Lester Burnham
Cancelled
- Jul 9, 2013
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- AFL Club
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This radio show (audio or transcript) has an interesting discussion about whether the universe is fine tuned for life and the different varieties of anthropic principle.
This caught my eye
The future existence of a Godlike entity opens up some interesting possibilities.
A entity capable of processing an infinite amount of information would be able to create complex virtual realities in which the inhabitants would not be aware that they were in a virtual universe. We could be in one right now.
If the fate of the universe is to one day begin contracting, collapse back on itself and return to a single point - the Big Crunch - could some extremely sophisticated form of intelligence and technology meddle with that? It would seen unlikely, but we consider the problem as intellectual short people compared to the being(s) that might exist in ten billion years.
If the Big Crunch is inevitable would this lead to a new Big Bang from singularity? Or does it lead to a Big Bounce as proposed by scientists such as Martin Bojowald and Peter Lynds. Bojowald claims that some properties of the universe that collapsed to form ours can be determined - a quantum bridge. This
video explains the physics of Loop Quantum Cosmology (skip to about 8.30 for Big Bounce, discussion of whether the universe will collapse at 16.00). Could a super intelligent and powerful entity create the conditions that sets up fine tuning after the big bounce? Or does the existing fine tuning remain - leading to another universe that evolves towards consciousness?
This caught my eye
Paul Davies: The problem about whether the observable universe can ever become all-knowing, that is omniscient, depends on whether it can process an infinite amount of information in the future of the universe that is left. Now in many cosmological models that's the case, but our present evidence suggests that the rate of expansion is getting faster and faster and under these circumstances basic physics says that there will be some sort of horizon in space that will form and this horizon will prevent, even in principle, an infinite amount of information from being processed. It means , in effect, one loses track of anything that follows beyond that horizon. It's like a black hole inside out. If that was the case then any super being or super intellect however powerful would only be able to process a finite amount of information and so therefore think a finite number of thoughts and have a finite number of experiences. But that conclusion rests on the assumption that the universe is going to go on accelerating. But we don't know that, it could be that in the very far future the rate of acceleration is going to diminish and the size of the horizon will grow larger and larger. And under those circumstances there will be no limit to the amount of information that could in principle be processed within a given volume of the universe.
In other words, if the universe does not expand forever, at some point an infinite amount of information will be able to be processed. A finite universe would be evolving towards a supreme point of complexity and consciousness. It's not a God in the religious sense, existing outside space and time. It's a scientific phenomenon. As Arthur C. Clarke said 'Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic'.
The future existence of a Godlike entity opens up some interesting possibilities.
A entity capable of processing an infinite amount of information would be able to create complex virtual realities in which the inhabitants would not be aware that they were in a virtual universe. We could be in one right now.
If the fate of the universe is to one day begin contracting, collapse back on itself and return to a single point - the Big Crunch - could some extremely sophisticated form of intelligence and technology meddle with that? It would seen unlikely, but we consider the problem as intellectual short people compared to the being(s) that might exist in ten billion years.
If the Big Crunch is inevitable would this lead to a new Big Bang from singularity? Or does it lead to a Big Bounce as proposed by scientists such as Martin Bojowald and Peter Lynds. Bojowald claims that some properties of the universe that collapsed to form ours can be determined - a quantum bridge. This
video explains the physics of Loop Quantum Cosmology (skip to about 8.30 for Big Bounce, discussion of whether the universe will collapse at 16.00). Could a super intelligent and powerful entity create the conditions that sets up fine tuning after the big bounce? Or does the existing fine tuning remain - leading to another universe that evolves towards consciousness?