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Life, Intelligence, and the Selection of Universes

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Evolution, Development and Complexity

Part of the book series: Springer Proceedings in Complexity ((SPCOM))

Abstract

Complexity and life as we know it depend crucially on the laws and constants of nature as well as the boundary conditions, which seem at least partly “fine-tuned.” That deserves an explanation: Why are they the way they are?

This essay discusses and systematizes the main options for answering these foundational questions. Fine-tuning might just be an illusion, or a result of irreducible chance, or nonexistent because nature could not have been otherwise (which might be shown within a fundamental theory if some constants or laws could be reduced to boundary conditions or boundary conditions to laws), or it might be a product of selection: either observational selection (weak anthropic principle) within a vast multiverse of many different realizations of physical parameters, or a kind of cosmological natural selection making the measured parameter values quite likely within a multiverse of many different values, or even a teleological or intentional selection or a coevolutionary development, depending on a more or less goal-directed participatory contribution of life and intelligence.

In contrast to observational selection, which is not predictive, an observer-independent selection mechanism must generate unequal reproduction rates of universes, a peaked probability distribution, or another kind of differential frequency, resulting in a stronger explanatory power. The hypothesis of Cosmological Artificial Selection (CAS) even suggests that our universe may be a vast computer simulation or could have been created and transcended by one. If so, this would be a far-reaching answer – within a naturalistic framework! – of fundamental questions such as: Why did the big bang and fine-tunings occur, what is the role of intelligence in the universe, and how can it escape cosmic doomsday?

This essay critically discusses some of the premises and implications of CAS and related problems, both with the proposal itself and its possible physical realization: Does CAS deserve to be considered as a convincing explanation of cosmic fine-tuning? Is life incidental, or does CAS revalue it? And are life and intelligence ultimately doomed, or might CAS rescue them?

Many worlds might have been botched and bungled, throughout an eternity, ’ere this system was struck out. Much labour lost: Many fruitless trials made: And a slow, but continued improvement carried out during infinite ages in the art of world-making.

—David Hume (1779)

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Acknowledgments

This paper is partly based on Vaas (2009b, 2012a). I am grateful to Anthony Aguirre, Juan García-Bellido, John Leslie, Andrei Linde, Lee Smolin, Paul Steinhardt, and Alex Vilenkin for discussion over the years as well as Angela Lahee, André Spiegel, and Jenny Wagner for their kind support. Thanks also to John Smart and Clément Vidal for motivation, the invitation to contribute, and their very valuable suggestions. Scientific speculation and philosophy of science and nature are often dangerous fields but useful and thrilling nevertheless for getting ideas, criticism, and motivation to struggle against the boundaries of experience, empirical research, established theories, and imagination. As Carl Sandburg once wrote: “Nothing happens unless first a dream.”

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  1. bild der wissenschaft, Leinfelden-Echterdingen, Germany

    Rüdiger Vaas

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  1. Rüdiger Vaas
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  1. Department of Physics, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, MA, USA

    Georgi Yordanov Georgiev

  2. Acceleration Studies Foundation, Los Gatos, CA, USA

    John M. Smart

  3. Department of Biology, Institute of Zoology, Molecular Evolutionary Biology, University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany

    Claudio L. Flores Martinez

  4. Department of Life Sciences, Centre for Culture and Evolution, Brunel University London, Uxbridge, UK

    Michael E. Price

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Vaas, R. (2019). Life, Intelligence, and the Selection of Universes. In: Georgiev, G., Smart, J., Flores Martinez, C., Price, M. (eds) Evolution, Development and Complexity. Springer Proceedings in Complexity. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-00075-2_3

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