By Vorjack
Of all the varieties of stellar object found in the universe, none hold quite the fascination of the black hole. They seem to bend space so much that it breaks. Some theorize that an existing black hole might actually create a new universe derived from our own.
Think of that: our universe may actually be a meta-verse, a seed bed for other universes.
Setting the Dials
Pullquote: It seems to me that this universe must have been fined tuned to produce these amazing structures.
But have you ever considered just how unlikely it is that black holes should exist in the first place? The careful balance of forces must be just so for black holes to form. Gravity has to be strong enough to overcome the strong force, but only under extreme conditions lest you end up with one huge black hole instead of a scattering of many. The sub-atomic forces can’t be too strong, or no black holes will form at all.
I find it highly unlikely that these carefully balanced conditions should come about by random chance. If the dials are spun too far either one way or the other, you just don’t have the necessary conditions to create the blacks holes, or to keep the black holes far enough apart that they don’t collide.
It seems to me that this universe must have been fined tuned to produce these amazing structures.
Useless Clumps of Matter
Pullquote: These planets with their new elements go on to form odd chemical chains, but this is neither important nor interesting.
Of course, there’s a lot more to the universe than black holes, but I take this to be an inevitable consequence of the preconditions. You need huge concentrations of mass for black holes to form, which happens to mean stars. These stars are designed to explode and condense in order to make black holes, and this has a side effect of creating new elements. New stars form from the waste products, and some of these might have a planet. These planets with their new elements go on to form odd chemical chains, but this is neither important nor interesting.
Perhaps there is a function to all of this wasted mass. Maybe it’s intended to feed into the black holes at some later time. The ways of the creator are mysterious.
Perhaps God Really Likes Cold, Empty Space…
Pullquote: How exactly are we to determine what the creator desires – if we can even talk about the “desire” of such an alien entity.
I’ll duck out of the way while the physicists shred this, but I hope my point has comes through. There seems to be an assumption behind the usual fine-tuning argument: we are the point of all of this. The preconditions for the universe were set this way so that intelligent life would form.
This strikes me as anthropocentric arrogance. We share this universe with an enormous variety of objects and substances. How can we know that we’re the point? This only makes sense because we’re projecting ourselves onto the creator: we’re important to us, so we assume we’re important to the creator as well.
But we also admit that the creator is not like us. In fact, it is extremely alien to us, as something that is timeless and infinite must be. How exactly are we to determine what the creator desires – if we can even talk about the “desire” of such an alien entity.
Religion is always going to be focused on humans because it is created by humans. But there is no guarantee that God would be as interested. It’s already been established that God has a inordinate fondness for beetles. Why not black holes?
Vorjack is a librarian/archivist and a public historian, living with his wife in history-soaked Albany, New York.
Nice, as per usual.
I read a sci-fi book several years ago that postulated that black holes do indeed breed new universes, each with similar but slightly different fundamental constants. The universes were evolving, but fitness was measured, obviously, by the ability to create new universes via black-holes. Life was, in this view, a kind of mite :D I think it was a Stephen Baxter but I can’t remember for sure.
Yes, there is a stephen baxter book that runs along these lines if I remember correctly.
Cosm?
I don’t remember. :(
The one I’m thinking of might not even be the right one, since it seemed to be focusing on time travel? Who knows.
It’s the kind of thing he’d write, though…
Yes, it’s mentioned in Cosm (by Gregory Benford, IIRC). Though several sf authors have explored the theme of universes propagating in an evolutionary fashion.
this universe must have been fined tuned
Not necessarily. We only know a little about this particular universe – which could have ocurred completely randomly, and other that failed to have this particular observed ‘tuning’ may have turned out completely differently (or not at all). You cannot assume that everything we know now of what we can observe of this universe is the ‘totality’. The ancients believed the gods held up the stars. Even Einstein had trouble comprehending that the known universe was expanding; and ‘tuned’ his theory on that basis. As science progresses, more knowledge makes for more understanding – just because we accept some things as ‘universal’ constants now – doesn’t mean they actually are.
I think you may have missed some sarcasm in that sentence. He is doing a parody of the antropic principle
I always found it odd(and telling) you never see religions(or at least popular ones; I know I’ve never seen ones like this accepted by anyone) that say something like “No matter what you do in life, you’re going to (Hell) and will suffer for eternity.” Meaning that even if you believe in whatever afterlife claimed you can do nothing to avoid it because the doctrines don’t include salvation from that fate. The popular ones always offer hope and claim to be the truth but negative ones, like I mentioned, despite claiming to be the truth(Even if, say, in reality it was true), would never catch on because it doesn’t offer anyone hope and people can’t get behind something that depressing, especially if there’s no proof it’s the truth. Which, of course, all religions depend on; no actual, testable proof it’s true.
Believe in Jesus and be saved from Hell. Be a good person and avoid Hades for a better afterlife. Be a good person and have your soul judged against a feather by Osiris. Cast off worldly things and avoid reincarnation and ascend to Nirvana. It all just smacks of anthropocentric selfishness, even the Buddhist one. That and a useful tool to keep people from murdering each other. A noble goal to be sure, but I’m sure laws could prevent that just as fine instead.
*has a Terry Pratchett moment*
People get their afterlife they think they deserve? ;p
Well the Calvinists kinda say this. If you are not one of the elected – then no matter what you do you are going to hell.
LOL. Really, it is an amazingly ballsy theology.
Ballsy is pretty accurate, I’d say.
:S
There is nothing waiting for you but the yawning abyss. However, I have good news! You can be eaten first!
Yep, black holes could carry all the characteristics needed for evolution – reproduction with variation. Only universes created that make more black holes would survive to reproduce.
As to the universe being fine tuned – yep it really is – even down to us having a larger than usual Moon to keep Earth’s orbit stable, down to the fine structure constant so elements heavier than hydrogen can exist.
I think the question of whether humans are the point to the Universe is betetr framed by thinking of the entire history of a Universe as an object, as space-time insists – all future, present and history is created at once, and we are just beings who can only move in one direction across the time dimension (although all 3 spatial dimensions at will) – if this is the case than everything in the Universe is necessary for its survival – including us. Perhaps we are necessary since we will organise the information needed to create the Universe in the first place at one time in our history – applied M-Theory. :)
If humans (or our robot decendents) could advance enough manipulate blackholes enough so certain Universes are created, would we use them as a way to make Universe capable of life? And in that case, would we be the Gods of that Universe? A Universe could even be created in a lab, since it would expand into dimensions not our own. Would we feel obligated to do so?
Well, if you define “god” as a being who has some influence over what happens in that universe, is able to answer prayers and look after the souls of worshippers, then no, we would not be gods. Deists may accept that definition, but theists certainly won’t.
Good point, although as applied M-Theory develops we may even be able to adjust the initial conditions so we could engineer answers to problems the inhabitants have – true omnipotence.
The key phase there is initial conditions. Assuming we know what those problems are going to be when we create the universe, and it develops in entirely predictable ways, so that we can even predict (and affect!) what style of government the inhabitants of a given planet will have tens of billions of years later, then we’ll be able to do that, yes.
Somehow, I think that’s fairly unlikely.
Remember we’re talking about creating a whole Universe here, which includes its entire history (space-time – space is the same as time we just experience it differently) – we create its beginning, evolution and end as a whole, whilst our little minions will run around within it, only able to move along the time dimension one way. I suspect chaos will still rule within the system since we know nature isn’t deterministic, so we may not be able to predict how the system evolves (free-will?) but may be able to fix stable points – the end and the beginning.
Anyhow, its all fairly unlikely ;-)
Of course, the other point is that the universe in general is really, really hostile to human life. If you were to be teleported to a randomly chosen spot, somewhere in the universe, the chances of you surviving more than a second are (literally) astronomically small. There’s a few tens of thousands of cubic miles surrounding the Earth, and that’s it. Everywhere else that we know of in the universe will actively try to kill you.
A black hole is not at all finetune!
It actually leaks and dissepates very slowely. Given enough time and no matter falling in, it wil just vanish.
You want to know the really crazy thing about black holes? Their density decreases as their mass increases. A black hole 1mm across is several billion times denser than lead. A black hole with the diameter of the solar system is about as dense as water.
And a black hole the size of the observable universe? It would have the same density as the observable universe!
Your mind has just been blown.
Someone successfully divided by zero, didn’t they?
I think she did. I’m worshipping wintermute from now on.
That’s… zen-like in its awesomeness.
I wonder if the universe would appear to be a black hole from the outside?!?!?!
Same size, same density, same mass. If wintermute is right then yes, the universe looks like a blackhole from outside (where is outside the universe??)
another universe, in which we are the contents of a black hole!
Like one of those Matryoska dolls (or whatever you spell it)?
That is pretty awesome. But didn’t Stephen Hawking mention something about time slowing (or not existing) the closer you got to the black hole? As in the farther you traveled, the slower you traveled?
I don’t remember. Mind’s fuzzy. Must re-read The Universe in a Nutshell.
So I was thinking, and I echo the author’s “I’m gonna get ripped apart by physicists” thing, but:
If our universe creates black holes, and these black holes create universes, and if time doesn’t necessarily flow in straight lines, then one of these black holes created by our own universe could be what created our own universe in the past. Our universe makes itself happen, in a kind of loop.
The problem of “If there is no God then what caused the Big Bang?” has now been solved lol.
I really suggest reading “The Last Question” if you haven’t before – it pretty much talks on this. A short story by Issac Asminov, it was said to be his favourite. Link here: http://www.multivax.com/last_question.html – its not that long and worth it for the ending :)
Isaac Asimov ftw.
… I think my geekness is showing :D
My favorite author. His history of the Bible is fascinating, btw. Check it out.
Will do.
I’ve virtually everything Isaac Asimov at home :p
I just read it… Thank you! It was lovely :)
The idea that the fine-tuning of our Universe is the result of a form of natural selection via black holes can be accredited to the physicist Lee Smolin. He wrote an enjoyable book on the subject called “The Life of the Cosmos” which I think people who visit here would greatly enjoy. His main argument is that the fine-tuning of the Universe IS something that needs explaining, that the anthropic argument is unsatisfactory, and that we need a naturalistic explanation. Then he proposes the black hole theory as an example.
The aforementioned sci-fi book probably got the idea from Smolin – not sure.
I have used a similar, but more biology-oriented fine-tuning argument before. Suppose we do not contest that the Universe was created with just the right conditions for life to develop on planet Earth on the fringes of the Milky Way Galaxy. How would we know that had been done for humans? Maybe God’s purpose in all this is cockroaches. Or beetles. God’s inordinate fondness for beetles has been noted before.
Pratchett claims it was all about the quest to build better beetles.
Adams, however, specifically states that the entire planet was designed, built, and paid for by the mice!
Damn these theological dilemmas!
Exactly. One of my main quibbles with religion is that it ascribes animal characteristics (the desire for love, gratitude, anger, etc.) to a creature that is essentially unlike anything at all. It always reminds me of Stanislaw Lem and the alienness of aliens, and how aliens would be almost – if not entirely – incomprehensible to us.
There was a character in Larry Niven’s Known Space stories who was fond of the phrase “The thing about aliens, son, is that they’re alien”. Too many people seem to forget that in favour of Star Trek’s humans-with-prosthetic-foreheads.
Too many people seem to forget that in favour of Star Trek’s humans-with-prosthetic-foreheads.
Right, there’s nothing alien about that. Everybody wants prosthetic foreheads on their real heads.
(if three of you got that reference and now have that song stuck in your head, then I consider this a success.)
I don’t, but I do want a rock to tie a string around.
I can’t exactly imagine what a non-carbon-based life-form would be like.
Jack Van-impe have already determined that black holes are really the gates of hell.
Rofl, isn’t that basically the plot of ‘Event Horizon’?!?!
Event Horizon had a plot?
You win…
For those of interest, Kepler the new sattelite dedicated to search for planets just detect it’s first ever atmosphere on another planet. I have no doubt that it will prove that there are tons of other planets out there perfect for life.
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2009/06aug_kepler2.htm?list187760
I always thought that venus had an atmosphere -sorry, i had to say it.
We re still looking for giant planets, far from a planet similar to earth but yes, we will find lots of them
Teoría Conectada: The best physics theory since 1687
The new Copernican revolution
I read Lee Smolin’s book ‘LAS DUDAS DE LA FÍSICA EN EL SIGLO XXI’, 2007, Ed. Crítica. Wonderful. I have seen that Lee Smolin are looking for a new big idea, the fundamental simply idea for the progress and unification of physics. Seems that Smolin got the conviction that both quantum mechanics and GR theorys don’t understand the deep nature of time (page 355). It is right for GR unless.
Here is what i say:
No more Lorentz’s Transformations. The new alternatives transformations (’relational transformations’) are deduced on ‘LA PARADOJA DE LOS GEMELOS DE LA TEORÍA DE LA RELATIVIDAD ESPECIAL DE EINSTEIN’, f.i., equations (22) and (23) with “C” and “D” given by (42) and (43) , pages (33) to (36). From them arises the ‘teoría relacional’, an alternative to special relativity.
The generalitation of this ‘teoría relacional’, the unique possible classic alternative to GR, appears on ‘EXTRACTO DE LA TEORÍA CONECTADA’. 3 are the fundamental equations. (84), (171) and (172), pages (146) and (182). This 3=24 equations are necessary in order to eliminate the Newton-Einstein’s absolute space. There are not absolutes accelerations (neither absolutes velocities, of course).
The Dark Matter problem is solved in ‘Apéncice C’, page 205 (Exponential factor gets important at large distance from the center).
What about a “quantum teoría conectada”? I believe that you can say something important about it.
Xavier Terri
Terrassa 2009 august 6
P.D.: Smolin IS completely certain when he tell that the great historic mistake comes from Descartes-Galileo (‘Las dudas de la física en el s.XXI’, pages 355-356). This great historic error is the Principle of Inertia (movement is a relational concept. It is completely false that the movement of ALL free bodies is a straight line. Some of them move, respect the SAME reference system, in a curved way. Spacetime metric defines a specific relationship betwen bodies and reference system.Pure evidence beyond the reason: at night, see the stars). Also, Principle of Inertia leads us to the inertial-non inertial dichotomy. Where is INVARIANCE of physical laws? (pages 45 on ‘Paradoja’ and 141, eq. (77), on ‘Teoría Conectada’).
I don’t agree with “someone” or “something” tuned the universe in such a way so we could exist. We exist only because the conditions came together just right in one small corner of the universe. If those conditions hadn’t come together (and they didn’t in 99.999…% of the universe… so far), we wouldn’t be here to contemplate our existence.
But the black hole conjecture is an interesting twist to the plot. What if the universe evolves? Maybe the physics of the last iteration of the universe did end up as one giant black hole… and therefore ceased to exist. But this time around the conditions were just right for black holes to exist… and for us to be here…
Aiiieeeeee… my brain hurts…..