On 02/02/2007, at 11:02 AM, Robert G. Seeberger wrote: > > Well....that is pretty much what I was getting at, that chemistry > might not be possible in some configurations. Or that even atoms might > not be possible. > WRT that, I think it is a valid question.
Sure, but there will also be many many different ways of producing matter and chemistry. There'll be a whole range of values that'll allow complex reactions, and there'll be values that are much more favourable to life than ours. > > > >> might be able to form life on one >> tiny speck amongst all its vast space, and that life might say >> "isn't >> it amazing, this universe seems perfect for life". To take >> Douglas >> Adams' puddle a step further, it's like a shower of rain in the >> middle of the Sahara and a tiny puddle formed in a hollow of rock >> saying that it seems to fit the hole perfectly, even as the rest of >> the desert is parched and the puddle itself is evaporating in the >> sirocco. >> > > That is certainly true and I agree. If there is chemistry there is > always some potential for life. But if there is no chemistry in a > universe it would likely be an uninteresting place. (Though there > could be room for some sort of sapience quite different from our own.) > > I think I understand your objections. Such discussions tread quite > close to the playground of the ID crowd and I'm not interested in > their fanciful ontologies. Precisely. It's a bit close to the argument that you can calculate the probability that a particular protein forms by chance and use that as an indication of how ridiculously improbably evolution is, when in reality you can change up to 40% of the amino acids in many enzymes and they can still perform a similar function (or a different one...). Or a small change might produce a totally novel function (as with the sudden appearance of nylonase). The point is, there's nothing special about any particular configuration. So yes, I do bristle a bit at similar phrasing on the "fine-tuning" of the universe. > > What I'm actually interested in knowing is if the daughter universes > "inherit" the physical properties of the parent universe or if they > are a complete reformulation of a timespace from scratch. That's a far more interesting line of thought and I know you were heading that way. It's something the black-hole-to-daughter-universe crowd have speculated on, Brin has alluded to it, Baxter has written a novel based around it. Yes, if daugter universes have very similar but not necessarily identical properties to the parent universe, then lineages of universes that produce more universes will produce more universes than ones that produce less... (sorry that's sort of tautological, but you know what I mean). But unless there's some sort of max limit on universe numbers and therefore there are frequencies of properties, then it's all a bit meaningless as there's no selection, and that's the bit that would allow the relative succuss to be manifested. Basically, as soon as one property is unbounded (like infinite space to expand), then evolution just doesn't work as evolution is a change in the relative frequencies of measurable properties of a replicating system over time. However, that we're in a universe of matter and chemistry might then be easier to understand as a lineage of universes producing matter and chemistry would lead to daughters of matter and chemistry. Charlie _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
