The Cosmological Darwinist?

The last discussion this topic, Razor and the Multiverse, yielded: a) laughter and/or useless comments, b) insufficient discusssion, and c) whether or not we should take Occams's Razor so seriously.

This forum then, is designed to discuss proof for or against cosmological darwinism plus the issue of testability. Now, Lee Smolin is largely responsable for putting forward such a notion. Let us examine his statements and arguments (as found on http://www.universaldarwinism.com/documents/Scientific%20Alternatives%20to%20the%20Anthropic%20Principle.pdf):

1. Testability: As opposed to anthropic answers which may be deemed unsatisfactory (not here to debate about this point too strongly), according to Lee Smolin this theory has advantages in this respect alone:

"

It is important to emphasize that the process of natural selection is very different from a

random sprinkling of universes on the parameter space

P. This would produce only a

uniform distribution

random(p). To achieve a distribution peaked around the local maxima

of a fitness function requires the two conditions specified. The change in each generation

must be small so that the distribution can ‘climb the hills” in

F(p) rather than jump

around randomly, and so it can stay in the small volumes of

P where F(p) is large, and

not diffuse away. This requires many steps to reach local maxima from random starts,

which implies that long chains of descendents are needed....

The hypothesis that the parameters

p change, on average by small random amounts,

should be ultimately grounded in fundamental physics. We note that this is compatible

with string theory, in the sense that there are a great many string vacua, which likely

populate the space of low energy parameters well. It is plausible that when a region of

the universe is squeezed to Planck densities and heated to Planck temperatures, phase

transitions may occur leading to a transition from one string vacua to another. But there

have so far been no detailed studies of these processes which would check the hypothesis

that the change in each generation is small.

One study of a bouncing cosmology, in quantum gravity, also lends support to the

hypothesis that the parameters change in each bounce[48]."

As for proof:

Lee Smolin explains in this article how black hole birth as predicted by his outlined theory supports known evidence for current data concerning low energy physics:

"

The study of conditions 1) to 4) leads to the conclusion that the number of black holes

produced in galaxies will be decreased by any of the following changes in the low energy

parameters:

•

.

•

will destabilize helium and carbon.

•

itself, will destabilize helium and carbon.

•

itself, will destabilize helium and carbon.

•

will destabilize all nuclei.

•

, the strong coupling constant, will destabilize all nuclei.

•

of order unity will decrease the energy output of

supernovas. One sign will lead to a universe dominated by helium.

Thus, the hypothesis of cosmological natural selection explains the values of all the

parameters that determine low energy physics and chemistry: the masses of the proton,

neutron, electron and neutrino and the strengths of the strong, weak and electromagnetic

interactions.

However, explanation is different from prediction. These cannot be considered independent

predictions of the theory, because the existence of carbon and oxygen, plus long

lived stars, are also conditions of our own existence. Hence, selection effects prevent us

from claiming these as unique predictions of the theory of cosmological natural selection."

Criticisms answered:

"

Several arguments were made that

S is in fact contradicted by present observation [49,

50, 51]. These were found to depend either on confusions about the hypothesis itself or

on too simple assumptions about star formation."

Lee Smolin then goes on to put forth other objections which he answers which build the case of falsifiability along the way.

Another link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmological_natural_selection#Fecund_universes 

describing two other criticisms to Smolin's ideas:

"

In a critical review of The Life of the Cosmos, the astrophysicist Joe Silk suggested that our universe falls short by about four orders of magnitude of being maximal for the production of black holes.^[5] In his book Questions of Truth, the particle physicist John Polkinghorne has another difficulty with Smolin's thesis, in that one cannot impose the consistent multiversal time which would be required to make the evolutionary dynamics work, since otherwise short-lived universes with few descendants would dominate long-lived universes with many [sic]"

I do hoever think that with such criticisms, being properly met or not, we can validly say that cosmological darwinism is a scientific theory and testable.

I was thinking at least Math Magician would have tried to attack this by now :)....

sorry, hadn't looked yet...lol

ok, i have heard the argument that the constants are just right...  however, there is another possible answer, which is that they were set that way by God...

just an example of how the same evidence can be used different ways!

Also, i fail to see how this is testable???

1. As for God...I am not arguing against His existence at all...but to say here as you do that God made the constants just right is just like saying that God made life...which is possible but of course there are always materialstic explanations as well.

2. As for testability, it is dicussed at length in the first post as a way to distinguish between the probability of distributions for universes, for example.

For Darwinism to apply, you need a few general conditions.

1. Representation of functional information (eg genetic code)
2. Reproduction of this information (passing genes to offspring)
3. Random alteration of information (mutation)
   
   In addition it helps (but is not essential) if another condition applies.
4. (optional, but helpful) mixing of information between different instances (sexual reproduction)

Could you describe how well the theory complies with these?

Via the budding off of baby universes from black holes whose fundamental constant parameters ought to differ. Such an idea has ideas of reproduction and mutation but no real direct analogue of natural selection. But this may be also accounted for by the process of altering the constants: that is, universes who go on to live and make black holes but pass on detrimental constants will have their offspring meet early heat death, for example.

The last point, however, I have never seen properly adressed (although it may have been but I doubt it). It's nice to see that at least one other person has thought of this. This idea of an analogue of sexual selection and also the problem of time are the main hurdles to overcome for cosmological darwinism.

errrm - just how do you arrange for a baby universe to come from a black hole?  And also, what evidence do we have for this?  Oh, and why should a black hole produce a universe with different constants?

Just some thoughts...

Inflation (which we have evidence for) is likely to be a process easily to account for the budding off of universe. As for black holes making universes with different laws, this is fairly easy to see. We know current physics breaks down in black holes (they have singularities). Either they have singularities or we will find an accurate quantum mechanical description for what occurs in black holes, which would very likely just result in the same weird transition. Recall that one can even attempt to compute the wavefunction of our whole universe...the point is that these are not leaps of faith or big deals.

I was surprised this did not draw more fire from anyone.

I am trying to get my cousin to join Chess.com and ENM, I think he would find this discussion interesting, and you may find his perspective also interesting. He is well versed in Philosophy.

That would be nice :)