This post should logically third in this series, as it is a continuation of my thoughts about the entire Universe, and again, the utter miracle that as a result of the Big Bang, galaxies and suns and planets have come to be, at least one of those planets hosting sentient life.
The odds against there being a Universe at all - rather than an inchoate cloud of random subatomic particles - or nothing at all, as matter and anti-matter destroy themselves mutually - are astronomical.
Yet there is life, and that life is sophisticated enough on our planet to have given rise to a technological civilisation. Looking at the barren rock that is our moon, or our (so far) unsuccessful attempts to find life on Mars or Venus, it's clear that when in the orbit of a star that's neither too small or too big or too unpredictable, there's only a narrow zone that favours life. And the same for any galaxy - there's a habitable zone, a sweet-spot, outside of which the evolution of life would be greatly limited.
So here we are in the right zone around the right sort of star in the right part of the galaxy. Yet there's more to the notion of a world fine-tuned for life than that.
Just a small change in a handful of fundamental physical constants would make the entire universe quite different. The laws of science as currently understood, are underpinned by fundamental numbers, such as the size of the electric charge of the electron and the ratio of the masses of the proton and the electron which make it seem that they have been set precisely to make possible the development of life.
Let us look at one of these constants, the strength of the force binding protons and neutrons into nuclei, denoted by the symbol Epsilon, (ε). The value of ε is 0.007. If it were 0.006, no other atom other than hydrogen could possibly exist, and complex chemistry would be impossible. Yet if it were above 0.008, no hydrogen would exist, as all the hydrogen would have been fused shortly after the Big Bang; without hydrogen, life could not possible exist.
All the other fundamental physical constants are similarly fine-tuned for life. Water freezes from the surface down rather than from the bottom up, unlike other liquids. That the energy state of the carbon atom allows for its abundance throughout the cosmos, a building-block of sentient life. Gravity is neither too strong nor too weak.
Had any one of these fundamental physical constants differed only slightly from those observed, the evolution of the Universe from its early state to where it is now would have proceeded quite differently and life as it is understood may not have been possible.
British astronomer, Fred Hoyle (famous for coining the term 'Big Bang' - ironically something in which he didn't believe) argued for a fine-tuned universe: "The list of anthropic properties, apparent accidents of a non-biological nature without which carbon-based and hence human life could not exist, is large and impressive".
So - you can either consider these many factors creating conditions to be mere chance, without all of which we would simply not be here to marvel at the fact - or we can begin to ask why the Universe has been set up in such a way. A miracle here, a one-in-a-billion chance there, a statistical improbability over there. [Some scientists posit that myriad Universes have failed to form because their fundamental constants were wrong.] But our Universe is here, because we are here to observe it. And the statistical improbability of the universe existing multiplied by the statistical improbability of you existing (see this post if you've not read it already)
Yet both are in place, the Universe, and you. Allowing life to exist here on our planet, at this particular time, and be observed by you.
This should raise the question of Purpose - why are we here, and why is the Universe unfolding the way it is. The odds that you are alive today, given the trillions of a misstep along the way, in a Universe that should not have arisen, leads me also to ask - would your consciousness still exist if your parents hadn't met?
Lent 2022: Day seven
Monism, dualism and non-dualism
Lent 2021: Day seven
How much spirituality do we need in our lives?
Lent 2020: Day seven
Build your own Religion - the Trappings of Faith
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