The Anthropic Principle
This time we're going to figure out if there's anything special about our universe, but let's start with another question: Do we live in a typical place in it? By 'typical' I mean the kind of place that we will most likely end up with if we pick one at random. The answer is of course not, because a typical place in our universe is just empty space. And we happen to live on a planet where there are good conditions to support life. And the reason why it is so is obvious: as far as we know, in the empty space there are no intelligent beings that would ask such questions.
So, if you believe (like me) that there are multiple universes, is the one we live in a typical one? Analogically to the previous question, the answer is no, because most universes probably don't have any intelligent life. It requires very precise fine-tuning of the physical constants to make a universe suitable to support life, and according to the current scientific knowledge there's no reason that the constants must have these specific values. So it seems likely to me that there are universes where the constants or even the laws of physics are different, but most of them don't have any complex structures in them. I'm not saying that our universe is the only possible one that can support life, probably there are many combinations of laws and constants that enable it, but still these are only a small minority of all possible universes. So our universe is one of these 'special' ones, just because it makes it possible for us to live in it.
But what really is the thing that differentiates these special kind of universes from all the rest? Is it the existence of life, intelligence, or something else entirely? I'll answer this question next week.
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