A Universe Without Life: Part Two

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. However, the Universe didn’t start off with any life, especially human life. This puts the kibosh on a certain brand of quantum philosophy, the brand that encompasses the role of the observer and the role played by probability.

Continued from yesterday’s Part One blog…

In a universe without life, it’s probably pretty meaningless to talk about concepts like free will. Then there’s that whole sackful of concepts related to good-and-evil like morals, ethics, sin, badness, righteousness, etc. and as such there’s no need for the concepts of heaven or hell. As such, scratch salvation, redemption, forgiveness, or damnation.

There are no emotions, suffering, pain, sorrow, pleasure, consciousness, or psychology. There’s obviously no disease.

There’s another bagful of concepts like the afterlife, reincarnation or resurrection that can go by the boards. Speaking of the latter, there’s no such thing in a lifeless universe as miracles. There is no such concept required like survival of the fittest; there are no wars, no death, and certainly no taxes! There were no soft science concepts around like society, culture, education (no homework), politics and government (no politicians), no economics (no bills), no religion (no thou shalt nots), no philosophy (who needs angels and pins), history (all those names, dates and places) and no environmental issues that needed addressing. There was no beauty (and no ugly either). In short, that pre-life era – that was what is known as the really good old days!

There’s one other important contrast between a lifeless universe and the universe that, in this case specifically contains and singles out humans and human concepts, and that is probability.  

Probability or uncertainty (two sides; same coin) dominates our existence. What odds my next child will be a female? What odds the next time I fly the plane will crash? What odds I win the lottery this week? What’s the probability I will be promoted this year? What’s the probability that I am normal, being of average height, weight, age, etc.? Even in science as performed by humans, probability or uncertainty dominates. Every measurement has error bars. Every forecast has some degree of uncertainty. Even the Sun rising tomorrow is not absolutely guaranteed (though I wouldn’t lose any sleep over that unlikely event). Every theory can ultimately be found to be wrong or incomplete. And just where is that damn electron anyway?

The fundamental question is, is probability an intrinsic property of Mother Nature like mass and gravity, or is it a human invention; a human concept? IMHO, there are no error bars in Mother Nature’s reality. Mother Nature knows the temperature is this, not around this but within this range. Mother Nature notes it will rain tomorrow, not just a chance of showers. Mother Nature knows that the Sun will rise tomorrow even though it will go nova the day after that. Mother Nature knew that Einstein’s theory of gravity was more precise than Newton’s theory of gravity millennia before Newton or Einstein was conceived of in anyone philosophy. And Mother Nature knows exactly where that damn electron is because the electron is. 

Any observer, via instrumentation or via the five senses, usually has to interpret what that observation actually represents – it’s not always obvious. If it was, science would have concluded its work decades ago, or just be engaged in refining things from the tenth to the twelfth decimal place. Interpretation – the choice between two or more possibilities – well that’s weighing probabilities.

* We’ve all observed a cat rubbing its head along an object. What’s the probability the cat is putting its scent on the object or the probability does it have an itch to scratch?

* We might have observed a boat passing away from us and disappearing over the horizon. Is this because the Earth is probably round or did the boat probably sink?

* In quantum physics, observations suggest a wave-particle duality. But is it more probably a wave or is it more likely a particle? 

* Is that unusual light in the sky probably an alien spaceship or is it probably a weather balloon?

* Does viewing a sunrise suggest t you that the Sun probably goes around the Earth or that the Earth probably is rotating around its axis?

* You spot that tornado on the horizon – maybe it will miss you or maybe it won’t. What are the odds? It certainly can’t both hit you and miss you at the same time and place.

* Is Pluto probably a real planet or isn’t it (and does it even cosmically matter)?

* My friend has a cold. I have a cold. Did I probably catch his or did he probably catch mine or was there probably something contagious in the meal we shared several nights ago?

* That Sasquatch I saw. Was it probably too much to drink or was it probably real and if it was real was it probably a bear or was it probably an unknown primate?

* Did the apple fall to earth because it’s probably seeking its natural place or was it probably due to an external force called gravity?

* Is Schrodinger’s cat probably dead or probably alive? It can’t be both simultaneously despite what quantum physics suggest.

* Why is the night sky dark? Is it probably because the Sun’s not shining in the sky at night or probably because the Universe is expanding or probably because there’s only a finite number of stars and galaxies giving off light.

* Why did the chicken cross the road this morning? You may not know (though you can probably come up with a half-dozen possibilities) but the chicken probably does.

There’s little doubt in my mind that to all of these probably observations there is but one answer(s). In many cases we’ve sussed out the answer(s). We don’t have the answer(s) in all the cases. I say answer(s) because there can be more than one answer acting jointly, like there really was a Sasquatch and yes, you were also really, really drunk; yes the Earth is round, but yes, the boat sank as well. But its an either/or certainty of an explanation(s), not a bit of both ways by sometimes probably having your cake and sometimes probably eating it too, probability, as in sometimes the apple falls to earth because it is seeking its natural place and sometimes it falls to earth because of gravity; or that Pluto is a planet on odd days or in months containing an “R” and not a planet on even days or non-“R” months; or sometimes the night sky is dark because the Sun isn’t in the sky, but at other times the night sky is dark because the Universe is expanding and at yet even on other occasions its only dark because there’s only a finite number of stars and galaxies.

The bottom line is that the Universe isn’t governed by probability. Given identical sets of circumstances or conditions, the outcomes remain the same. Observers and observations are irrelevant. That’s made crystal clear during all those millennia the Universe was observer-free.   

A Universe Without Life: Part One

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…

UFOs: The Lucky Generation? Part Two

There are some pro-UFO ETH (extraterrestrial hypothesis) believers who state that aliens have only recently arrived on Earth in response to modern human activities, like our nuclear weapons detonations. Sceptics counter that it’s unlikely in the extreme that 1) aliens could have gotten from there to here that quickly, and 2) the odds that we current humans would just happen by chance be the lucky generation, after four and a half billion years have passed Earth by in cosmic isolation, to now experience for the very first time on-site cosmic company are astronomically against. So, are we the lucky generation to be the first graced by E.T., or not?

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

The 1947 Scenario Gives Way To - The Once Upon A Time Scenario:

If bona-fide UFOs are extraterrestrial visitations, then it’s highly improbable that our generation would be the generation to be privy to said visitations. In all probability, such visitations should have and would have extended back into historical times, ancient times, and pre-historical times; in fact they could extend right back to when Planet Earth was just a lifeless ball of solidifying molten rock.  They – the extraterrestrials - could have taken an active role in shaping terrestrial evolution from nearly the year dot, all the while considering themselves stewards of Planet Earth.

If one accepts the idea that UFOs are extraterrestrial spaceships, and one accepts the idea that extraterrestrials have been around for quite some considerable time (‘ancient astronauts’ anyone), then one can and should extrapolate back in our planet’s history even further and postulate that they might have been around for most, if not all of our geological history. How so?

Once upon a time, nearly fourteen billion years ago, our Universe began – exact how and why is not relevant to the scenario that follows.

Shortly thereafter, in cosmic terms, now some ten billion years ago, natural physical processes like gravity produced our Milky Way Galaxy (and lots of others besides, but they don’t feature in this scenario).

Within our galaxy, in fairly short order, lots of super-massive first generation stars blew up as supernovae creating and spreading the heavy elements required for biology – oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, etc. - through interstellar space. Those heavy elements became incorporated in second generation stars, some of which in turn became supernovae, further enriching what became third generation stars, of which our Sun (Sol) is but one of many.

By the time our own third generation star, Sol, formed with accompanying solar system and it’s third rock from the star (Planet Earth), four and a half billion years ago, our Milky Way Galaxy was already five and a half billion years old, yielding more than enough time to have generated extraterrestrial life, extraterrestrial intelligence, and extraterrestrial intelligences with advanced technologies capable of subluminal interstellar space travel.  

My basic premise therefore is that at least one, probably many, extraterrestrial civilizations have boldly gone and voyaged out into interstellar space even before our own star, solar system, and home planet ever existed, and that trend continues.

The time it takes to explore all our galaxy’s nooks-and-crannies would be a tiny fraction of the age of our galaxy. Translated, Planet Earth would have been charted billions of years ago.

That being the case, it’s logical to assume that there is at least one advanced and adventurous interstellar venturing extraterrestrial civilization currently in our here and now; probably one or more from in we include our historical past and probably hundreds extending throughout our prehistory; even more throughout the lengthy eons of our geological history,  four and a half billion years worth - translated, no matter how you slice and dice it, we (i.e. – Planet Earth) have received multi-thousands of visitations over our four and a half billion years of existence.

Based on speculative calculations by scientists interested in extraterrestrial life, ballpark numbers suggest that Sol, our solar system and Planet Earth should have received or expected, on average, a random visitation by advanced boldly going extraterrestrials every one hundred thousand years (so suggests astronomer Carl Sagan) to an even greater once in every ten thousand years (according to physicist Edward Condon).

Even varying the random frequency visitations downwards by even one or two orders of magnitude still translates into a lot of visits by an E.T. over our four and a half billion years. This not only satisfies the Fermi Paradox (“where is everybody?”),  but all those critics that point out that our first alien visitation was unlikely in the extreme to be in 1947, the start of the modern UFO era.

It doesn’t take much imagination – and many have imagined it – that E.T. has been flitting around Earth’s neighborhood on a nearly ongoing basis since the year dot. The key point is once that initial chance discovery happened, and that could have been billions of years ago, we were noted and logged as biological real estate. We’re now a colored pin in the galactic map, say green for simple biosphere; yellow for complex life, orange for intelligence and red for here be a civilization. Within one hundred thousand years of that first contact discovery (even if it were just E.T. greeting our microbial ancestors), radio communications at light speed would have informed all potentially receptive (and future receptive) extraterrestrial civilizations that here was one of those rare abodes, a planet with a biosphere, and thus one worthy of ongoing (not random) investigations – to satisfy their alien scientific curiosity if nothing else.

Our own terrestrial parallels are obvious. Once we discovered Antarctica it quickly became common knowledge. We went back, again, and again, finally setting up quasi- permanent quarters despite the obvious costs to the taxpayer and hardships to those undertaking the journey, and all in the name of science. We’ll go back to the Moon too one day – maybe not anytime real soon, but sometime. Your great grandkids will see lunar settlements or outposts like we see in Antarctica today. E.T. and Earth may have had the same ongoing relationship as humans and Antarctica. We might find we have E.T. for company on the Moon like we’ve had E.T. as sticky-beaks hovering around Earth in their UFOs.

Now recall from our mythologies around the world from all races, all cultures, all geographical settlements the tales of the sky ‘gods’ and other deities or beings associated with various constellations and stellar addresses.  Those same ‘gods’ (or ‘ancient astronauts’), who often get around in aerial or fiery ‘chariots’, gave the gifts of culture and knowledge and rudimentary technologies to primitive (hunter-gatherer) mankind. They of course stick around to monitor their experiments on their subjects.

So why don’t we have a clearer picture of these ‘ancient astronauts’ instead of having to try to come to terms with vague mythologies which is anything but crystal clear on that subject. That’s because our oral traditions (language) has existed vastly longer than our written record. Thus, there’s a long oral tradition of the ancient astronaut ‘gods’ and their relationships with humans and with each other before it all started to be written down, since language proper first came to the fore less than one hundred thousand years ago (probably less – more like fifty thousand years ago with the development of full behavioural modernity) but writing can only be traced back to roughly 6000 BC. That’s a lot of in-between time for a lot of the details to have been embellished or lost and lost too in the retellings over some two thousand human generations! Still, mythologies provide a lot of evidence that the extraterrestrial and the terrestrial have interacted.

Now fast-forward to 1947 and through to the present early 21^st Century. The ‘gods’ or the ‘ancient astronauts’ have become the aliens or the grays or E.T., and they are going to keep close tabs on us, since they know that one day, even if thousands of years down the track, we’ll boldly go too like they have boldly gone. We have our intelligence gathering agencies keeping tabs on those we need to keep tabs on; E.T. has theirs as well, keeping tabs on us.

Thus, we note that random, hence ongoing, visitations by E.T. have had absolutely nothing to do with the existence of humans and human technology, like our nuclear weapons detonations as well as our radio and radar and TV signals that are expanding throughout (to date very nearby) interstellar space that could be in theory detected by aliens at home. They didn’t need to detect them at home; they were here all along and well before humans were thought of as a fun thing to create in their philosophy.

UFOs Not, Because E.T. Isn’t: Part Two

Seeing as how the Universe is some 13.7 billion years old, and seeing as how the current human species (defined as Homo sapiens) has been around for only some 100,000 years (give or take), then I have to ask, is it logical to assume that we’re the proverbial ‘It’? If the answer should prove to be ‘yes’, if terrestrial life and humanity is the be all and end all of life in the Universe, then UFOs can’t have anything to do with extraterrestrials.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

Technology second:

Okay, we have lots of widely separated planetary abodes throughout the cosmos that have an intelligent species of critter on them. Since we assume your intelligent neighbours are fairly far away and you want to discover, and then maybe communicate with them, that poses a problem. If you want to find them, you or your surrogate, has got to go to them, and/or they (or their surrogate) have to come to you. In a terrestrial analogy, you have a barrier like an ocean or vast desert or mountain range separating you from them so it’s difficult to hike or swim the distance. The surrogate mentioned earlier could be a smoke or radio signal or laser beam, but if you want something more up-close-and-personal then you tend to need boats or planes or four-wheel drives or covered wagons, or in our interstellar scenario, rocket ships, etc. Once you do establish ‘first contact’, you’d like to keep in touch. On Earth, the usual means of keeping in touch other than by face-to-face communication is by snail mail, phone, or email – snail mail apart, its radio or electromagnetic communications in general that’s usually employed (even smoke signals use reflected light waves to deliver the message).

That introduces one additional complication for the UFO ETH; it’s not enough to just be intelligent. You need to have technology (and even snail mail as noted above is still a form of technology). Then, and only then, will the ‘are we alone?’ question be answered to our absolute satisfaction. We need technology if we are to find (maybe communicate with) extraterrestrial intelligence(s); and/or extraterrestrial intelligence(s) will need technology to find us. One or both of us has to have invented engineering to a somewhat sophisticated level - maybe rocket ships, maybe radio telescopes, but something technological is required.

There’s also a hidden assumption here – you actually want to seek out new civilizations. It matters not one jot if you have all the required technology but care not to use it for the purpose of answering that question – ‘are you alone in the Universe?’ I’ll assume here that if you have intelligence, and you’ve been able to construct appropriate technology, then part of your intelligence is devoted to being a curious critter who wants to know and find out things – so that’s a certainty of one. Curiosity and associated intelligence, or intelligence and associated curiosity are two sides of the same coin.

But what’s the level of certainty of developing appropriate technology in the first place? Rather poor judging from all those terrestrial species that have a somewhat reasonable degree of smarts to their credit. There’s the human species of course, and though while we’re not quite a sample of one, there having been other hominoid species with some IQ capacity (like Neanderthals), its pretty close to being a sample of one. There are documentary observations of some animals (primates mainly) not so much manufacturing, but making use of existing ‘tools’ to assist in their survival. Alas, most intelligent species lack the anatomy and/or the right environment to manipulate objects. In the case of dolphins and whales, their ocean environment stymies any way and means of constructing things and making use of fire, for example. So, developing technology has to be rated, judging from our terrestrial sampling, as rather low; otters using rocks to break open clams not withstanding. 

So, for UFOs to be alien spaceships, one needs an extraterrestrial intelligent species to develop appropriate technology, and here’s where I see a bit of a bottleneck. The evolution of technology isn’t inevitable and has a lot of just-so factors attached.

Firstly, your home planet has got to come equipped with the right sorts of materials like oxygen and metallic ores and other objects (rocks, wood, etc.) than can be turned into useful tools, and of course most important a suitable supply of energy sources. That you’ll have at your disposal all the required material and energy resources is not a given.

Water worlds are out of the running since it’s difficult to discover and utilise fire in that sort of environment.

You can’t have all your required locomotive appendages (legs) in contact with the ground – some limbs have to be free to manipulate objects in your environment. Birds have wings that are off the ground, but since wings aren’t good at making tools, that seems to rule out wings, and all birds of a feather, pretty much as well as tool makers.

So, I’ve already ruled out dolphins and whales and the cephalopods (like the octopus) being water based creatures; the birds with their useless wings as far as building things is concerned; and all the four-footed walking mammals (or reptiles or amphibians).

It might be conceivable that you can build up a technology using your mouth parts and/or using a tail (if you have one) to manipulate and build things, but we don’t have obvious terrestrial case studies, although you might argue that bees, wasps, termites, ants and birds can build elaborate structures using just their mouths. So that’s in the ‘maybe’ basket.

Technology is also a double-edged sword. The use of technology has had obvious survival value for the human species. You wouldn’t be hard-pressed to come up with dozens of technological inventions that have enabled us to survive longer and thrive better and be ever more fruitful and multiply. But, our technological genie is also out of the bottle, and unless you’re a hermit, you will have noted by now that technology can also reduce our quality of life, and no doubt you wouldn’t be equally hard-pressed to cite dozens of examples, from handguns to the automobile - which leads nicely into the last consideration. 

To be continued…

UFOs Not, Because E.T. Isn’t: Part One

Seeing as how the Universe is some 13.7 billion years old, and seeing as how the current human species (defined as Homo sapiens) has been around for only some 100,000 years (give or take), then I have to ask, is it logical to assume that we’re the proverbial ‘It’? If the answer should prove to be ‘yes’, if terrestrial life and humanity is the be all and end all of life in the Universe, then UFOs can’t have anything to do with extraterrestrials.

Some people say that terrestrial life is the only life in the cosmos, therefore, whatever UFOs are, they can’t have anything to do with aliens. That’s despite the fact that there are ‘billions and billions’ of possible sites in the Universe where life could take hold, evolve and ultimately boldly go.

A few UFO skeptics do tone down that argument by acknowledging that extraterrestrials exist as in extraterrestrial microbes, plants and multi-cellular animals but extraterrestrial intelligence doesn’t. That still means that UFOs have bugger-all to do with aliens. Even if intelligence exists, only humans have invented technology, and even if aliens have invented technology, well those dumb bastards exterminated themselves within a short time frame after discovering chemical, biological and radiological warfare technology. The upshot, E.T. isn’t; UFOs therefore aren’t.

So are we alone in the Universe? That’s a question that’s been asked by millions over the eons, without, to date resolution. Of course the word ‘alone’ implies alone in the sense of whether or not there exists elsewhere in the cosmos our rough equals; more likely as not betters. We want to get to know our neighbours across the street, not their pets, or their plants. The standard gut-feeling answer to the question usually revolves around how vast the Universe is, and surely, given the billions and billions of stars in our galaxy and the existence of billions and billions of galaxies each with billions and billions of stars, etc. and the vastness of time, surely we can’t be the proverbial ‘It’.

There’s unfortunately one slight flaw in that statistical approach. There’s a rather long chain of events that have to happen, hurdles to be jumped, in order to get from the elements of star-stuff to biological cosmic neighbours. Depending on whom you talk to, that chain can be extremely long indeed. The point is, if any one factor in that chain of causality has a very low probability of coming to pass, it matters not one bit whether or not all the other factors are extremely probable. The overall result is going to be low. If any one factor is as close to zero as makes no odds, then the overall answer will also be as close to zero as makes no odds. Certainty multiplied by certainty multiplied by certainty multiplied by certainty multiplied by zero multiplied by certainty multiplied by certainty multiplied by certainty ultimately equals zero!

It’s been pointed out by others, and I tend to have to agree, that astronomers (being physical scientists) tend to be much more optimistic and supportive of the notion that advanced life forms in the Universe - extraterrestrial intelligences - are a dime-a-dozen. That’s relative to biologists (being life scientists), who considerably hedge their bets and who it must be said are presumably better qualified to pass judgments. So, taking things from a more biological perspective, what’s what?

With 13.7 billion years to play with since the origin of our Universe (that Big Bang event); with billions and billions of stars in our own galaxy alone; with billions and billions of galaxies scattered throughout the cosmos each with billions and billions of stars therein, with extra-solar planets being discovered around many of those stars in our own galaxy at a rapid rate of knots, (and by implication planetary systems exist in other galaxies as well); with the chemical elements required for life commonplace throughout the Universe; with the principles of Darwinian evolution given as universal, what odds that we are really the proverbial ‘It’? And what are the implications for extraterrestrial UFOs?

When it comes down to the UFO extraterrestrial hypothesis (ETH), it’s only our own Milky Way Galaxy we need concern ourselves with. Even I acknowledge that though extraterrestrial civilizations exist in other galaxies, travel times between galaxies quickly exceed any logical transit times available, even when invoking a “Star Trek” warp drive. Interstellar travel, travel within the confines of our own galaxy, however is quite another matter. Still, our own galaxy gives us some ten billion years to play around with; billions and billions of stars and no doubt planets, those abundant chemical elements, and Darwinian principles. Again, it would be a very brave soul to suggest, given those sorts of statistics, that we are, even in our own galaxy, the proverbial ‘It’; not just the new kid on the block, but the first and only kid on the block.

Not even a UFO ETH skeptic like a certain SETI (search for extraterrestrial intelligence) scientist of my acquaintance would argue we’re the proverbial ‘It’ – it would make a mockery of his own chosen career path.

So in summary to that first objection that only terrestrial life exists: 1) The Universe is a bio-friendly Goldilocks Universe – we’re here after all. 2) There is plenty of real estate in the cosmos that could give rise to and host hardy microbial life forms. 3) The appropriate chemicals, organic chemicals, and biochemicals; appropriate life producing and sustaining chemistry full stop, are present throughout the cosmos. 4) There’s been a massive amount of time for life to originate, evolve, survive, thrive and migrate.

Ultimately, what this all boils down to; the three key points here, are whether or not extraterrestrial intelligence exists, and if so, does extraterrestrial technology, technology that can get E.T. from there to here, evolve of necessity? Lastly, having evolved a sophisticated advanced boldly going technology, how long do you have it? Translated, we need to answer whether or not Darwinian evolution, natural selection, will favor intelligence, technology and long-term survival.

Intelligence first: 

Some people object to the UFO ETH on the grounds that we (humans) are the proverbial be-all-and-end-all of the cosmos in terms of overall smarts and being tool makers – there are no other advanced extraterrestrial civilizations, therefore UFOs can not have anything to with extraterrestrial intelligence. Translated, they adopt the more religious point of view that humans (and human intelligence) were created in the image of God and therefore no other intelligences can exist. No alien intelligence means no-go to the UFO ETH.

The answer to that issue, that extraterrestrial life exists, but not extraterrestrial intelligence (for religious reasons or otherwise), well, the answer is yet again that not even respectable SETI scientists would propose this as an objection to the UFO ETH since again that would undermine their own work. Clearly the evolution of intelligence, albeit being just one of many competing traits for biological survival-of-the-fittest, does have ultimate survival value. The Earth provides a practical example of that. Many species can be attributed to having a reasonable degree of ability to figure things out, and that it is possible to evolve extremely high levels of intelligence is witnessed by us existing. If Mother Nature can evolve one biological highly intelligent species, She can do it again, and again, and again on other worlds. 

Now based on a statistical sample of one, it’s been a long tough road to get from microbes to ferns to jellyfish to sharks to newts to crocodiles to crows to cattle. Once you have multicellular critters (like ferns and cows) that have survived and thrived in a reasonably stable part of the Universe over many generations, will they evolve into intelligence? I mean finding an extraterrestrial equivalent of a trilobite is all well and good, but we want to find beings more like ourselves. Again, no alien intelligences translate into UFOs having zip to do with aliens.

The issue now is having evolved to a multicellular stage (like magpies and buffalo), will organisms develop some higher brain function? Is there any further evolutionary advantage towards increasing one’s intelligence? By going back to our sample of one, if Earth is any guide, the answer is roughly ‘not likely’. There are millions of multicellular species that have existed, and do exist, on Planet Earth. There are apparently only a very few species that have evolved something beyond the minimum level of brain power required for their day-to-day survival. That doesn’t inspire confidence that intelligence has inevitable value as a means of survival.

By far and away, most multicellular critters just operate on pure instinct and don’t (can’t) stop to figure things out (far less stop to smell and appreciate the roses) - but, there are a few exceptions.  Many wild birds would put our everyday companion animals to shame in the IQ department. I mean I adore my cats, but a little Einstein they’re not. Whales and dolphins have also been credited with being in the higher IQ bracket; ditto our close primate cousins. In the invertebrate kingdom, the octopus is pretty smart – by invertebrate standards (and then some if one is honest). However, on balance, most multicellular critters put their evolutionary strategies into something other than higher brain functions. Take my cats. Is it to their survival advantage to ‘figure things out’ or to  just be a bit faster afoot, have a bit more acute hearing, have sharper vision? Nearly all organisms put their survival abilities into something other than pure brain-power. Clearly brain-power has survival-of-the-fittest attributes. But, intelligence is not the only game in town, and therefore doesn’t have what I’d call any evolutionary ‘certainty’ or destiny.  However, it would be illogical to say that developing intelligence, the ability to figure things out, isn’t valuable and doesn’t have any survival value; it’s just that if you were to list all the multicellular animal species on Planet Earth, very few would have an IQ of even one (the human average is 100). So, let’s say intelligence is somewhere between near certainty and highly improbable. That’s a rather ‘have your cake and eat it too’ position.

IMHO, the bottom line is that intelligence, the ability to figure things out, has evolutionary survival value and will tend to be selected for, and thus over time, there will tend to have life forms that have evolved ever higher IQ’s. Here on Earth, just about all mammals and birds, and some exceptional invertebrates (the cephalopods like squid and the octopus), have reasonable IQ’s at least when compared to bacteria, plants, insects, fish, etc. Of course just as some kinds of organisms are faster than others, or have keener senses of sight or smell or hearing, not all advanced organisms are going to end up equal in the IQ stakes. But, the fact remains, the ability to think, to figure things out, can only increase your odds of survival and leaving behind more offspring.

To be continued…

Origins and Ultimate Questions: Part Two

Who are we; where did we come from; what is my purpose in life; why is there something rather than nothing, etc. has probably been pondered by most of us at one time or another. One universal blanket answer is God (or in earlier times, the gods). A rival answer is that the abstract concept of Mother Nature can equally explain all, even if sometimes in the negative – the Universe and you have no ultimate purpose. It, you and I just are.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

The Origin of Humans: Did God Create Man (and Woman)?

To religious fundamentalists, it’s a no-brainer that God created man – in His image. Now if there were no fossils of manlike hominoid beings; if there were not any current living beings that shared our basic body plan (such as many of the primates do – apes, monkeys, chimpanzees, etc.); if humans were so unique that they stood out like a lone red sports car in a field of black & white model-T’s, or like a lone pineapple in a basketful of tomatoes, then ascribing a very unique origin to humankind would be a plausible hypothesis, of which God or gods might have appealing logic (albeit not proven). 

Alas, that’s not the case whether in terms of the fossil evidence or of body plans and fundamental biochemistry similarities between us and the other primates. We’re just another model-T or tomato (and some would argue rotten tomato at that).

Creation myths trying to explain human origins are, across the board, pretty wild and absurd in light of modern understandings that deal with life, our Universe, and everything. The fictional origin of Frankenstein’s monster (Frankenstein was the name of the scientist, not the name of the creation) makes more sense than breathing some sort of vital essence into dust (and does your basic pile of dust contain all the necessary chemical ingredients to make up and sustain a living human? If so, put some dust on your menu). And that bit about Adam’s rib – well, let me say that the Loch Ness Monster has way more credibility.

Darwin and those following him, those evolutionary biologists and physical anthropologists, have easily accounted for the broad-brush origin and rise of our modern human species.

The Origins of Faith & Belief vs. Blind Faith & Belief:

Do we have faith and belief in a God or gods because there really are gods or God, or maybe we’re hard-wired to believe in some sort of larger-than-life supreme being(s) regardless of evidence and the reality of such beings?

Many children have invisible, make-believe friends and have no trouble accepting Santa, the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny. Of course, kids have usually Mom and Dad, or an adult family of some sort to look after them, so they already have a sort of larger-than-life supreme being(s) in their life.

But when they grow up to adulthood, well, as adults, wouldn’t it be nice if someone or something more adult than ourselves, larger-than-life, were looking after us the way Mom and Dad did when we had our childhood? Someone who would pat us on the back with eternal life (we don’t really want to die) if we’re good men and women (as opposed to when we were boys and girls).  And so it’s easy and desirable to believe that and have faith.

I have no issue with those who have a belief or a faith in a God or gods or this or that religion – god knows there’s enough of them on the market to pick and choose from.  However, what I do have issues with are those who have an absolute blind faith or blind belief in, whatever, like kids have a blind faith in the existence of Santa, and for a similar reason. Kids are trusting of adults, their parents and family and will swallow the story – at least until old enough to think through the logic for themselves. Adults too, starting as children, are trusting of authority figures or people they trust – priests, their parents (again), teachers, friends, books, etc. authored by those apparently in the know – who told you it (a God or gods or brand of religion) was so, and so you swallow their version without any critical thought, hook, line and sinker, because unlike Santa, the logic doesn’t reveal itself quite so easily to be as absurd. It’s easier to be told what to think, than to actually think for yourself.

So, for those who still have faith and belief after they have thought for themselves through the issues, well again, I have no difficulty with that. For those of you who believe and have faith because it was rammed down your throat, and because it satisfies that hard-wired area of your brain that wants a larger-than-life figure to be their invisible, make-believe guardian, well, maybe that’s why religious figures refer to their subjects as their flock – sheep one and all.  

The Ultimate Questions (and Answers):

Is there one? I know that it (‘life, the universe and everything’) was asked in “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” and that the answer was ‘42’, but I don’t think we’ll count that as philosophically meaningful. I also think we need to exclude personal reflections or personal ultimate questions like ‘who am I’ or ‘where am I going’ or ‘what is my purpose in life’, etc. Ultimately, when it comes to personal reflections, only you can ask and answer such questions yourself using whatever tools you have at your disposal.

Is there any preordained point or preconceived purpose to the Universe? That is do we have any implication that the ever evolving and expanding Universe has a goal or seeks to achieve something? Does the Universe possess some sort of special (undefined but natural) force or quality such that its origin and evolution has an ultimate unique meaning? Or does it just exist with no more purpose than say a cosmic ray has? This question is probably somewhat outside the realm of physics and cosmology, but that sure hasn’t stopped physicists and cosmologists from putting in their two cents worth! Anyway, here’s my two cents.

Well I think we can all agree that the fundamental particles (electrons, quarks, etc.) that make up all the matter and transmit all the forces, and the atoms they in turn make up, and the molecules that atoms form by linking up and bonding with other atoms, even the most complex of them, merely obey various natural physical and chemical ‘laws’ (they are very law abiding), having no choice in the matter given that they have no independent free will or decision making abilities or the ways and means of emitting emotions. They have no intellect, cannot comprehend themselves, far less anything else.

We’d all probably agree that all the macro non-organic things that particles and forces, atoms and molecules make up, like stars (and groups of stars like galaxies) and planets and associated debris likewise obey natural ‘laws’ and also have no intellect or ability to emote. In other words, the Sun and the Moon don’t know you, have no means of knowing you, they can’t deduce you exist and therefore can hardly care that you exist (or don’t exist or cease to exist for that matter). Since there was an era in the history of the Universe when only that sort of stuff existed, the sort of stuff we agree was never intellectual and emotive, one can hardly imagine the Universe then, all this collection of stuff, in a pre-life era, having any purpose or objective or goal, or agenda (or whatever other synonymous word you have in mind).

At this point, one question raises its head and requires an answer, and that is where did all the natural ‘laws’ that rule the Universe (and all that it contains) come from? Well, the way I see it, there are X number of fundamental particles – the ultimate building blocks from which all else flows – like quarks and electrons. Each type of fundamental particle has an intrinsic value to a number of properties, values unique to it and it alone. These properties are mass, and spin and charge, and the like. All of these fundamental particles, the bits and pieces of the Universe, interact with other bits and pieces. Anytime bit A interacts with piece B, you’ll get a result, AB. You’ll always get AB. If bit A interacts with particle C, you’ll get result AC and not, say, AB. And so on and so on. We interpret AB and AC, etc. as ‘laws’ because specific results occur in a consistent manner whenever specific bits and pieces interact. And so on up the scale it goes. Two atoms of hydrogen interact with one atom of oxygen, giving water – not, say table salt now and then. If the reverse were true, if two atoms of hydrogen plus one atom of oxygen sometimes yielded table salt, or if A + B sometimes gave AC, or BC or XYZ, then the stuff of the Universe would be unstable at best and hence we’d have a Universe not exactly conducive to life, and so we wouldn’t be around to ask the question in the first place.

At some stage however, by the laws of probability, sheer chance, by accident (no preconceived purpose or goal involved) a small part of our stuff, under the general natural ‘laws’ inherent in physics and chemistry, became organized enough, complex enough, to qualify as something we’d all agree on as ‘life’. Say a proto-cell, even a microbe. The question now is, does a microbe emote or have an intellect. No. It has however achieved purpose – survival and reproduction and things of that ilk. So, now a tiny part of the Universe has a purpose, but the microbe certainly didn’t absorb or learn this concept of purpose from the wider outside Universe since the wider outside Universe doesn’t have this concept as part of it’s makeup in the first place. 

Ultimately microbes evolve and life got even more complex, complex enough that traits such as intellect and emotion took on some form of reality. But again, it was inherited from what came before. So, does the Universe have a purpose? No. Do some parts of the Universe express a purpose, or intellect or ability to emote? Yes. But it’s not a universal one as different bits have (to a greater or lesser degree) somewhat different purposes, intellects and emotions. An electron is an electron is an electron, but an octopus (having a purpose, intellect and ability to emote) isn’t a cockatoo which isn’t a human both of which also have purposes, intellects and emotions. Even one human obviously differs from another human with respect to these traits. Question: does the fact that terrestrial life in general or humans in particular, exist, impart some sort of higher meaning or purpose to the Universe at large? Not on your Nellie!

Let’s take a simple case and assume that life is confined to Planet Earth (although the argument holds even if extraterrestrial life exists). Let’s further assume that an uncaring, un-intellectual,  asteroid, with no goal or purpose to its existence apart from the fact that it just is, slams into our planet and all life goes kaput! Or perhaps our uncaring Sun goes nova, achieving the same result. Then the Universe is totally back to square one – an assorted collection of primitive stuff with no laudable purpose, no intellect, no ability to emote – no agenda, hidden or otherwise. My conclusion is that life (high or low) is an unplanned for occurrence in a Universe that has no purpose – the Universe just is, in all its uncaring glory.

Thusly I will say again however that there is no purpose to the Universe – it just is, a given, totally inanimate like it or lump it. You are an irrelevancy as far as the Universe is concerned – not that it has a consciousness where the concept of concerned could even arise. So, the Universe, as far as we all are concerned, is impartial, uncaring, has no mercy for those foolish enough to put themselves in harms way, and ultimately doesn’t give a stuff about you, your existence, your suffering. In fact, if Planet Earth and all it contained were to disappear down a Black Hole this instant, the Universe would go on its merry way, no more noticing the loss than you notice the flaking off of a dead skin cell.  

Apart from that, I’d wager if you asked 1000 ordinary people, even 1000 philosophers, religious leaders, scientists, etc. about an ultimate question, you’d probably get 500 different answers! Therefore, I doubt that there is any such thing as an ultimate question (and therefore no ultimate answer), certainly nothing that’s going to enlighten us about ‘just who is this God person anyway?’ – And no, I don’t consider that to be an ultimate question. But we need a place to start with some sort of ultimate question, like, where did our Universe (including us) come from?  And so I refer back to the beginning of this little exercise!

Origins and Ultimate Questions: Part One

Who are we; where did we come from; what is my purpose in life; why is there something rather than nothing, etc. has probably been pondered by most of us at one time or another. One universal blanket answer is God (or in earlier times, the gods). A rival answer is that the abstract concept of Mother Nature can equally explain all, even if sometimes in the negative – the Universe and you have no ultimate purpose. It, you and I just are.

Cosmological Origins & Considerations: Did God create the Universe?

To be honest, cosmologists have no need of a God Hypothesis to explain the origin of our Universe, be it the standard model of the Big Bang event or a variation thereof (and there are cosmologists who don’t buy into the standard model) and you won’t find any mention of the God Hypothesis as a plausible possibility in their textbooks and given in university lecture halls.

Still, ‘In the beginning’ - that’s a good place to start, although I actually prefer the phrase ‘once upon a time’ for reasons that will become apparent. The standard cosmological model outlining the origin or our Universe via the Big Bang event is, well let me just say I don’t accept a word of it and I won’t go into massive detail about it. It’s very easy to get hold of any number of popular accounts that detail the standard Big Bang scenario. However, in extreme briefness, the standard Big Bang event postulates the origin of all matter where no matter existed before; the creation of all energy, where no energy existed previously; the creation of time itself where previously there was no time; and lastly the creation of space where before-the-fact there was no space. To add insult to our intelligence, the Big Bang was also a quantum event, so you are forced to believe that the entire contents of our Universe were once crammed into a space the size of an atom or less. Sure it was! In fact there’s so much philosophical baggage for the standard Big Bang scenario to have to lug around that even the standard Biblical account is slightly, ever so slightly, more believable, but only just – barely just.

In proposing an alternative scenario, I can’t really throw the Big Bang baby out along with the philosophical bathwater, because there’s too much real observational evidence in support of some sort of Big Bang event. My alternative just postulates that the Big Bang event happened in pre-existing space and time, and that the matter and energy of our Universe is just a recycling of the contents of a previous universe that, in the reverse of our expanding Universe, contracted until it all came together in a Big Crunch so warping the fabric of space and time that it ended up spewing the contents out in what we see as our Universe. Oh, the transition from a previous Big Crunch universe to our Big Bang Universe was a macro event, not a micro (quantum) one.

Anyway, either our Universe had a beginning (the Big Bang), and will have (based on current cosmological observations) an ultimate, albeit long drawn out termination (a Heat Death or Big Rip), or the Universe is infinitely cyclic (Big Crunch – Big Bang – expansion – contraction – Big Crunch – Big Bang – etc.).

In the former case, what’s the point of God creating and ruling over a Universe that’s ultimately going to spend an eternity in a very cold and dead state, or for there to be a Heaven (or Hell) that exists within such an ultimately dreary Universe? The realm of God, of Heaven and Hell, has ultimately got to be part of our Universe and subject to the same sort of fate as the Universe overall will share.

In the latter case, with infinitely cyclic universes, there is no need for a creator God at all. Or, maybe God, over an eternity, has created lots of various universes, one after the other, for His amusement, and perhaps like a kid tired of a new toy, abandoned it (or destroyed it via a Big Crunch) after a time. Our Universe could be but the latest in this series of amusements, sort of like a child playing with a doll house and dolls for a while. Perhaps God is akin to a child and we are toys to be played with and manipulated. God can sure throw tantrums like a spoiled brat! [Recall the original ‘Star Trek’ episode ‘Squire of Gothos’ for an illustration of what I’m on about – the episode illustrates a very similar idea.] Regardless, perhaps this is yet another interesting variation of the cyclic or oscillating universe scenario where there are lots of universes in turn, but supernaturally, not naturally created. However, I’d ultimately have to argue that if Mother Nature can create one universe, Mother Nature can create more than one universe. And while God can create as many universes as He likes, what’s the logical point of doing so? Isn’t our Universe a big enough playground for Him? 

The Origin of Life on Earth (or Elsewhere): Did God Create Life?

The upshot is that those biologists and biochemists who study the origin of life, whether an origin indigenous to our planet, or one arriving from the depths of outer space via a panspermia scenario, have not required resorting to supernatural explanations for the creation of life. You won’t find the phrase ‘and then a miracle occurred’ in the textbooks between discussions that link pre-biology with biology.

Life, even microbial life, is still very, very complex (try making a microbe from scratch if you doubt it). The fact that life arose from scratch on Earth within a very, very short span of geological time after the planet formed is a bit suspect IMHO. But what if Earth were seeded by microbial life forms already in existence from space (or deliberately seeded by extraterrestrials as the Nobel Prize winner Francis Crick has proposed)? Now I realize that just puts off the origin of life question to another time(s) and place(s). However, given the vastness of the cosmos is far greater than that of our finite globe, and given that the cosmos existed for vastly longer periods of time before our sun, solar system and home planet came into existence, such additional time and space easily turns the improbable into a near certainty. And once established somewhere, life could spread throughout that time and space, until it reached us.

Earth arose billions of years after our Universe and our galaxy had evolved, ample time for life to have arisen elsewhere, and seed the early Earth. This is the concept of panspermia. We know that comets, meteors, and the cosmic dust within outer space are chock-o-block full of complex organic molecules. We know that simple terrestrial life can survive the outer space environment if suitably shielded – and it doesn’t take much to do the shielding. We know that surface bits from planets and their moons can be ejected into space, carry a cargo of microbes, and land on another planet, even eons later with the microbes still viable. Of course 99.999% of all such microbial life will be doomed to forever wander in space or crash onto a cold, surface of a planet with no atmosphere or water, or plunge into a star, etc. But, sheer numbers, like terrestrial plant seeds, will insure that now and again some microbes will land on a hospitable abode and be fruitful and multiple and evolve. The interesting bit is that if then, then now. And thus panspermia will be happening today. Certainly some meteorites which have impacted Earth have inside them ‘organized elements’ suggestive of microbial structures – the Murchison Meteorite from Australia is one such stone. The problem is terrestrial contamination as there are often lengthy time periods between their fall and their discovery. As an aside, if Fred Hoyle & Chandra Wickramasinghe are correct (and I believe they are), microbes (bacteria and viruses) impacting Earth today are largely responsible for some select and various disease epidemics or pandemics, past, present, and no doubt future.

Further readings:

Crick, Francis; Life Itself: Its Origin and Nature; Simon and Schuster, New York; 1981: 

Davies, Paul; The Fifth Miracle: The Search for the Origin of Life; Allen Lane, Ringwood, Victoria; 1998:

Hoyle, Fred & Wickramasinghe, Chandra; Lifecloud: The Origin of Life in the Universe; J.M. Dent  & Sons Ltd, London; 1978:

Hoyle, Fred & Wickramasinghe, Chandra; Diseases from Space; J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd, London; 1979

Ponnamperuma, Cyril (Editor); Comets and the Origin of Life; D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht, Holland; 1981:

Seargent, David A. J.; Genesis Stone? The Murchison Meteorite and the Beginnings of Life; Karagi Publications, The Entrance, NSW: 1991:

To be continued…

The Simulation Hypothesis in Outline Form: Part One

INTRODUCTION: The odds are fairly high that we reside in a computer software generated simulation (video game) universe. The chain of logic leading to this conclusion and what a simulated Universe might help explain, are outlined.

EVOLUTION: In the beginning…

There was a natural cause and effect origin to our Universe – the Big Bang event (or something closely related).

From that event the galaxies formed – naturally – galaxies comprised of naturally formed stars, planets and associated debris (like interstellar gas and dust).

On one or more (probably lots more) of these planets there was a natural origin of life event resulting in first a sort of proto-cell, hence a simple, probably unicellular life form.

Such life forms could naturally spread throughout the galaxy via various panspermia mechanisms.

From these simple proto-cells/unicellular life forms, via a process termed ‘evolution by natural selection’, there arose ever more structured and complex multicellular life forms.

Some of those multicellular life forms, via evolutionary pressures, gained an attribute which we call ‘intelligence’ – the ability to figure things out.

Levels of intelligence varied from species to species depending on the specific requirements for their survival needs. Not all species need intelligence to be successful at survival.  

In some species however, intelligence aided survival and reached levels where the species concerned could manipulate objects in their environment to their advantage.

These species could build structures and make use of primitive tools and exhibit behaviour that wasn’t just on a purely instinctive (hardwired) level. [Birds, beavers, ants, termites, spiders, bees, etc. all build structures but purely by instinct, not conscious design.]

From that point, tool use and environmental manipulation could grow ever more sophisticated until ultimately there was a subtle crossing of the threshold between the natural environment controlling the species and the species controlling the environment.

Now things get interesting because that subtle shift is an evolution from the natural towards the artificial – from natural selection to artificial selection.

Our species can now construct artificial environments and products – cities, houses and other artificial artefacts – and manipulate them to their advantage.

The species has now evolved a sophisticated technology.

Part of that technology can be put to use to artificially simulate the…

Origin and evolution of the Universe, galaxies, stars, planets and associated debris. [This is a standard tool of theoretical cosmologists and astrophysicists.]

Technology can simulate possible ways leading to (and maybe ultimately recreate) life’s origins – plural since it may be possible for there to be more than one pathway to an origin of life event.

Technology can now simulate actual or potential biological evolutionary pathways (the roads not taken) up through and including the development of high levels of intelligence.

Simulation technology can hence simulate the artificial technological environments that helped create the simulation technology in the first place.

Such simulations might simulate or recreate the actual roads taken as well as roads not taken (perhaps what we’d call ‘fiction’).

Ultimately, the sophistication of the simulation technology will be such that one can not tell apart simulated ‘reality’ from the actual ‘reality’ it’s simulating.

This is akin to the Turing test for artificial intelligence (A.I.) where if you (in one closed room) hold a conversation with a fellow human being, and an artificially constructed ‘intelligence’ (like those talking computers in Star Trek) who are in a separate closed room, without being able to ultimately figure out which was which or who was who, then you’d have to accept the fact that A.I. exists.

We need to pause here and note that while there is but one real Universe we need concern ourselves with, there could be, within that Universe, thanks to intelligent technologically minded species scattered throughout, the creation of thousands, millions, even billions or more simulated universes or parts thereof.

One of the parts thereof could be the part containing ourselves and our immediate surroundings and environment.

EXPLANATIONS: The usual ways and means of explaining all things in our life, the Universe and everything is to observe and research the natural – what’s Mother Nature up to? That’s one possibility. The second is to appeal to a supernatural creator being – God. But there’s another- the idea that we’re part and parcel of a simulated universe. However, the simulation idea is as much of a copout in explaining life, the Universe, and everything as that of a supernatural creator God, in that anything goes. No matter what, it’s explainable. However, the simulation idea does a better job of rationally or logically explaining a few things that to date just aren’t really explainable in the same satisfactory sense, even when appealing to a supernatural God. The key difference is that one assumes a supernatural God is rational, all powerful, all knowing, and infallible. His life, the Universe and everything should make sense and be totally comprehensible to those creatures (us) supposedly created in His image. However, a Supreme Simulator being, being a biological being (say for argument a human being) does not have the attributes of a supposed supernatural God. A Supreme Simulator’s life, the Universe and everything will not always be rational and make sense and be comprehensible because the Supreme Simulator is not infallible or all knowing or all powerful, and thus his (small ‘h’) creation – his simulation of life, the Universe and everything – will not always be comprehendible to the great unwashed. But, by postulating a fallible Supreme Simulator, a lot of puzzlements start to fall into place.

Overall, there appears to be a quasi-artificial structure to the Universe over many scales or orders of magnitude. That is, there seems to be a sort of fractal pattern, a pattern that repeats from the micro through the macro, the macro squared, the macro cubed, etc. There appears to be intense concentrations of matter/energy separated by vast distances from the nearest similar concentrations of matter/energy. For example, an atomic nucleus is vastly separated from a ‘nearby’ atomic nucleus. Translated, even in a ‘solid’ object, most of the space is just that – space, empty space. Stars are vastly distant from their stellar neighbours relative to the size of typical stars. Galaxies are concentrations of stars, but galaxies are separated by vast distances, distances vastly larger than the dimensions of galaxies themselves. Moving on up the scale of structure, clusters of galaxies mirror the same pattern, in that clusters of galaxies are widely separated. Ditto super-clusters of galaxies shun other super-clusters of galaxies. Finally, entire walls of galactic conglomerations feature, but separated by vast voids where little matter/energy resides. It’s like the bubbly foam when you shake up a soft drink – there are walls, the surfaces of the bubbles that enclose large volumes of empty space. From the incomprehensibility of the extremely tiny to the incomprehensibility of the incredibility vast, there’s empty space that alternates with regions of high density. Now, the question is, would such a regular pattern happen naturally, via Mother Nature, or would it be the result of deliberate planning, say by a Supreme Simulator? 

To be continued…

Time: How Old Are You Really?

How old are you? Well that’s obviously an easy question. You were born on such-an-such a date; today’s date is such-an-such; therefore you are such-an-such old. Or are you really? While both the physical you – your body, and the ‘inner you’ - your mind, have a time frame that dates from your conception, there’s a few twists in the tale to be considered.

Firstly, 99.999% of the fundamental constituents (elementary particles and simple atoms) of everything that now comprises you, all those now currently complex and not so complex organic bio-molecules (proteins, amino acids, fatty acids, etc.), as well as the simpler inorganic molecules and atoms (like water, salt and oxygen say) were originally part and parcel of an immense gas and dust cloud that slowly, under gravity, contracted and contracted and ultimately became incorporated into the Sun and associated solar system we see today. That happened some 4.5 billion years ago. All the fundamental bits and pieces that now comprise you have been around doing their thing for all that time. Since all those carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, iron, etc. atoms that now make you, you are 4.5 billion years old, and so in a way that makes you 4.5 billion years old. But wait, that vast interstellar dust and gas cloud that came together 4.5 billion years ago didn’t just pop into existence then. They had an earlier history. 

The late Carl Sagan noted that we are all ultimately made however of ‘star stuff’. That is, with the exception of hydrogen, all the higher chemical elements, which ultimately comprise us (carbon, oxygen, iron, sodium, etc), were cooked and manufactured in the heart of stellar interiors, at extreme temperatures and pressures. When stars explode (nova and supernova) those elements get spewed out into the cosmos as interstellar gas and dust, ultimately to clump as the stuff from which new solar systems, planets, and life are formed. In addition, the even greater extremes of temperature and pressures experienced when stars go ka-boom assist in the creation of even more complex atoms, like silver and gold and uranium. These elements too get incorporated into the next generation of stars and planets, and if biologically useful, into any life forms that may develop – like you.

So the bits and pieces that clumped together 4.5 billion years ago to make up our Sun and our solar system and our Earth – and you 4.5 billion years later – came from stuff comprising a myriad of earlier stars and solar systems that died natural deaths in the stellar cataclysms that are the fate of stellar objects over a certain mass. Some of that earlier generational ‘star stuff’ has found its way to be a part of the current you.  

Since all of that earlier generational stuff came from objects that existed as part and parcel of that mass of stellar objects we call the Milky Way Galaxy, and since our galaxy has existed with its quota of stuff for roughly 10 billion years, well in a manner of speaking, the bits and pieces that make up you can trace their history back 10 billion years. But the stuff comprising the Milky Way Galaxy didn’t pop into existence 10 billion years ago. Their history goes back even further, back before our galaxy existed.

However, we can go one step beyond that since, on the other hand, you are ultimately comprised of  fundamental particles like electrons and quarks which in turn make up those chemical elements (atoms) which can combine to form molecules, even the complex biochemical molecules which make you, you. 100% of you ultimately consist of these particles, all of which were created when the Universe was created. That’s also the event that created the universal supply of hydrogen and helium. The Universe, as best we can tell came into existence in the Big Bang event some 13.7 billion years ago. In other words, you are ultimately the same age as the Universe, some 13.7 billion years old! 

Of course the next step backwards is, was there a ‘before the Big Bang’? The answer to that is nobody knows. Many postulate that the Big Bang was the first cause; others argue that the Big Bang itself had a cause – say the Big Crunch of a previous universe, in itself comprised of stuff. So, in theory, if you keep going back and back and back ever endlessly back, you might be infinitely old! In makes a sort of satisfying sense – one universe dies and gives rise to the next generation universe, just like some of our earlier stars die but ultimately their ‘star stuff’ gives rise to the next generation of stars, planets and life – like you.

So, get in contact with your inner self, meditate with your inner quarks, hadrons, fermions, leptons, bosons and baryons, and discover the history of the Universe, for they were there!

Oh, and in a manner of speaking, you will achieve immortality, or at least achieve the same age as our Universe does, since even after there’s no more physical you as in body, or ‘inner you’ as in mind, all those fundamental bits and pieces that currently make up your body and your mind will keep on keeping on, strutting their stuff. Their tale isn’t yet finished – even if you ultimately will be.