Quote:
Originally Posted by FlorenceArt
But the laws of physics are arbitrary, aren't they? Or maybe it would be more accurate to say that there will always be a point at which we have to stop and say "This is how things are, to the best of our knowledge. We don't know why, but we know it is so." I don't think there is any reason that we know of for the speed of light to be... whatever it is  It could well be random and arbitrary. However, it doesn't change, in our universe. Is this what you mean?
It's hard for us to imagine that the universe could be built on a different set of arbitrary laws. We are born from a long succession of life forms that were born within this set of laws, and evolved according to it. If the dice had rolled differently at the start, we might not be here, or maybe a completely different species would be here asking the same question we are asking, or maybe... hard to say. But we are here because we have adapted to this universe we live in, to this specific set of arbitrary laws. Not because the laws were specifically meant to produce us, or have a special meaning that another set of arbitrary laws would not have.
I do hope the above makes some kind of sense... I should probably get back to work now  |
Not truly arbitrary. There are those who think certain fundamental constants could possibly be different and some computer simulations that explore them, but the thing about laws of physics is that they are the same everywhere.
Evolution has likely proceeded completely differently in other parts of the universe but the process is not arbitrary, it is well defined.
I just read an essay by Loren Eiseley - Little Men and Flying Saucers. He is somewhat philosophical in his view of the universe. I posted a link to it somewhere (in the What we're reading thread? ah, here it is:
http://www.american-buddha.com/little.men.htm ) I wouldn't say it's his best essay but I love the ending:
"Lights come and go in the night sky. Men, troubled at last by the things they build, may toss in their sleep and dream bad dreams, or lie awake while the meteors whisper greenly overhead. But nowhere in all space or on a thousand worlds will there be men to share our loneliness. There may be wisdom; there may be power; somewhere across space great instruments, handled by strange, manipulative organs, may stare vainly at our floating cloud wrack, their owners yearning as we yearn. Nevertheless, in the nature of life and in the principles of evolution we have had our answer. Of men elsewhere, and beyond, there will be none forever. "