Can the laws of physics evolve?

A friend writes to say that in "The unique universe" (PhysicsWorld.com, 2 June 2009), Toronto-based cosmologist Lee Smolin attempts to develop a different view of time that allows him the laws of physics tp evolve in time. My friend wonders, "Presumably this is an alternative way of addressing the design challenge of fine tuning?"

Here's the essay's At a Glance:

Against the timeless multiverse

- Many cosmologists today believe that we live in a timeless multiverse - a universe where ours is just one of an ensemble of universes, and where time does not exist

- The timeless multiverse, however, presents a lot of problems. Our laws of physics are no longer determinable from experiment and it is unclear what the connection is between fundamental and effective laws

- Furthermore, theories that do not posit time to be a fundamental property fail to reproduce the space-time that we are familiar with

- Many of these puzzles can be avoided if we adopt a different set of principles that postulates that there is only one universe and that time is a fundamental property of nature. This scenario also opens the way to the possibility that the laws of physics evolve in time.

Well, some people go to a lot of trouble to evade the implications of fine tuning of the universe (= design).

Here is what I wrote about Lee Smolin's work in By Design or by Chance?:

New Universes Sprout Only in Black Holes?

Cosmologist Lee Smolin is a bit more conservative than Tegmark. He speculates that new universes might erupt—but not just anywhere that a particle goes one way rather than the other. Perhaps only in the middles of cosmic black holes. The new universes are disconnected from our universe, because the laws of physics break down in black holes. That is why we don’t know about them.

Smolin believes that the eruption of new universes in black holes follows the principles of Darwinism (natural selection). He explains:

"It seemed to me that the only principle powerful enough to explain the high degree of organization of our universe—compared to a universe with the particles and forces chosen randomly—was natural selection itself. The question then became: Could there be any mechanism by which natural selection could work on the scale of the whole universe?"

In other words, natural selection (the outcome of law acting on chance), lurking in a black hole, organizes a complex universe, excruciatingly fine-tuned for life. Smolin does not claim that the black hole spouts millions of them. Alternatively, he is attracted to the idea that the universe organizes itself:

"I believe more in the general idea that there must be mechanisms of self-organization involved in the selection of the parameters of the laws of nature than I do in this particular mechanism, which is only the first one I was able to invent. "

All these universes popping up in the clouds in our coffee, in the torment of a black hole, in the futility of an escaped balloon—their existence guarantees that our universe is a product of chance. If only they would exist . . . if only they would exist . . . (pp. 34-35)

Here are some more fine tuning stories:

Astronomer vs. pop science TV

Materialism strikes back: We create the universe, not God

The universe has hallmarks of desgn: And what can anyone do about it?

Like clouds in our coffee, all these other universes

Major media, imagining themselves sober, think there are many universes, not just double vision

The Big Bang exploded; seriously, is there room for reasonable skepticism about the Big Bang?

Could God live in an infinite sea of universes? It depends.

Will the cosmic multiverse landscape ensure the triumph of intelligent design?

Now, remind me again why we need multiverse theory in the first place?

Multiverse theory: Replacing the big fix with the sure thing?

Science fiction: Reflections on the nature of time

Over at Jason Rennie's Sci Phi: Journal of Science Fiction and Philosophy, Michael Spence offers "Requiem for a Harlequin: Two Perspectives on Time, and a Celebration of Kairos, in Three Stories by Harlan Ellison" - a look at Ellison's sf fantasy stories that involve the nature of time:

In Harlan Ellison's long career of resisting genre labels, none of his stories has proved more label-elusive than the one most frequently reprinted, "'Repent, Harlequin!' Said the Ticktockman." The story is not precisely science fiction as opposed to fantasy: the world is presumably our earth, yet the society appears archetypal as well as the only one on the planet, with no explanation why. Nor is it precisely fantasy as opposed to sf: the setting is futuristic, the lifespan-controlling power of the Master Timekeeper is described in technological terms, and one also finds familiar sf devices such as slidewalks).

In his essay, Spence makes the interesting point that, of our two concepts of time, chronos and kairos (measurement vs. moment), the second requires the notion of a mind - an intelligence that comprehends its significance - to make any sense:

Chronos is about seconds, minutes, hours--that is, the time-coordinates one would use to identify points on a t-axis. It rules the logbook, the shift-activity report, the tape emerging from the seismograph or the polygraph. Kairos, on the other hand, is about moments, whether good or ill--the event that marks the turning of the tide in a battle or the fall of a kingdom, the tableau that shows a relationship in its essence. Its domain is the historian's record, the scrapbook, the photo album. Indeed, when advertisements proclaim "a Kodak moment" or a wedding song announces, "This is the moment I've waited for," they speak of kairos. Various lexicons credit the playwright Sophocles with giving kairos the added flavor of "the right moment," "the moment of opportunity" (e.g., Hahn, 3:833); such a distinction is quite appropriate, especially from a dramatist, for whom such moments are the tools of the trade.

From the start one notices that the presence of Mind differentiates kairos from chronos. While intelligence is needed to set up a chronological structure, that structure is self-perpetuating as long as clocks continue to function. A deist would view the universe in this same mechanistic fashion - God only takes part in its creation, absenting himself thereafter from involvement as it continues to run on its own. For kairos, however, chronological location is merely a statistic; moments involve the observer's judgment, will, or appreciation. Indeed, the world of kairos might be more comfortable with quantum mechanics, with its focus on the observer, than with deism.

Much other good stuff to check out at Rennie's Sci Fi Journal, available as both sound and text files.

(Note: That's Rennie's self-portrait, not Michael Spence's. Spence blogs at Brother Osric's Scriptorium, and does not look like this. But then neither does Jason Rennie. - d.)

Time is the only true mystery?

A friend sends me this, a new clock developed by John Taylor - not a computer gneraton but a true mechanical clock, that offers a different way of showing time. My friend says that it demonstrates that time time is the only true mystery:



See also: Do you have time to hear about some new theories of time?

Do you have time to hear about some new theories ... of time?

I missed this item by Roger Highfield from Britain's Telegraph (February 24, 2008), "The new theories that are killing time" - some truly unusual theories of time are now on offer:

Quantum theory says that energy comes in tiny, indivisible chunks, called quanta. There is also a "quantum of time", the smallest measurement of time with any meaning, equal to a second divided by a huge number - one followed by 43 zeroes (this represents the length of time a photon moving at light speed takes to travel the smallest meaningful distance).

This could be the smallest unit of time possible, and thus of that blend of space and time, spacetime. By this reasoning there is no continuous flow of time, but rather spacetime moments running like grains of sand through an hourglass.

Not all are convinced, however.

"Some theorists think that there are 'atoms of spacetime' but I strongly think this is wrong," says Dr Nima Arkani-Hamed of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. "I think everyone would agree that spacetime itself is on the chopping block, but it will be replaced in my view by something infinitely more interesting than 'atoms of spacetime'."

Well other ideas include "Time will come to an end", "There is more than one kind of time," and "Time does not exist."

Well, we all know that psychologically there is more than one kind of time - waiting in line and watching a good film are two completely different experiences as far as time is concerned.

Anyway, no matter what the theory, when it's time to move on, ... we move on.

See also:

"Hints of a time before the big bang? Or of reaching for a story?"

"Does time's one-way street prove that other universes exist?