Science a GoGo's Home Page Forums General Discussion Not-Quite-Science Forum Philosophy of Religions--all religions, including,

Neat sidestep .. so I take it you don't want to discuss it ... you could just have said that



The issue doesn't worry me I am happy to discuss it we have our own science versions of the religious paradox.

QM and GR both throw up similar problems to the religious case in that they imply the sum of all information is required for physics to work.

Wheelers delay choice eraser experiments also shows what happens in the future can affect ones view of the past

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed_choice_quantum_eraser




So even in science this issue divids because it leaves open the problem that something in our future is affecting observation right now. I will draw the line at retro causality because that has never conclusively been shown but observation yes.

So what I do I believe.

I believe humans as does all of nature, the free will arises because of the pseudo-random physics at play.

It is not completely random because for whatever reason in the universe there is a slight imbalance we see it with matter versus anti-matter and almost all interactions .... to me that is the reason time goes one way.

On evolution I have a very controversial stance I will often get into trouble with Bill over it and I will explain.

Long before it was fashionable to accept QM as solid and important feature of the universe I had come to the conclusion it had to be that way. Like many scientists I watched the black hole information paradox war between Hawking and Penrose versus Susskind and Preskill and like most scientists (and Hawkings eventually conceded) it became obvious that QM could not be destroyed even in a black hole because it would require other key and easily testable QM physics to fail. More distinctly something in the Quantum domain does not necessarily even experience the Gravity domain and that was clear from it's theories. With the LHC finding the Higgs and the Standard Model being installed QM was installed into it's correct place in science and on the same footing as GR/SR.

The problem with Quantum Mechanics is it is simply a description of what is happening it does not tell you why it is happening or what drives it. General Relativity similarly is a description of gravity it doesn't explain why it occurs.

You could say the universe looks like this

GR - Space domain
QM - Time domain
Evolution - Life domain


Without getting too far into it there is starting to assemble a small inkling that whatever is behind QM and GR may also be behind evolution. I would not say it is even a reasonable solid case and it may be just mimicking but there is some striking similarities between all three fields.

Due to the similarities there have been concerted efforts to join QM and GR into Quantum Gravity but all efforts at this stage have failed to produce a result that correctly describes the universe we see and live in. Work with QM and Evolution called Quantum Biology is in it's early stages and there is no conclusive results yet but there is an impressive number of new researchers moving into the field.


For me even if you could merge all three we still have a problem because a description of the universe even merging all this does not describe what is driving it.

So for me the universe = GR + QM + Evolution + ????

The ???? is there because we can't isolate what it is that is driving the system.


So answering your question and this is my view not a science view.

We as humans have freedom of choice as does anything living. However ultimately those choices may lead to a dead end and our extinction as humans. Our end however is not the full story because the choices we made and the other things we interacted with echo out throughout the universe in time, space and life. So even if we are extinct it was important that we were here as it was for any extinct species to make their contribution to the evolution of the universe.

What is the evolution of the universe to me, well that's harder for me as a scientist because I have so little solid data with which to form a view. Why did it come into being I have no idea. Where is it going I believe we have a little more evidence from energy behavior that it is going one way to spread energy maximally between space, time and life.

The implication of that is the energy in each domain will end up spread thinner and thinner the results are predictable

GR (space domain): Energy spread thinner and thinner in larger space meaning a very cold space universe.

QM (time domain): Energy spread thinner and thinner in longer and longer time.

Evolution (Life domain): Energy spread thinner and thinner in more and more complex life.


So there you have my slightly controversial views for what it is worth.