Reading this news release, I thought of
JennieDar's apparent (I say "apparent" because I don't know for a fact that
JennieDar is not one Scott Youngren) regurgitation (http://www.happyatheistforum.com/forum/index.php?topic=15799.0) of a Christian apologist site. The calculation of Penrose that Christians are so eager to share is all very well as far as it goes, which isn't anywhere much. We
Homo sapiens don't know enough about the nature of the Universe and in particular its origins to justify such a calculation as anything but speculation. We're free to speculate about a lot of things, but speculation isn't evidence. It's possible that life is relatively abundant not only in this Universe, but in a hypothetical multiverse. If life is common in the multiverse then the hypothetical "fine-tuning" that Christians and other theists are so fond of simply doesn't exist.
"Could a multiverse be hospitable to life?" |
ScienceDaily (https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/05/180514083908.htm)
QuoteA Multiverse -- where our Universe is only one of many -- might not be as inhospitable to life as previously thought, according to new research.
Questions about whether other universes might exist as part of a larger Multiverse, and if they could harbour life, are burning issues in modern cosmology.
Now new research led by Durham University, UK, and Australia's University of Sydney, Western Sydney University and the University of Western Australia, has shown that life could potentially be common throughout the Multiverse, if it exists.
The key to this, the researchers say, is dark energy, a mysterious "force" that is accelerating the expansion of the Universe.
Scientists say that current theories of the origin of the Universe predict much more dark energy in our Universe than is observed. Adding larger amounts would cause such a rapid expansion that it would dilute matter before any stars, planets or life could form.
The Multiverse theory, introduced in the 1980s, can explain the "luckily small" amount of dark energy in our Universe that enabled it to host life, among many universes that could not.
Using huge computer simulations of the cosmos, the new research has found that adding dark energy, up to a few hundred times the amount observed in our Universe, would actually have a modest impact upon star and planet formation.
This opens up the prospect that life could be possible throughout a wider range of other universes, if they exist, the researchers said.
[Continues . . . (https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/05/180514083908.htm)]
Personally, I do not subscribe to the "theory" of the multiverse. As far as I am concerned there is only 1 universe, and everything is a part of it.
Of course life is abundant, cosmically speaking.
Quote from: No one on May 21, 2018, 02:01:54 PM
Of course life is abundant, cosmically speaking.
:query:
(https://www.happyatheistforum.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.trackie.com%2Ftrack-and-field%2Fimg%2Flayout%2Ficon_quote.jpg&hash=c5a9d5ac5c9c0366d813e18a50510fe9aa16bfc2)No one:
Of course life is abundant, cosmically speaking.
(https://www.happyatheistforum.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.trackie.com%2Ftrack-and-field%2Fimg%2Flayout%2Ficon_quote.jpg&hash=c5a9d5ac5c9c0366d813e18a50510fe9aa16bfc2)Dave:
:query:
My point good sir, is that the universe is massive, on a scale in which the human brain can not possibly imagine. Life is probably relatively scarce in that sense. But on a cosmic level it probably thrives wherever it can take hold. There is more than likely lifeforms that the infinitely small human brain would not recognize as life.
Quote from: No one on May 21, 2018, 06:54:36 PM
(https://www.happyatheistforum.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.trackie.com%2Ftrack-and-field%2Fimg%2Flayout%2Ficon_quote.jpg&hash=c5a9d5ac5c9c0366d813e18a50510fe9aa16bfc2)No one:
Of course life is abundant, cosmically speaking.
(https://www.happyatheistforum.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.trackie.com%2Ftrack-and-field%2Fimg%2Flayout%2Ficon_quote.jpg&hash=c5a9d5ac5c9c0366d813e18a50510fe9aa16bfc2)Dave:
:query:
My point good sir, is that the universe is massive, on a scale in which the human brain can not possibly imagine. Life is probably relatively scarce in that sense. But on a cosmic level it probably thrives wherever it can take hold. There is more than likely lifeforms that the infinitely small human brain would not recognize as life.
You just sounded so sure. Yeah, I suppose - if uncountable zillion "expetiments" have occured since the Universe exploded into existence, and are still going on, there is a bit of a chance that the conditions and chance sequences that created life here, or something enough like them as makes no
matter difference have occurred elsewhere in the space time continuum.
I think it would also depend on what one means by "abundant," because in our own solar system, it appears to not take up much of the mass or many of the planets. If I have a 30 acre field with two cabbages, I wouldn't call that abundant with cabbages, and if the average cabbage per acre were 0.07 across all fields, I wouldn't call that abundant. But I'd also not think that the first cabbage I came across was the only cabbage in existence just because I couldn't see any other cabbages fro where I was.
So I would say that we already know that it's not abundant, but that doesn't mean that we're the only life in the universe.