evolutionary universe, make a lot more sense in context with the known facts of the observed universe." entropy to disorderly chaos? or entropy to uniform chaos? evolutionary universe as in one that promotes the formation of life and its evolution (for what purpose does life help the birth given by a black hole if that's the goal?) or one that evolves as a whole (if so, could you explain)? ... and if sentient life (like us) still beckons to reproduce and exist as we do, does not are desire to live go against the "order" of a universe that will ultimately end? again, i hadn't heard of Biocosm or similar theories until yesterday, so please let me know to what end does a a universal blueprint need life?


	Re: Biocosm, The New Scientific Theory of Evolution posted on 02/17/2006 5:39 PM by island	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
"i" asked: "Who said that a crystal lattice is "circumstantial"...?" asuraweapon says: sorry, for a lattice to continue, it must be in the right environment... that's "circumstantial"... it's common knowledge that different materials form in different environments based on pressure, gravity, temperature, etc, even if they have common elements... oh, sorry, i think i just got your point that the actual seemingly random circumstances were all part of universal design... The weak anthropic principle is about environmental enablement. "i" said: "Like saying... "given a crystal principle, instead of the weak anthropic principle", which is like saying nothing." asuraweapon says: i don't follow? The WAP is about environmental enablement. "i" said: "You have to have more than "possibilities" when you're challenging known facts of the observed universe. Got any proof?" asuraweapon says: you can hardly say a lot of what is said is "known fact" since it's just another competing theory based on mathematical and astronomical observation of objects inconceivably far away... and besides, i hardly said my belief was the be-all-end-all truth of the universe... it is what i "believe"... it's part of my philosophy as i find the random formation of order in chaos much more believable than some grand design that provides for the machinations of order perceivable by us, and the machinations of us... it just lends itself too close to theology in my opinion... No, it's just thermodynamics. "i" said: "I find that eternally increasing entropy via an evolutionary universe, make a lot more sense in context with the known facts of the observed universe." asuraweapon says: entropy to disorderly chaos? or entropy to uniform chaos? evolutionary universe as in one that promotes the formation of life and its evolution (for what purpose does life help the birth given by a black hole if that's the goal?) or one that evolves as a whole (if so, could you explain)? ... and if sentient life (like us) still beckons to reproduce and exist as we do, does not are desire to live go against the "order" of a universe that will ultimately end? again, i hadn't heard of Biocosm or similar theories until yesterday, so please let me know to what end does a a universal blueprint need life? Here's the deal and what I "believe" from physics that fixes Dirac's flawed Large Numbers Hypothesis, which is where Robert Dicke got his anthropic coincidence from comes from, so it necessarily completes and clarifies the anthropic principle: There is a long pre-existing cosmological model that treats negative energy states as having negative pressure, where... P=-u=-rho*c^2 In this model, the energy density of the vacuum is less than the matter density, so particles don't arise until vacuum energy gets condensed down over a finite enough area of space to attain positive matter density. In this case, the antigravity effect of the negative pressure vacuum mimics the effect of Dirac's negative mass states, which takes modern physics all the way back to 1917: http://www.lns.cornell.edu/spr/2005-06/msg0069755. html In Einstein's static model, G=0 when there is no matter. The cosmological constant came about because we do have matter, so in order to get rho>0 out of Einstein's matter-less model, you have to condense the matter density from the existing structure, and in doing so the pressure of the vacuum necessarily becomes less than zero, P(less-than)0. The most obvious way to create new matter in Einstein's model, (the most compatible with the spirit of general relativity), also holds it flat and stable, so any other conclusions that have been made since Einstein abandoned his notion without this knowledge, are therefore subject to suspect review, because he could have rejected arguments against his finite model based on the above. Tension between the vacuum and ordinary matter grows as the vacuum expands, because the increase in negative pressure that results from rarefaction of the vacuum energy, gets offset by the increase in positive gravitational curvature that results from particle creation in this model. So tension grows until the forces that bind the finite closed spherical universe are compromised and the universe has ANOTHER Big Bang. Causality... and the second law of thermodynamics is never violated when you make massive particles from negative pressure energy. Boom, what happens to the need for inflationary theory if the universe has volume when a big bang occurs? It becomes null and void. This simple physics very simply resolves ALL of the problems on this page if you think about it for about two seconds: http://zebu.uoregon.edu/~imamura/209/mar31/anthrop ic.html ... and it also solves all of the problems on this page, with just a little more thought: http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/General/open _questions.html Simple thermodynamics... ;)


	Re: Biocosm, The New Scientific Theory of Evolution posted on 02/25/2006 12:40 PM by AsuraWeapon	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
that's all very well and good, but if life is condoned by universal mechanics; big bangs and black holes and big collapses or sans them all, for what function is it life-friendly?


	Re: Biocosm, The New Scientific Theory of Evolution posted on 03/21/2006 9:05 PM by grantcc	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
If the Earth is so "life friendly" how come over 90% of all the species that ever lived on Earth have gone extinct? We survive because we adapt to nature rather than nature adapting to us. But the process of adapting means those that don't adapt die. We're what's left of all the deaths that have gone before us. Like the embers of a fire, we glow for our hour or two and then die out. As it is for individuals, so will it be for societies and species and worlds. We are, after all, made of the same stuff. The coding of our DNA is shared with all life forms on this planet. The materials our DNA uses to create and perpetuate the life forms here on Earth come from the earth itself. When we leave the Earth, we must, of necessity, take a bit of the Earth with us in the form of food, water, air and the life forms within us that allow us to process these materials. Or else, we take a bit of the Earth and spit it out in the form of an automated space ship and a robot. Otherwise, we would not be able to travel except on Earth. A space ship is just a bit of the Earth we take with when we go to explore our universe. But how can we think of changing something so large and complex as the universe when we can't even live outside the environment we've adapted to over the past few billion years? To me it's ludicrous to think about creating new universes when we can't even manage the world we live on. Grant


	Re: Biocosm, The New Scientific Theory of Evolution posted on 03/24/2006 1:15 PM by island	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
There is no requirement that we have a conscious desire to affect the symmetry of the universe for it to be true. Our inherent lust for energy drives us to accomplish this, so there is cosmolgical evidence that we are here for this purpose, since the near-"flatness" of the universe is the most apparently significant of all of the anthropic coincidences. This identified, "significant effect" indicates that intelligent life will be as common in the universe as the need demands, and at the expense of any other forms of life that get in the way including individuals and groups of the same species, if necessary. That's all that's necessary to make for a valid, evidenced, scientific hypothesis, either, you recognize the potential significance or you don't, and then you go from there. You certainly won't find anything if you don't look, but it is highly probable that evolutionary theory is related to the theory of everything and the evolution of the universe if the anthropic principle is true for the above reasons, because the end result of the effect that we have is a universal scale evolutionary leap... in at least one valid cosmological model. It is entirely logical that evolutionary theory would be related to the evolutionary process of the universe if the interpretations for anthropic specialness are true for the mentioned good physical reason for it. In this case, the TOE becomes the ToE, because it explains why the forces can't be unified, since characteristics or traits are "convolved" inherently forward, per the second law of thermodynamics, and evolutinary theory.


	Re: Biocosm, The New Scientific Theory of Evolution posted on 07/09/2006 7:18 AM by Redakteur	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
If the Earth is so "life friendly" how come over 90% of all the species that ever lived on Earth have gone extinct? No one ever said that Earth was "species-friendly!"


	Re: Biocosm, The New Scientific Theory of Evolution posted on 02/20/2006 10:06 AM by adepthus	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
nice :)


	Re: Biocosm, The New Scientific Theory of Evolution posted on 03/25/2006 8:12 AM by Dan+Demi	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
Nay. What was it that sparked the beginning of the evolution of the Biocosm? Many human minds over-extent organic relativity, because they want to use all knowledge to satisfy themselves somehow. I take it -- that they do not believe in more then one reality?... Well, once things reach a certain level of absurd, I can't argue against them, it's useless. I will simply state: The existence of our universe proves that a universe can exist. The initiation of our universe shows that a universe can be created. If it happens once, it can happen again. If it can happen, then it eventually will happen. Infinite universes and realities of every possible kind exist -- but we are limited to our own dimensions, reality and universe. There is nothing special about our reality, and there are far better realities in existence, much like everything in existence having a better, but arrogance snuck into universal theories -- and now many believe that they are the only reality, in the only universe, the superior life form, created by God, etc. I say: Nay. Biocosm is false.


	Re: Biocosm, The New Scientific Theory of Evolution posted on 03/25/2006 12:31 PM by island	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
I take it -- that they do not believe in more then one reality? Praise be to the god, "infinity"... where universes are better than ours... and you won't ever die... lol, er... Amen, I mean Well, once things reach a certain level of absurd, I can't argue against them, it's useless. Um, no, that's not the way that science works. Infinities are only necessary and permissible if a less complex theory can't resolve the same problems, or if it can't resolve the problem with as much accuracy. In science, if there is no theoretical need for it, then it does not exist, unless you have proof, which of course, you have NONE!


	Re: Biocosm, The New Scientific Theory of Evolution posted on 03/25/2006 2:33 PM by Dan+Demi	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
If you don't like my reply then that's your choice. What if life, they ask in the spirit the great Belgian biologist and Nobel laureate Christian de Duve, were not a cosmic accident but the essential reality at the very heart of the elegant machinery of the universe? Why isn't there life on more planets then earth? Why are all of the other planets so dead [as far as we can see]? You launch yourself into space, and see how much the universe was meant to support life! Humbug, rubbish! Measurements and dimensions don't exist anywhere other then in our heads. They are tools and comparisons in the mind. All physics and math is a man-made tool meant to understand and predict the behavior and preportion of our observable universe. Relativity only exists because of mutual origin. Physical "laws" don't even exist, but are the general behavior of what is. These "laws" where not "fine-tuned" or "random" -- they simply are. "Random" is only that which humans cannot predict. Does this mean that random events are blind? No, they all have cause and reason, whether we are aware of that cause/reason or not.


	Re: Biocosm, The New Scientific Theory of Evolution posted on 03/25/2006 4:59 PM by island	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
<i>If you don't like my reply then that's your choice. </i> No, it's the scientific method for determining the preferred theory. You can ramble on about what you believe about structure and randomness until the cows come home if you want to, but this means nothing to science if yours is not the preferred theory for some very good reason besides the fact that you think it ought to be that way. Otherwise... your just praying


	Re: Biocosm, The New Scientific Theory of Evolution posted on 04/19/2006 2:30 PM by dubmarine	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
can everyone please stop personifying the universe , its annoying ! we the people are a component of the universe ,it was not "created" for us ! any creative force is yet another component of the universe one that should be integrated into our understanding not venerated by us ! dub


	Re: Biocosm, The New Scientific Theory of Evolution posted on 04/19/2006 5:06 PM by /:setAI	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
can you be sure? http://www.simulation-argument.com/


	Re: Biocosm, The New Scientific Theory of Evolution posted on 05/12/2006 8:48 AM by ptgalt	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
As interesting as the Biocosm hypothesis is, it seems to me to be riddled with flaws. I haven't read the book, but the essay doesn't explain why a super-advanced civilization would want to go about creating black holes to generate causally-disconnected "baby" universes, life-suitable or otherwise. The only motive that seems obvious or inevitable to me would be colonization--creating a place where they could go to escape their own, dying universe. If this is their motivation, then our universe would have been flooded with extra-cosmic immigrants advanced beyond our wildest imagination. Surely the presence of such a supremely powerful and vast supercivilization could not go unnoticed. In the absence of a "practical" motivation such as this, we're left to posit something else, like "they wanted to perpetuate Life" or "they wanted to have 'children' evolve after them." True, a civilization could have such motives, but then again, it could not. Since the goal of the Biocosm hypothesis is to propose some "inevitable" reason why our universe should have the physical constants it does, relying on cultural values of an alien civilization (which are, ultimately, chosen and somewhat arbitrary) does not, IMO, accomplish the goal. Also, as I see it, the entire edifice rests on a very shaky foundation--"M-theory." It seems to me that so much of what passes for "cosmology" and "physics" these days is not much more than experimentally untestable, and extremely arcane neo-Platonic philosophy promulgated by a Priesthood initiated into the inscrutable mathematics of their Order. This mathematics is in turn based on ancient Greek geometry, e.g. the "one-dimensional lines" that are looped to form the "strings" of "string theory." As brilliant as the ancient Greeks were, there is no guarantee that their geometry represents the actual "coordinate-system" of Universe, any more than Ptolmaic astronomy represented an accurate picture of the Solar System. To the contrary, it can be argued that ancient Greek geometry does not reflect the nature of experientially/experimentally-comprehended reality and is therefore inaccurate as a Universal coordinate-system. See Buckminster Fuller's "Synergetics" vols. I and II for a thorough debunking of Greek geometry and a full explanation of an alternative geometrical system whose development resulted in the discovery of practical applications such as the geodesic dome and the octet truss. As an example of the fallacy of Greek geometry, consider the "one-dimensional" loops that form the "strings" of string theory--entities that have length (in this case, circumfrence) but not height or width. It is an observational fact that no measurement in Universe can be smaller than the Planck length. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck_length) The Uncertainty Principle of quantum mechanics rules out the possibility of defining a smaller measurement, even in principle. The Planck length is 10^-33 cm, an extremely small though quite concrete distance. From this, a "string" or other object having a thickness (i.e. height/width) of less than 10^33 cm cannot exist. If this is correct, then the entire theoretical (and experimentally untested) edifice built upon these "strings"--including the seven "extra" dimensions, the "branes" of brane theory, the multiverse, etc. collapses. It does not make sense to me to construct a cosmology based on entities that can exist only in Plato's World of Forms and call it anything other than a philosophy. Speaking of philosophy, Gardiner states a debatable philosophical premise as fact: Have I introduced a new anthropocentrism into the science of cosmology? If so, then you should be suspect on this basis alone of my new approach because, as Sigmund Freud pointed out long ago, new scientific paradigms must meet two distinct criteria to be taken seriously: they must reformulate our vision of physical reality in a novel and plausible way and, equally important, they must advance the Copernican project of demoting human beings from the centerpiece of the universe to the results of natural processes. First: Since when is Sigmund Freud any sort of an authority to be "taken seriously" in physics? Second: Why must a new vision of physical reality necessarily "demote" human beings to be considered valid? This is no more valid than to state as an a priori assumption that a valid physical theory must "promote" human beings before it can be taken seriously. I see no reason to accept either postulate as an axiom. Third: Who says Copernicus (and by derivation, the "Copernican project") "demoted" human beings? This is a very common assumption, but IMO it stems from a vast misunderstanding of the meaning of both the Copernican cosmology and the Ptolmaic one it replaced. The usual spin goes something like this: "Before Copernicus, people believed that humans resided at the center of the universe, and were therefore entities of paramount importance. Copernicus demonstrated that humans do not exist at the center of the universe, and therefore, humans are insignificant." A quick look at one of those old woodcuts of the Ptolmaic/medieval vision of the Universe dispels the first half of that notion. True, Earth is at the "center," but what is portrayed at the periphery? GOD! And if you look closely at the medieval conception of Earth, you will see that beneath the surface there are nine concentric inner spheres or "circles" going inward, just as there are the seven "heavenly" "circles" or hollow spheres radiating outward with God and his "Heaven" beyond the final boundary. And what is in the very center of these nine inner spheres? SATAN, enthroned in the Ninth Circle of Hell! So, if we take this modern gloss on the pre-Copernican cosmology as true, then the Medieval Catholic Church must have believed that Man was more important than God and the Angelic realms intermediate between the Seventh Heaven and the Earth, and that Satan was more "central" still! This is absurd on its face. A religion that once preached "mortification of the flesh" such as self-torture, fasting and radical asceticism--and still teaches that humans are, by nature, miserable sinners rightfully deserving of eternal torture by virtue of being born human--can hardly be offered as a philosophy with an over-inflated sense of humanity's position in Universe. Before Christianity, the Greeks held to a dualistic view in which the heavens operated according to different, more "perfect" laws than the Earth. The heavenly bodies, all spherical and embedded in nested spheres (because the sphere is a "perfect" geometric shape) "had to" move in circles because circles were "perfect." Furthermore, the "perfect" heavens did not run down in terms of motion as things down here in the "imperfect" world did (e.g. if pushed, a wagon will eventually stop unless further force is applied, while the Sun and planets just keep going 'round and 'round). Thus, the Ptolmaic/Medieval cosmology did not place man at the "center," but at the bottom of a Universe in which cosmic relevance increased with "height," i.e. distance from the "center." Which is why "higher" is still synonymous with "better" and "lower" with "worse" in our language to this day. The "Copernican" cosmology (which would not have replaced Ptolmaic cosmology without Kepler and Galileo) proposed that, rather than being at the bottom of the cosmic heap, Earth was a heavenly body like the others, and that the same "laws" applied to Earth as to the other bodies. No longer was Earth "below" the heavens and under the heel of a cosmological tyrant. The Biblical notion that "The heavens are My [God's] throne, and the Earth is My footstool" was empirically refuted. At a stroke, humans became heavenly beings. Kepler also demonstrated that the heavenly bodies did not move in "perfect" Ptolmaic cirles, but in ellipses. The "Heavens/earth" duality was banished. Perhaps one could argue that for humans not to be cosmologically defined as sinners and slaves of a Big King Up There represents a "demotion," but that's a debatable proposition to say the least. True, Earth does not appear to be a cosmological "special place." But in the medieval cosmology, the "special place" was the "higher" realms in the Heavens, not the Earth. By abolishing the notion of a certain "special place" in Universe the "Copernican Project" has defined our Solar System as the cosmological equal of any other. Thus, the notion that a valid scientific theory must "demote" humans is only one possible (and in my opinion, highly questionable) interpretation of the meaning of the Copernican Revolution. Hardly an axiom! This is not to say that a valid scientific model must "promote" humans either. There is no evidence that cosmology exists to humiliate or exalt humans. To suggest either is the very "anthropocentrism" scientists claim they reject. Furthermore, to derive from Copernicus' discovery that there can be no "special places" up to and including Universe itself (hence, there must be lots of universes in order to make "this one" ordinary) is a non-sequitor of literally astronomical proportions. After all, Earth orbits in a narrow solar "sweet spot" that makes it "just right" for life to exist. The sun itself is a "Goldilocks" star of the right size, duration, elemental composition, and degree of stability to make its planetary system an abode for life. We could just as easily derive from this that there are, in fact "special places" in Universe, and that our Earth is in one of them. Therefore, the notion that our Universe is "special" ceases to be a problem. The Copernican Revolution can be interpreted to provide at least two different viewpoints: 1) There are no "special places" in all of existence, humans are insignificant because they're not at the Cosmic Center (there is no such place), therefore a proper scientific theory must define humans as insignificant. 2) Earth is a heavenly body. There is no "higher" or "lower." Humans are cosmological equals of all other beings in Universe (though some may be technologically more advanced, others less). What "special places" do exist are those suitable for the formation and sustainence of Life--and we're in one. Therefore, a proper scientific theory must define all Life as "special," yet equal in a cosmological sense to other Life in Universe. Other viewpoints could, of course, exist, such as: "Evaluating the significance of humans by their physical "place in Universe" is just plain silly. "Significance" is something only intelligent life-forms can come up with, and a given species' evaluation of its "significance" is a product of its culture and philosophy, not science or cosmology." In other words, using "Copernican" postulates such as "there must be lots of universes so ours can be ordinary" as an a priori foundation for a cosmological world-view is philosophy or religion, not science. Further evidence that much of modern cosmology is neo-Platonic philosophy dressed in equations can be found in some of the epicycles used to prop up the Big Bang theory. It was originally proposed that Universe had to be "flat" (i.e. there would be just about enough matter/gravity to balance the outward expansion of the Big Bang) so that structures like galaxies and stars could form instead of spreading out too rapidly as radiation and gas or collapsing too quickly into a Big Crunch. Then it was observed that there was nowhere near enough luminous matter to counter universal expansion. And so, "Dark Matter" was born. Though there are some definite examples of unseen gravitating objects (detectible when we see a luminous object orbiting an invisible body, or light being "lensed" around an unseen object), these do not provide anywhere near the needed amount of invisible matter. It turned out that in order for the Universe to conform to the Priesthood's equations, that well over 99% of Universe had to be composed of invisible "Dark Matter." And so, the search for "Dark Matter" began. We learned of entirely new (and undetected) kinds of matter with entertaining names like WIMPS and MACHOS. Even though the cosmos is supposed to be chock full of the stuff, it's all "out there" somewhere, not here in our Solar System where it can be observed. Hence, the return of duality in physical law. There's the matter that we can experience "down here," and there's all that Exotic Stuff Up There defined into existence by the Priesthood's holy equations. Then it got even worse: we found out that the rate of cosmic expansion is accelerating rather than slowing, or so it seems. So now we have "Dark Energy," a new cosmic epicycle to prop up the Big Bang theory. Then throw in the other epicycles like "Inflation" (a magic force that switched on and off at just the right times to make the gigantic cosmic super-structures unpredicted by the original Big Bang theory possible, again invoked by the arcane equations of the Adepts) The Big Bang seems--to me at least--an extremely rickety construct of the same sort of a priori "pure Reason" philosophizing that gave us the Ptolmaic cosmology and hindered the advancement of experimental science for 2000 years. It is plausible and accepted (IMO) largely because cosmologists are basing their theories on the ancient Greek geometrical coordinate system which was derived not by observing and experimenting in reality, but by a process of "pure Reason" that dealt with a Higher Realm of "Essences" and "Forms" rather than the gritty "reality" in which we mere humans lived. As a result, modern cosmologists are being led by their ancient progenitors down a much more elaborate and arcane version of the same blind alley that produced the dogmas of Ptolmaic cosmology and Aristotelian physics. In short: GIGO.


	Re: Biocosm, The New Scientific Theory of Evolution posted on 05/23/2006 9:27 PM by anyguy	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
I read the other article of the author as well. as a layman, I assuume all this connects with 2nd law of TD. Am I wrong?


	Re: Biocosm, The New Scientific Theory of Evolution posted on 09/02/2006 10:03 PM by cyspace	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
I find the article very interesting and very frustrating. It seems that you've had some good ideas but seem quite reluctant or unwilling to let go of terra firma (speaking speculatively) or terra career (speaking politically). In no particular order: 1. You say: "...The essence of the Selfish Biocosm hypothesis is that the universe we inhabit is in the process of becoming pervaded with increasingly intelligent life'but not necessarily human or even human-successor life...." and "Under the theory, we share a possible common fate with that hypothesized community'to help shape the future of the universe and transform it from a collection of lifeless atoms into a vast, transcendent mind." I observe in these statements a common presumption I'll label (loosely)'duality' - that is, it appears taken for granted (by you) that the universe we are alive within is (a) not itself alive (and you can't YET prove it conclusively one way or another); and/or (b) that, somehow, if it is alive, our life (e.g. human life on planet Earth) is divorced from it. I.E. That if the uiverse is alive it is ANOTHER (different from us) living creature, and that we are not ourselves creatures that are a functioning, elemental part of it as a larger life form. (As you or someone else analogized, think of us as mitochondria). I don't argue for or against the presumption, I do argue that it has been made by you in one direction (and many modern 'scientific' others) and this presumption is central to many of your views (however unconsciously). The assumption or presumption by many, however decorated by others they are, doesn't make the presumption fact or true in reality, though it may be "true" in the 'model logic' being used to model reality. Some folks will argue (as several have in the comments) that a brief look outside of the 'window' and into the universe serves to demonstrate how hostile it is to "life". I think that kind of view is both arrogant and short-sighted. The "view" of much of the life that comprises our own individual selves would reach much the same conclusion if they (cells and intracellular bodies like mitochondria, for example) had the capacity to look outside of their environment (into the body general), and certainly, outside of the body itself. They'd find a"universe" 'infinitely' larger than the environment they inhabited and implacably hostile to their independent existence (the key view being of course "independent"). Which leads me to: 2. Compared to humans who live (on average), say, 80 years (for discussion purposes), the life of a a mayfly that is born, lives, reproduces, and dies in a 24 hour period, is almost incomprehensibly short. One year of life for us has seen some 300 mayfly generations come and gone. In comparable terms it's as if a single individual might know a human from some 24,000 years ago - and then every single one of their direct descendants right through to today (if they were paying attention, how many of us watch mayflys so avidly?). And that would not have begun to scratch the timespan over which such a creature lived and spread its attention. What's my point? Your Von Neumann controllers and duplicators (a model or idea, and hence an abstraction of a certainly more complex reality) could be far more different than your current beliefs and present imagination permit. Consider the possibility (much explored in science fiction) that the universe is not only alive in a fundamental sense (and hence inheres levels of intelligence in the very fabric of space itself as well as in energy and matter) and that, differently, yet possibly relatedly, solar masses (Stars) are alive - beings with a range of sentience. If so, we (humans) would be rather like mayflies (in terms of comparative time frames) who come and go across the seasons of a field (planet) and occasionally (like locusts) strip it bare or kill it (for awhile). Maybe we are paid attention by such awarenesses as and when we begin to manifest 'interesting' effects. Again, I don't argue for or against this idea. I do argue that your view is very narrow in its apparent life/non-life take of the universe, and of what nature that life can be. The Milky Way alone, only one of 30 or so galaxies in our "local cluster", has at today's rough count, some half a trillion (with a 'T') suns. If they were a form of life, might your view and the considerations you were discussing look a little and be a little different? I think the real challenge is not the discussion itself, interesting as it is and your point of view in it, but yours and other belief systems in this matter, which leads me to: 3. You say: "...And testability is the hallmark of genuine science, distinguishing it from fields of inquiry like metaphysics and theology..." "...Falsifiabiliy or testability of claims, remember, is the hallmark of genuine science, distinguishing it from metaphysics and faith-based belief systems...." And so they are. Or so it seems. Arthur C. Clarke said it best in his 3rd Law which states: 'Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.' We live in a world whose present technologies would have had many of us burnt at the stake, or locked in an asylum, even a mere hundred years ago (1900: The 20th century built upon the 19th, but when the 20th century began there was no air conditioning, no insulin, neon lights, atomic energy, MBAs, teabags, nylon, robots, traffic signals, cornflakes, sonar, man-made plastics, lasers or crossword puzzles. There were no cell phones, no aircraft, nor airlines, no radio, radar, microwaves, antibiotics, automobiles, medical x-rays or television, nor electron microscopes, movie theatres, canned beer, aerosol spray cans or computers. And in 2000, France was getting 80% of its power from an energy source that was unknown in 1900. Germany, Switzerland, Belgium and Japan were getting more than 30% from this source, unknown in 1900. Remember, people in 1900 didn't know what an atom was. They didn't know its structure. They also didn't know what an airport was, or a rocket, a satellite, an MRI, ICU, IUD, IBM, IRA, ERA, EEG, EPA, IRS, DOD, PCP, HTML, internet. interferon, instant replay, remote sensing, remote control, speed dialing, gene therapy, gene splicing, genes, spot welding, heat-seeking, bipolar, Prozac, leotards, lap dancing, email, tape recorder, CDs, airbags, plastic explosive, cars, liposuction, transduction, superconduction, dish antennas, step aerobics, smoothies, twelve-step, ultrasound, nylon, rayon, Teflon, fiber optics, carpal tunnel, laser surgery, laparoscopy, corneal transplant, kidney transplant, AIDS' None of this would have meant ANYTHING to a person in the year 1900. They wouldn't know what you or I were talking about. And a lot of what we were talking about would have landed us in serious trouble, or worse. We aren't a bit different, despite how inflated we feel about having copped a feel in the twentieth century of 'really' understanding the basic physical laws of the universe. In truth our understanding remains primitive at best. For now. All this is simply to say is that as much as any religious fanatic, today's scientists remain also very much blinded by their belief systems, paradigms, and professional practices - as any student, practicing scientist or academic professor (in any scientific field) with ideas different enough from 'the mainstream' can tell you. Career and compensation suicide (i.e. belief systems in institutional practice) are far more powerful influencers and restrainers of the best ideas these days than whether or not the idea put forward is as you put it 'falsifiable' or 'testable'... - as anyone, for instance, who posts "radical" on the physics preprint servers can attest. To repeat and re-emphasize your comment here: "...Falsifiabiliy or testability of claims, remember, is the hallmark of genuine science, distinguishing it from metaphysics and faith-based belief systems...." Not at all. The distinction is a moving schizoid child of politics, beliefs, practices, and results. In order to put in the effort to falsify or test claims, results, etc. both your belief system and your professional practice have to permit (intentionally used) that, and if so, permit the dissemination of results (can anyone spell 'peer review' - yes it has good aspects as well as). Usually they (personal and professional belief systems in practice) do not permit that kind of enquiry (hence the definition of 'mainstream'), which is why scientific paradigms in the last 200 years have mostly changed when the older leaders have literally popped their clogs (died off), or are forcibly changed thru some crisis, or the revealed 'new truth' is so devastating of the old, or sufficiently so, or just so plain useful, that it cannot be ignored. So before falsifiability or testability, it pays to ask which set of belief systems are doing the falsifying and testing, because they'll have built in, and in a definite sense, arbitrary historical constraints (compare the belief systems of Russian vs. American physical scientists - where one fears to tread (belief-wise), the other has boldly gone - I'll leave you to say which is which :-)). In summary: You're not carrying your ideas out far enough; You're still married to the "universe dead/we're alive" point of view; and to our still quaint 21st century notions of what can be. Step out a whole lot further. Personally, I think the real revolution in science will come when we start opening up minds, train them "open" instead of "closed", and apply our best efforts to intrinsically accelerating them. Our "best" idiot savants, scientists, and artists reveal just a little of what we're capable of. Then, perhaps, the other lobe of the singularity will come into view: as much as our machine systems are curving towards something, so can we - cognitively and biologically - we haven't begun to scratch the surface on what WE could be if we manifest and develop our potential. And we can exponentiate as far out as any future AI can, if we develop ourselves.


	Re: Biocosm, The New Scientific Theory of Evolution posted on 09/06/2006 9:31 AM by B-Punk	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
Anyone seen the film 'Three colours red', French fim, nice, about equations and patterns, signs that guide....


	Re: Biocosm, The New Scientific Theory of Evolution posted on 09/06/2006 1:25 PM by Julian Wise	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
The hypothetical details you provide as to how the universe enables evolution are very interesting, but the overall premise that "the universe we inhabit is in the process of becoming pervaded with increasingly intelligent life" is far from a new theory. It has been the subject of many recent books like "Decoding the Universe" by Charles Seife and "Programming the Universe" by Seth Lloyd, as well as older books like "Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life" by Daniel C. Dennett. Your premise that "highly evolved intelligent life forms" enable a universe where presumably equally intelligent life forms could also evolve is the fundamental presumption of the Mormon religion: http://scriptures.lds.org/en/dc/93/29#29


	Re: Biocosm, The New Scientific Theory of Evolution posted on 09/06/2006 2:01 PM by 7and7is	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
Yup but more interestingly-try thttp://www.setaihedron.com/IT%20from%20qubit.htmh is-


	Re: Biocosm, The New Scientific Theory of Evolution posted on 09/06/2006 2:04 PM by 7and7is	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
I'll try again-http://www.setaihedron.com/IT%20from%20qubit .htm


	Re: Biocosm, The New Scientific Theory of Evolution posted on 09/12/2006 4:27 PM by mindx back-on-track	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
back-on-track


	Re: Biocosm, The New Scientific Theory of Evolution posted on 08/03/2008 10:23 PM by Falcooon	[Top] [Mind·X] [Reply to this post]
I walked away from this article with the impression that the universe (as we know it now) is just the current step in universal evolution, and the mean by which it reaches this end (universal replication) is intelligence. Right so far (I hope so)? If this is true, then is it intelligence that creates the universe? In the prior universe did some intelligent force reach such, for lack of a better word, intelligence, and learn how to create a universe, following suite of a seemingly infinite stretch of time of universal reproduction? Did it do this to save or recreate a universe that was flawed? Or on the same line of thought, will our universe eventually reach a death point, by which time the prevailing intelligence of our universe will save it by creating a new universe? One designed to be better then the current one? This implies that the universe is increasingly becoming more stable after the work of countless remakes by prevailing intelligences. Which begs the question, what is a perfect universe?

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