You know and I know that at this point in time, our Universe is inhabited. Even if nowhere else in the cosmos, Planet Earth is host to terrestrial life, from the humble bacteria through to plants, invertebrates, fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals. In terms of sheer numbers of species and total biomass, microbes and insects rule the roost, though humans alone pat themselves on the back. However, the Universe didn’t start off with any life, especially human life. This puts the kibosh on a certain brand of quantum metaphysics, the brand that encompasses the role of the observer and the role played by probability.
I think everyone would agree that before they were thought of in anyone’s philosophy, the Universe existed. You’d agree that the Universe existed before humans existed, unless you’re one of those fundamentalists who interpret the Book of Genesis literally, and even then there were a few days for the Universe to enjoy a pre-human existence. If you’re not one of those extreme right wing all-things-literal Christians, then you’d go along with the Universe existing before life, any kind of life, arose on Terra Firma (or anywhere else in the cosmos for that matter). You’d also have to go along with the notion that the Universe existed before the Earth (and therefore the Sun and solar system) existed, since the parent (the Universe) has to exist before the offspring (Earth, Sun and solar system). In fact, to bring this string to its logical conclusion, the Universe existed even before our home parent galaxy, the Milky Way existed.
The origin of our Universe via that Big Bang event was roughly 13.7 billion years ago. Our own galaxy didn’t come into its own until three plus billion years post Big Bang. Planet Earth (plus Sun and solar system) came about some 4.5 billion years ago; the first stirrings of what we’d call life happened on Earth within a half a billion years of Earth’s origin event. If you want to equate life in the Universe with life on Earth (terrestrial biology is the proverbial IT), then the Universe has been lifeless for the first 9.7 billion years of its existence.
Our Universe is bio-friendly otherwise we wouldn’t be here to discuss the issue. That’s often termed the Weak Anthropic Principle. A bio-friendly Universe is a Goldilocks Universe, albeit a dangerous Goldilocks Universe with lots of places that are too hot or too cold or otherwise not quite right and not quite bio-friendly. But, any port in a storm.
But before life was thought of in anyone’s (not that there was anyone) philosophy, we’re certain that:
* Chemistry still happened.
* Stars still shined and photons still did their photon thing.
* Gravity still grabbed; Black Holes still formed.
* Radioactivity decay still proceeded.
* Neutrinos still whizzed their merry way along the cosmic byways and pathways.
* Electrons still quantum hopped from orbit to orbit giving off and absorbing energy.
* Quarks still carried on their threesome relationships inside protons and neutrons.
Okay, there clearly was a time when the cosmos was lifeless and the above were cosmic truisms. There clearly might come such a time again if Planet Earth is the proverbial IT when it comes to the life part of “life, the Universe and everything”. Humans aren’t immortal; Planet Earth isn’t immortal, and as I said earlier, the Universe can be a dangerous place. Perhaps humans don’t even need assistance from the Universe at large to bring about their extinction and the extinction of all life on Earth. If life on Earth goes kaput, then:
* Hurricanes, tornadoes, thunderstorms, blizzards, floods and droughts will still happen on Terra Firma.
* Volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, avalanches, Ice Ages, tsunamis, meteor impacts, erosion, mountain building, and continental drift will still happen on Terra Firma.
* The tides will still ebb and flow; the Moon still waxes and wanes.
Now the $64,000 question is why is a lifeless Universe of any interest whatsoever? The answer is “observers”, or in the case of a lifeless Universe, “no observers”.
Many, especially the religious, think the Universe had a purpose, and that was to be fruitful and produce life, intelligence and consciousness, a way of the Universe being able to contemplate its own navel. That’s often termed the Strong Anthropic Principle. Most scientists give that the thumbs down on the grounds that the Universe just is. The Universe doesn’t have a consciousness, or a deity controlling it, and therefore the cosmos can’t have a purpose to its existence, nor a ways and means that it can consciously direct itself toward such a goal.
However, many quantum physicists suggest that the Universe cannot have achieved a reality until such time as observers (life) appeared to give the Universe reality. That’s often termed the Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum mechanics. The idea is that all possible realities exist in a state of superposition and only one becomes reality when someone actually observes and forces the numerous possibilities down to one certainty. All possible realities are grouped together and termed the probability wave-function or wave of probability. When crunch-comes-crunch and someone peeks, Mother Nature is forced to make a decision, the wave-function collapses and one and only one certainty results.
Until life appeared then, the Universe was in a superposition of all possible realities, a wave-function that was a composite of all possibilities. That first observer hence collapsed the wave-function of near infinite possibilities down to one reality. Or is that just so much bovine fertilizer?
Now between the time of the creation, that Big Bang event some 13.7 billion years ago, and the time of that first observer arising, the cosmos expanded and evolved. Stars formed, solar systems formed, galaxies formed, and so on. Now all that suggests that there was one reality, one chain of events, and a causality that was universal – the Universe was not in a composite of all possible states of reality even while no life existed. It’s silly to think that that ever first proto-cell billions of years ago determined the single structure or reality of the Universe we see around us today. For observers to have come into being, the Universe had to have already been in a state of being. Therefore, the Copenhagen Interpretation of all things quantum is utter nonsense.
So, does the Universe exist even if nobody is looking? Yes! Did the Universe exist even when there was nobody to look? Yes! Are observers relevant? No!
Having settled the observer question, let’s move on to the next phase.
To be continued…
No comments:
Post a Comment