I raised this question in the last post..
Does abiogenesis help to balance the energy equation: Energy In = Energy Out?
Refresher: Energy In = the matter and energy used to create our universe, and Energy Out = the energy in our universe (tipping the matter antimatter scale in favor of matter).
Well, as I pointed out earlier in the series, according to the many-worlds interpretation (MWI) of quantum mechanics EVERY event is a branch point for a different universe. Whereas in scale theory, the branch points exist only as information from which our actual single universe emerges in Darwinian fashion. So, which universe emerges?
The universe that emerges is the one that balances the energy equation.
So, which universe balances the energy equation? As I said, it turns out that most possible universes are uneventful, energy-wise. But our universe with finely tuned physics constants that allow matter to clump and stars to shine is extremely interesting, energy-wise. So how does life fit into this equation?
Do animate, self replicating objects help to balance the energy equation?
Well, let’s start by examining the relationship between life and entropy.
Entropy is a measure of how disperse energy is among the particles in a system. And the second law of thermodynamics states that our universe is moving towards a state of maximum entropy, or disorder. Put another way – as one goes “forward” in time, the overall entropy of our universe increases.
So, maybe…
entropy increases in our universe at a rate that balances the energy equation.
If this is true, here’s what we have so far. Balancing the energy equation drives two results:
- It tunes the universal physics constants such that matter clumps and stars shine (which is the fixed energy in our universe described by first law of thermodynamics)…
- It sets the rate of entropy increase – (the second law of thermodynamics) thereby fixing the arrow of time in the forward direction (another property we observe to be true in our universe).
OK so if balancing the energy equation drives a specific rate of entropy increase – how might this relate to abiogenesis – or the emergence of life?
Here is my high level hypothesis:
At a micro level, living organisms decrease entropy, however in a wider context, life increases entropy. In fact – as MIT physicist Jeremy England’s equations show – life is especially good at increasing entropy. Therefore, abiogenesis may not be just a random happenstance – the emergence of life may in fact be either a necessary component or a highly likely byproduct of the energy equation trying to balance itself!
That concludes my current thinking on the topic of cosmological evolution. Our universe emerged for a mathematical reason out of all the possible configurations. And furthermore abiogenesis can be accounted for in this theory.
Update: I’ve considered the fact that maybe there isn’t a black hole large enough to “power” as it were, our universe. But we seem to be discovering larger and larger black holes the more we look.
This was written about in a Forbes article:
At the 237th meeting of the American Astronomical Society, scientist Feige Wang announced the discovery of a new quasar: an active, ultra-bright, supermassive black hole found at the centers of distant galaxies. This is the most distant quasar, and hence the most distant black hole, ever found. Its light comes to us from when the Universe was just 670 million years old, or ~5% of its current age, and yet it already grew to a mass that’s a whopping 1.6 billion times as massive as our Sun. It’s a mystery how a black hole this big can exist this early on, presenting both a crisis and a unique opportunity for astronomers and astrophysicists.
Here’s a link to the published paper: