|
Reader's Favorites
Media Casualties Mount Administration Split On Europe Invasion Administration In Crisis Over Burgeoning Quagmire Congress Concerned About Diversion From War On Japan Pot, Kettle On Line Two... Allies Seize Paris The Natural Gore Book Sales Tank, Supporters Claim Unfair Tactics Satan Files Lack Of Defamation Suit Why This Blog Bores People With Space Stuff A New Beginning My Hit Parade
Instapundit (Glenn Reynolds) Tim Blair James Lileks Bleats Virginia Postrel Kausfiles Winds Of Change (Joe Katzman) Little Green Footballs (Charles Johnson) Samizdata Eject Eject Eject (Bill Whittle) Space Alan Boyle (MSNBC) Space Politics (Jeff Foust) Space Transport News (Clark Lindsey) NASA Watch NASA Space Flight Hobby Space A Voyage To Arcturus (Jay Manifold) Dispatches From The Final Frontier (Michael Belfiore) Personal Spaceflight (Jeff Foust) Mars Blog The Flame Trench (Florida Today) Space Cynic Rocket Forge (Michael Mealing) COTS Watch (Michael Mealing) Curmudgeon's Corner (Mark Whittington) Selenian Boondocks Tales of the Heliosphere Out Of The Cradle Space For Commerce (Brian Dunbar) True Anomaly Kevin Parkin The Speculist (Phil Bowermaster) Spacecraft (Chris Hall) Space Pragmatism (Dan Schrimpsher) Eternal Golden Braid (Fred Kiesche) Carried Away (Dan Schmelzer) Laughing Wolf (C. Blake Powers) Chair Force Engineer (Air Force Procurement) Spacearium Saturn Follies JesusPhreaks (Scott Bell) Science
Nanobot (Howard Lovy) Lagniappe (Derek Lowe) Geek Press (Paul Hsieh) Gene Expression Carl Zimmer Redwood Dragon (Dave Trowbridge) Charles Murtaugh Turned Up To Eleven (Paul Orwin) Cowlix (Wes Cowley) Quark Soup (Dave Appell) Economics/Finance
Assymetrical Information (Jane Galt and Mindles H. Dreck) Marginal Revolution (Tyler Cowen et al) Man Without Qualities (Robert Musil) Knowledge Problem (Lynne Kiesling) Journoblogs The Ombudsgod Cut On The Bias (Susanna Cornett) Joanne Jacobs The Funny Pages
Cox & Forkum Day By Day Iowahawk Happy Fun Pundit Jim Treacher IMAO The Onion Amish Tech Support (Lawrence Simon) Scrapple Face (Scott Ott) Regular Reading
Quasipundit (Adragna & Vehrs) England's Sword (Iain Murray) Daily Pundit (Bill Quick) Pejman Pundit Daimnation! (Damian Penny) Aspara Girl Flit Z+ Blog (Andrew Zolli) Matt Welch Ken Layne The Kolkata Libertarian Midwest Conservative Journal Protein Wisdom (Jeff Goldstein et al) Dean's World (Dean Esmay) Yippee-Ki-Yay (Kevin McGehee) Vodka Pundit Richard Bennett Spleenville (Andrea Harris) Random Jottings (John Weidner) Natalie Solent On the Third Hand (Kathy Kinsley, Bellicose Woman) Patrick Ruffini Inappropriate Response (Moira Breen) Jerry Pournelle Other Worthy Weblogs
Ain't No Bad Dude (Brian Linse) Airstrip One A libertarian reads the papers Andrew Olmsted Anna Franco Review Ben Kepple's Daily Rant Bjorn Staerk Bitter Girl Catallaxy Files Dawson.com Dodgeblog Dropscan (Shiloh Bucher) End the War on Freedom Fevered Rants Fredrik Norman Heretical Ideas Ideas etc Insolvent Republic of Blogistan James Reuben Haney Libertarian Rant Matthew Edgar Mind over what matters Muslimpundit Page Fault Interrupt Photodude Privacy Digest Quare Rantburg Recovering Liberal Sand In The Gears(Anthony Woodlief) Sgt. Stryker The Blogs of War The Fly Bottle The Illuminated Donkey Unqualified Offerings What she really thinks Where HipHop & Libertarianism Meet Zem : blog Space Policy Links
Space Future The Space Review The Space Show Space Frontier Foundation Space Policy Digest BBS AWOL
USS Clueless (Steven Den Beste) Media Minder Unremitting Verse (Will Warren) World View (Brink Lindsay) The Last Page More Than Zero (Andrew Hofer) Pathetic Earthlings (Andrew Lloyd) Spaceship Summer (Derek Lyons) The New Space Age (Rob Wilson) Rocketman (Mark Oakley) Mazoo Site designed by Powered by Movable Type |
Chicken And Egg Ken Silber discusses some recent work (by an Oregon lawyer...) that may indicate that the universe is self replicating, and that we may even have created it ourselves. This kind of stuff is always fascinating to me, because I have a (non-scientific, so far) belief in a teleology--that the purpose of life, and particularly intelligent life, is to help the universe come to know itself. I've been thinking about how one might derive an ethical system based on such a belief, but not hard enough, because I haven't made much progress. This takes the idea one step further, in which the purpose of life and sapience is to not only give the universe consciousness, but to help it reproduce as well. Interesting. Posted by Rand Simberg at August 11, 2003 08:44 AMTrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.transterrestrial.com/mt-diagnostics.cgi/1583 Listed below are links to weblogs that reference this post from Transterrestrial Musings.
Did We Create the Universe?
Excerpt: From Kenneth Silber's Tech Central Station column: Has an Oregon lawyer discovered the secret of the universe? Gardner's hypothesis is called the "Selfish Biocosm." It states that intelligent life plays a key role in a cosmological cycle wher... Weblog: The Speculist Tracked: August 11, 2003 10:31 AM
I Have to Consider This on More than One Level
Excerpt: Selfish Baby Universes Kenneth Silber Has an Oregon lawyer discovered the secret of the universe? This question arises in connection... Weblog: blogoSFERICS Tracked: August 11, 2003 11:01 AM
I Have to Consider This on More than One Level
Excerpt: Selfish Baby Universes Kenneth Silber Has an Oregon lawyer discovered the secret of the universe? This question arises in connection... Weblog: blogoSFERICS Tracked: August 11, 2003 01:17 PM
Comments
If the idea that Earth is a self-regulating organism is the Gaia hypothesis, does that make this the Uranus hypothesis? ;) Posted by Jay Manifold at August 11, 2003 10:22 AMI see a resemblance to the way James Blish ended the last in his "Cities in Flight" series of books. Posted by Kevin McGehee at August 11, 2003 10:39 AMThanks for the link, Rand. Toward the book's end, Gardner tries sketching out some ethical implications of his hypothesis. His emphasis is on intergenerational fairness and altruism. It's a bit vague, and I suspect not the ethical theory you'd derive. Was one of various topics (Gaia is another) too long for a short review. Posted by Ken Silber at August 11, 2003 11:17 AMThere already is one. That is the basic belief that underlies Wicca. In brief, the Universe is an expression of polar opposites, most commonly referred to in Wicca simply as Goddess and God. Male and Female, Anti-Matter and Matter, Light and Dark, Destruction and Construction - all of these are important polar opposites, and Wicca seeks the balance of these forces. In particular, the worship object of Wicca is the union of Goddess and God (yes, it's somewhat fair to say that we worship sex - it's the central act of relevance in the Universe). The sum total of all of this is the Universe, and the Universe as a whole is Divine. It is the role of all of the constituent parts to do their bit in maintaining the balance that allows the Universe to exist in good health, just as it is the responsibility of each of your cells and tissues to keep you existing as a healthy whole, though they can have no direct experience of the totality of a person. All of that said, most Wiccans would read that and say it's close but not quite - and that is because most Wiccans (at least, most American Wiccans) are basically into Wicca for hedonistic and new-agey touchy-feely reasons. Like the Libertarians, being on the fringe means attracting the oddballs. If you are interested in learning more of the philosophy behind this, the sources that work for me are typically Gardnerian and Alexandrian Wiccans. Ray Buckland, Janet and Stuart Ferrar, Doreen Valiente and Vivianne Crowley. If you are looking online for information, the Alexandrian and Gardnerian forms of Wicca are the ones which have the most philosophical and teleological bent. Silber says The Big Bang thus resulted from a Big Crunch in a previous universe.If he's referring to the standard Big Bang model, all present indications are that the Universe cannot collapse in a "Big Crunch" -- not only is the density too low at the present time for eventual collapse, but dark energy is increasing the expansion rate. AFAIK virtually all cosmologists have given up on this sort of cyclic process. He later mentions the cyclic Ekpyrotic Universe, and while here the term "crunch" might make some sense, it's not in this four-dimensional spacetime continuum that the "crunch" takes place; rather, it's a collision (and "impact" rather than "crunch" is the more accurate term) between our 4-D spacetime and another one, separated in a fifth spacelike direction, that causes the next high-energy state (which is unlike the classic "Bang" in that it begins in an already-"inflated" condition, rather than in an expansion from a singularity). Ekpyrotic theory, unfortunately, is far from wide acceptance... Minor points, perhaps, but if Gardner's arguments require a cyclic universe we must recognize that there is very little present support for such a beast. Posted by Troy at August 11, 2003 11:53 AMWiccans should try reading a little of Carl Jung which they ripped off or maybe they should try Hinduism which some think Carl Jung ripped off. Posted by Jardinero1 at August 11, 2003 02:46 PMOr how about Heinlein's final books which were dominated by the idea that creating a work of fiction creates a new universe where Sherlock Holmes, Barsoom or Huck Finn really exists. Which implies our universe has an author, too. Or how about Frederick Pohl's Gateway series, where the Foe are destroying the universe in order to recreate it more to their liking. Or has was mentioned earlier, Blish's final "Cities In Flight" book, which ends with a race to determine who will be at the magic spot to influence the nature of the recreated universe(s). Or just go to Amazon and search on "anthropic". Posted by Raoul Ortega at August 11, 2003 08:51 PM[Homer Simpson voice]Mmmm....archetypes.... mmmmm... yes; served fully individuated. Posted by Jardinero1 at August 12, 2003 07:52 AM.....served fully individuated. Posted by Jardinero1 at August 12, 2003 07:58 AMIt sounds more like the 'Manifold' series by Stephen Baxter. It has the same basic idea of advanced intelligences at the end of time reaching back to modify the universe to create additional universes. Posted by Annoying Old Guy at August 12, 2003 04:07 PMPost a comment |