Why is the universe life friendly?

[Swede]

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 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 would lead to an unrecognizable and uninhabitable universe.”


If we put to one side theological approaches to this ultimate issue, what rational pathways forward are on offer from the scientific community?

http://www.kurzweilai.net/meme/frame.html?main=memelist.html?m=1%23656

[baldguy]

1. Why is a bundt cake always the same shape as the bundt pan?

Same reason.

[Swede]

4. His hypothesis of inteligences in the far distant future using black holes

as a blueprint to reproduce universes that are life-friendly is something I'm gonna have to chew on for awhile.

[Mz Pip]

2. Is it?

Who knows how many times this Big Bang happened? Maybe it's gone through this cycle, expanding and collapsing, in and out, for eons we can't even imagine to get to this place where the condidtions are right on this one little planet that we were lucky enough to evolve on. We don't know if we are alone in the universe or not.

Perhaps the universe is teeming with life. Then again... We can only speculate. I doubt we will ever know.

But we're here and we can do what we can with the fraction of a second in the grand scheme of things that we have or we can blow it.

Mz Pip
:dem:

[Conan_The_Barbarian]

5. I know

but it's a secret.

[leftofthedial]

3. it's still young and naive

[Porcupine]

6. Evolution, the other kinds of universes don't reproduce

universes with intelligent life eventually get somebody smart enough to start new universes. Of course they model the physical rules of the new universe on the universe that they live in.

Once started universes are self perpetuating if properly designed.

[Swede]

8. You actually read the article!

His hypothesis makes mankind even smaller,just one more kick at the can in one corner of one universe.

[Porcupine]

12. Um, no. I recall a conversation from the radio

about desktop lab experiments that create possible pre-universe conditions and seed universes. It inferred that a properly contrconstructed seed universe would be self sustaining drawing on the hypothesized "dark matter" energy grid.

The rest is obvious if you've read enough science fiction. Will read article tonight.

[Swede]

13. His hypothesis still boils down to who made the makers.

If chance is 10 to the 500th power to one against a universe that creates life,then who made the makers?

[Porcupine]

16. Until we can see what the other universes look like....

we'll never know if there are "makers." We cannot percieve beyond this bubble we call "the universe."

[lumberjack_jeff]

7. Because no one was around to contemplate the nature of the other universes.

[toddaa]

9. Which article are you referring to on Kurzweil's site?

Skimming through the titles, I don't see anything arguing for the anthropic principle. Am I missing something?

[Swede]

10. The Physical Constants as Biosignature By James N. Gardner

He names some other scientists that aren't scoffing at his hypothesis.

[toddaa]

11. Need more coffee

The second one on the list and I missed it. Thanks

[THUNDER HANDS]

14. how do we know it's the first big bang?

how do we know this isn't the millionth big bang, and there have been humans in existence for billions upon billions of years and we're all just repeating the same cycle, like a cosmic 8-track.

[toddaa]

15. Gardner's hypothesis is untestable

This is what happens when somebody reads a bunch of popular science books and suddenly thinks he's a scientist. It's a clever idea, but it's nothing more than teleology dressed up with string theory buzzwords made palatable for people who don't believe in God.