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A Directed Universe?
(Richard)
Posted: 28/1/2003
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Life on other planets: The underlying design of the universe
Professor Paul Davies, of Sydney’s Macquarie University, wrote a piece in the UK’s Guardian newspaper on the 22nd January 2003 entitled ‘Is anyone out there?’ The article was based on the Michael Faraday Prize Lecture which he was due to deliver to the Royal Society on the 27th of January.
Davies claims that many scientists ‘instinctively’ believe that there must be life on other planets but he points out that even the simplest living cell is so complex that the odds against it coming into being by chance are mind-bogglingly huge. He comments, ‘Perhaps life’s origin wasn’t a freak event after all but the automatic outcome of inherently bio-friendly laws of nature.’ After acknowledging the idea that we do not usually think of the laws of nature in this way he goes on to quote ‘the distinguished physicist Freeman Dyson’ who suggests that somehow the universe ‘knew we were coming.’ Davies says that, ‘there seems to be something deeply contrived in the way the universe is put together’.
Davies acknowledges the threat to scientific orthodoxy which is implicit in the idea of the directed universe. He writes; ‘….belief in alien civilisations tacitly assumes a thrust towards intelligence, a hidden directionality in evolution, which is sharply at odds with the whole spirit of Darwinism.’
The article begins with reference to ‘Seti’ – the ‘Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence’ which astronomers, with their radio telescopes, have been pursuing for four decades. Davies ends by suggesting that if, after a further hundred years of searching, no evidence of other civilisations has emerged, we might have to conclude that Earth is unique in hosting self-reflective beings.
Such a conclusion would by no means be fatal for Alphomism but the very strong Alphomist prediction is that if Darwinism is true, it is only in a limited way (just as Newton’s Laws turned out to cover only a certain range of phenomena.) In all likelihood, the universe is ‘directed’ in the ways suggested on this web site and it is reasonable to suppose that sentient being exist throughout the cosmos.
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Re: A Directed Universe?
(Jond)
Posted: 6/4/2003
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Why, do human beings insist on religion to guide them? When fire
wasn't understood or should I say predictable and controllable it was worshipped. Other examples are weather, Pharoh's, religious leaders so many more, are we just a terrified species that lashes out in fear,
gathers more than it needs, and subsugates one's self first in order to lead others down the same path.
In retrospect it all looks silly, I wonder, 2003 years from now, how humanity will view our current postures, be they religion or any other activity.
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