The next great era of awakening of human intellect may well produce a method of understanding the qualitative content of equations. Today we cannot. Today we cannot see that the water flow equations contain such things as the barber pole structure of turbulence that one sees between rotating cylinders. Today we cannot see whether Schrödinger’s equation contains frogs, musical composers, or morality—or whether it does not. We cannot say whether something beyond it like God is needed, or not. And so we can all hold strong opinions either way.
Richard Feynman, Lectures on Physics II, 41-12
Abstract
The answer to the fine-tuning problem of the universe has been traditionally sought in terms of either design or multiverse. In philosophy circles, this is sometimes expanded by adding the option of explanatory nihilism—the claim that there is no explanation for statements of that high level of generality: fine-tunings are brute facts. In this paper, we consider the fourth option which, at least in principle, is available to us: co-evolution of the universe and observers. Although conceptual roots of this approach could be found already in ancient stoicism, it is still the least investigated explanatory option for resolving the problem of empirical fine tunings. We offer two preliminary models along which the co-evolution hypothesis could be developed further. They are still on the level of speculative metaphysics, but there are opportunities along the way to generate predictions which are in principle testable, especially in the domain of large-scale numerical simulations.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
In further text, we shall treat each of them as single hypotheses, as denoted by capital letters, while fully admitting that these are just placeholders for their respective categories or families of hypotheses.
Bonnor (1964), p. 119.
This is certainly a true statement as pertaining to the observable universe at present epoch. (Of course, we may go further and claim that Ωλ is, in fact, equal to 0.71 ± 0.01; e.g., Hinshaw et al. 2013.) The point, however, is something else: counterfactual or parallel universes in which dark energy density is outside these bounds almost certainly fail to evolve observers.
One should note that such an approach looks much less eccentric if we keep in mind that within process metaphysics it is processes which are irreducible, primitive concepts, not material entities or events. Conventionally understood entities are just outcomes or, in a more general case, phases of different processes. For a modern introduction into process metaphysics see, for instance, Rescher (2000).
It could be argued as well (vide Everett) that this measurement of live or dead cat impacts the observer herself, i.e., represents continuation of her evolution in the world.
Wheeler (1977), p. 27.
Sagan (1967); this paper has been rejected about 15 times in different journals prior to publication.
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, book 4, translated by George Long (available online at http://classics.mit.edu//Antoninus/meditations.html, last accessed August 15, 2016).
Quotation marks are necessary here, since chronological ordering—and hence past, present and future—does not exist, strictly speaking, in the presence of closed timelike curves. Each two points on such a curve are both in the “past” and in the “future” of one another, making these terms incoherent. However, the great interest of theoreticians in Gödel-like cosmological models led to a compromise understanding of “weak” chronology or nearly causal spacetime, insofar closed timelike curves are rare in spacetime (e.g., Monroe 2008).
Interestingly enough, Sir Fred Hoyle was in his later work, quite interested in the possibility of backward causation, as testified by the discussion in his Intelligent Universe (Hoyle 1983, esp. pp. 211–239). We are grateful to an anonymous referee for bringing our attention to this fascinating piece of history.
Extreme complexity introduced by closed timelike curves even in previously quite simple everyday situations has been brilliantly demonstrated by the superb thriler of Shane Carruth Primer (Carruth 2004). This movie also highlights another possible way of falsifying the present hypothesis: if artificially created closed timelike curves cannot reach further into the past than the moment of their creation, it is impossible to use them for increasing habitability of the universe.
Nozick (1981), p. 164.
The authors wish to thank Dušan Pavlović for help in obtaining some of the literature, and Slobodan Perović, Vojin Rakić and Anders Sandberg on pleasant and useful discussions. Four anonymous referees for Foundations of Science offered helpful suggestions which immensely improved a previous version of this manuscript. MMĆ acknowledges financial support from the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development of the Republic of Serbia through the projects #ON176021 and #ON179048.
Reference
Adams, A. M., Zenil, H., Davies, P. C. W., & Walker, S. I. (2016). Formal definitions of unbounded evolution and innovation reveal universal mechanisms for open-ended evolution in dynamical systems (preprint http://lanl.arxiv.org/abs/1607.01750).
Arsenijević, M. (1986). Prostor, Vreme, Zenon (Filozofsko društvo Srbije, Beograd, in Serbian).
Barnes, L. A. (2012). The fine-tuning of the universe for intelligent life. Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia, 29, 529–564.
Barrow, J. D., & Tipler, F. J. (1986). The anthropic cosmological principle. New York: Oxford University Press.
Birtel, F. T. (1995). Contributions of tipler’s omega point theory. Zygon, 30, 315–327.
Bonnor, W. B. (1964). The mystery of the expanding universe. New York: Macmillan.
Bostrom, N. (2002). Anthropic bias: Observation selection effects in science and philosophy. New York: Routledge.
Callender, C. (2004). Measures, explanation and the past: should ‘Special’ initial conditions be explained? British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 55, 195–217.
Carr, B. J., & Rees, M. J. (1979). The anthropic principle and the structure of the physical world. Nature, 278, 605–612.
Carroll, S. M. (2006). Is our universe natural? Nature, 440, 1132–1136.
Carruth, S. (Director) (2004). Primer (DVD, StudioCanal).
Chalmers, D. J. (2010). The singularity: A philosophical analysis. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 17, 7–65.
Ćirković, M. M. (2012). The astrobiological landscape: Philosophical foundations of the study of cosmic life. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Cushing, J. T. (1985). Is there just one possible world? Contingency vs. the bootstrap. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 16, 31–48.
Davies, P. C. W. (2006). The Goldilocks enigma: Why is the universe just right for life?. London: Allen Lane.
Davies, P. C. W. (2007). Universes galore: Where will it all end? In B. Carr (Ed.), Universe or Multiverse? (pp. 487–505). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
de Chardin, P. T. (1975). The phenomenon of man. New York: Harper & Row.
Ellis, G. F. R. (2015). Recognising top-down causation. In A. Aguirre et al. (Eds.), Questioning the foundations of physics (pp. 17–44). Berlin: Springer.
Ellis, G. F. R., Noble, D., & O’Connor, T. (2012). Top-down causation: an integrating theme within and across the sciences? Interface Focus, 2, 1–3.
Frayn, M. (2006). The human touch: Our part in the creation of a universe. London: Faber and Faber.
Fry, I. (2000). The emergence of life on earth: A historical and scientific overview. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.
Gardner, J. N. (2007). The intelligent universe: AI, ET, and the emerging mind of the cosmos. Pompton Plains: New Page Books.
Gödel, K. (1949). An example of a new type of cosmological solutions of einstein’s field equations of gravitation. Reviews of Modern Physics, 21, 447–450.
Gonzalez-Diaz, P. F. (2011). Life originated during accelerated expansion in the multiverse. Physics Essays, 24, 445–453.
Gould, S. J. (1996). Full house: The spread of excellence from Plato to Darwin. New York: Three Rivers Press.
Hinshaw, G., et al. (2013). Nine-year Wilkinson microwave anisotropy probe (WMAP) observations: cosmological parameter results. The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series, 208, 19.
Hogan, C. J. (2000). Why the universe is just so. Reviews of Modern Physics, 72, 1149–1161.
Hoyle, F. (1983). The intelligent universe. London: Michael Joseph Limited.
Hsu, S., & Zee, A. (2006). Message in the sky. Modern Physics Letters A, 21, 1495–1500.
Kragh, H. (1996). Cosmology and controversy. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Kutschera, U., & Niklas, K. J. (2005). Endosymbiosis, cell evolution, and speciation. Theory in Biosciences, 124, 1–24.
Liddle, A. (2015). An introduction to modern cosmology (3rd edn.). Chichester: Wiley.
Lineweaver, C. H., Davies, P. C. W., & Ruse, M. (Eds.). (2013). Complexity and the arrow of time. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Manson, N. A. (2000). There is no adequate definition of ‘fine-tuned for life’. Inquiry, 43, 341–352.
Maynard Smith, J., & Szathmary, E. (1997). The major transitions in evolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
McFadden, G. I. (2001). Primary and secondary endosymbiosis and the origin of plastids. Journal of Phycology, 37, 951–959.
McGrew, T., McGrew, L., & Vestrup, E. (2001). Probabilities and the fine-tuning argument: a sceptical view. Mind, 110, 1027–1038.
Monroe, H. (2008). Are causality violations undesirable? Foundations of Physics, 38, 1065–1069.
Mosterín, J. (2005). Anthropic explanations in cosmology. In Hajek, V. & Westerstahl (Eds.). Proceedings of the 12th international congress of logic, methodology and philosophy of science (pp. 441–471). Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing.
Nozick, R. (1981). Philosophical explanations. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Oberhummer, H., Csoto, A., & Schlattl, H. (2000). Stellar production rates of carbon and its abundance in the universe. Science, 289, 88–90.
Okasha, S. (2012). Emergence, hierarchy and top-down causation in evolutionary biology. Interface Focus, 2, 49–54.
Parker, W. (2009). Does matter really matter? Computer simulations, experiments and materiality. Synthese, 169, 483–496.
Pavlic, T. P., Adams, A. M., Davies, P. C. W., & Walker, S. I. (2014). Self-referencing cellular automata: A model of the evolution of information control in biological systems. In Sayama, H. Rieffel, J., Risi, S., Doursat, R., & Lipson, H. (Eds.). Proceedings of the fourteenth international conference on the synthesis and simulation of living systems (pp. 522–529), (preprint http://lanl.arxiv.org/pdf/1405.4070).
Ray, T. S. (2003). An evolutionary approach to synthetic biology: zen in the art of creating life. In A. Ghosh & S. Tsutsui (Eds.), Advances in evolutionary computing (pp. 479–517). New York: Springer.
Rescher, N. (2000). Process philosophy: A survey of basic issues. Pittsburgh: Univ. of Pittsburgh Press.
Richmond, A. (2003). Recent work: Time travel. Philosophical Books, 44, 297–309.
Richmond, A. (2004). Gödelian time-travel and anthropic cosmology. Ratio, 17, 176–190.
Sagan, L. (1967). On the origin of mitosing cells. Journal of Theoretical Biology, 14, 255–274.
Schroeder, K. (2005). The lady of mazes. New York: Tor Books.
Smolin, L. (1997). The life of the cosmos. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Soler Gil, F. J., & Alfonseca, M. (2013). Fine tuning explained? Multiverses and cellular automata. Journal for the General Philosophy of Science, 44, 153–172.
Stapledon, O. (1937). Star maker. London: Methuen.
Stapp, H. (2007). Mindful universe: Quantum mechanics and the participating observer. Berlin: Springer.
Stewart, J. E. (2010). The meaning of life in a developing universe. Foundations of Science, 15, 395–409.
Tegmark, M., & Rees, M. J. (1998). Why is the cosmic microwave background fluctuation level 10−5? Astrophysical Journal, 499, 526–532.
Thompson, J. N. (1994). The coevolutionary process. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Tipler, F. J. (1994). The physics of immortality. New York: Doubleday.
Vidal, C. (2010). Computational and biological analogies for understanding fine-tuned parameters in physics. Foundations of Science, 15, 375–393.
Vidal, C. (2014). The beginning and the end: The meaning of life in a cosmological perspective. New York: Springer.
Vukotić, B., Steinhauser, D., Martinez-Aviles, G., Ćirković, M. M., Micic, M., & Schindler, S. (2016). ‘Grandeur in this view of life’: N-body simulation models of the Galactic habitable zone. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 459, 3512–3524.
Wheeler, J. A. (1975). The universe as home for man. In O. Gingerich (Ed.), The nature of scientific discovery (pp. 261–296). Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press.
Wheeler, J. A. (1977). Genesis and observership. In R. E. Butts & J. Hintikka (Eds.), Foundational problems in the special sciences (pp. 3–33). Dordrecht: D. Reidel.
Wheeler, J. A. (1988). World as system self-synthesized by quantum networking. IBM Journal of Research and Development, 32, 4–15.
Windsor, H. H. (Ed.). (1907). Cart before the horse, Popular mechanics April issue, 425.
Winsberg, E. (2010). Science in the age of computer simulation. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Ćirković, M.M., Dimitrijević, J. Putting the Cart Before the Horse: Co-evolution of the Universe and Observers as an Explanatory Hypothesis. Found Sci 23, 427–442 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10699-017-9532-0
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10699-017-9532-0