Mind-Like Universe

Posted by Simon Raggett on 26 June 2008 | 0 Comments

Tags: Cosmology

In discussing the currently fashionable multiverse theory, the physicist, Paul Davies argues that it is not valid to simply propose that the phase of rapid spatial inflation argued to have occurred in the early universe randomly produces a huge number of separate ‘bubble’ universes, of which one, ours, happens to be capable of supporting organic life.

Random production of universes is argued to be capable of producing paradoxes such as finite universe with an infinite number of distinct spatial regions. To prevent this, Davies claims that it is necessary to have a ‘law of law’ to control the allocation of parameters to the different universes. This in turn creates the need to explain where the ‘law or laws’, which appears to be a rather fine-tuned affair, has come from.

In the last part of his recent paper, Davies tries to develop, an explanation for a universe with organic life that does not stem from either a multiverse, or from intelligent design. It is suggested that there is a trend in our universe from the simple to the complex and from the mindless to the mental that is law-like. Davies thinks that this law-like tendency towards the complexity and mind seen in organic life could be applied to cosmology.

Davies comments on the development of cellular automaton models, where an array of cells or pixels that can be either on or off is driven by an update rule based on the state of neighbouring cells. Computer simulations of the evolution of this type of system are seen to go from simple and random inputs to a state of organised complexity. Davies suggests that life, mind, the physical law and universes are part of a self-consistent, self-supporting loop.

He notes that mathematics, which is seen as a product of the recently evolved human mind, can describe the laws of physics. It is suggested that a universe with our particular physical laws permits the existence of brains or computers that can output the mathematics describing these laws, thus closing the loop.

From the point of view of consciousness studies, Davies’s idea is interesting to the extent to which it appears to bring mind into the physical structure of the universe. In locating consciousness at a fundamental level, this looks at least compatible with quantum consciousness ideas, and particularly those of both David Bohm and Roger Penrose.

This is as far as Davies is prepared to go, but it is perhaps possible to run with this idea in looking at the possibility of a universe that has mind-like qualities without requiring a God, who has any very specific plans or intervenes in the world on a day-to-day basis. For its part, the mainstream scientific community having something of a phobia of God (probably envisaged as an old man with a long white beard sculpting the laws of physics onto stone tablets at the top of Mt. Sinai) having any involvement in the beginning of the universe. This may in turn create a sort of fundamentalism that prevents rational discussion of the more modest proposition that something mind-like could be involved in the fine tuning that is apparent in a physical law that allows a universe capable of supporting organic life.

Two aspects of the problem need to be considered. Something has to be uncreated, if we are to avoid an infinite regress. One riposte to the idea of creation by God is ‘who or what created God?’ But this problem ultimately applies to all other proposed descriptions of the beginning. Even a fluctuation in empty space implies a law-like description of empty space.

The other aspect is the vexed question of the absence of mind from physics, and what many people would argue to be the failure of neuroscience to come up with a plausible explanation of consciousness.

A third concept that might be worth examining is Penrose’s notably unpopular idea of a form of non-computability as the basis of consciousness. Intuitively, the notion that there might be a link between the non-computable and the uncreated seems worth examining. Both these concepts lie outside the normal cause-and-effect of the algorithm-based Newtonian universe, but avoid invoking the full horror of intelligent design. The Big Bang could be envisaged as nothing more than something mind-like/non-computable breaking out of the pre-existing void. Nothing more intelligent and intention driven than that needs to be suggested. The implicate order of David Bohm could conceivably be envisaged as describing the same thing as this uncreated and non-computable aspect of the pre-existing void.

These suggestions come without any of the baggage of the old man with a long white beard type God, who needs or wishes to stay around and intervene in the subsequent evolution of the universe. Richard Dawkins has argued that a God that created the universe would need to be as complex as the universe. However, the non-computable beginning looks like a much simpler system than the proposed multiverse. The latter also looks suspiciously convenient and contrived, so as to both do away with the need for God, and rescue string theory from its current problems.