@@abhigyanrastogi1662 the point of the phrase is "do something useless that at best exhausts you and maybe even hurts you." It's a more polite and creative way to tell someone to ... thrust themselves through.
(1)There is no "fundamental law of probability." (2) Although probability & statistics are related fields they focus on different aspects of analyzing and interpreting data.
Isaac Arthur and JMG videos are what I keep looking forward to every week. May our simulation overlords bless both of you and your crew with long lives.
@@isaacarthurSFIA The fact that you are the gold standard of Science Futurism is a wonderful thing. A man I respect holds the keys to the universes I wish to inhabit in my mind. This is a good thing and I am pleased by this turn of events.
Honestly, at this point Isaac's channel is an oasis of optimistic poetic naturalism in a desert of AI generated, ad-driven, derivative, bland content. It's hard to express how much support I feel in this day and age from this one guy's wide-eyed love for STEM. You inspire hope for the future in a time where isolationism, declinism, fearmongering and virality define the majority of interpersonal discourse. Thank you thank you thank you from the Netherlands
Yes, its a good one, I tihnk I first saw in Terry Pratchett's work though I imagine he borrowed it. I've also heard some bad attempted parallels today, including a couple that were literal intelligent design examples, like your clothes fitting, the issue with the puddle example though is that life didn't arise in the puddle and contemplate it, so I tihnk it gets stretches as a valid parallel to the observable universe.
The Cosmological Constant is the one that really blows me away. Being balanced to 10 to the 122 is greater than the odds of picking out one atom out of all in the atoms in the Universe which is around 10 to the 82. We are fortunate indeed to even exist!
At least this agnostic/atheist is willing to change my mind if presented with falsifiable evidence that some deity both exists and has some affect on reality that we can interact with. If it exists and just does its scientifically understandable or at least observable thing without us being able to interact, then cool I guess but no reason to worry about it anymore than I worry why gravity continues to work or unicorns don't exist. (again subject to new data)
@@matthewgordon3281 At least you and PRETTY MUCH EVERY OTHER atheist brag about the same and in practice act like belonging to a cult DEMONSTRATION: You could argue that all this charade about Fermi Paradox should have ended YEARS AGO when RAYTHEON-CERTIFIED US Navy videos were released, if Scientism adepts were NOT a bunch of corrupt cult members But of course you will NEVER say that about your correligionists
@@AaronAlso No, we don't know if either of the two are correct. Maybe one is, maybe neither is. We are in a position of not really knowing. We can make guesses or hypotheses, but we have to wait for evidence to support or rule out any position. Saying you don't know is more honest than claiming to know without being able to back it up.
A person walking in a forest with no idea of direction tends to circle. They could end up wearing a path that they then follow. Essentially thinking the forest is endless when in reality it isn't anywhere near that big.
For the Sentinelese, their 10 mile wide island was their entire universe. In our modern day to day existence, when was the last time you travelled outside your work/home bubble to a different city, state or country?
Gonna have to rewatch this one a few times to be able to absorb all this information. Still an excellent and thought provoking episode as always, Isaac.
And? No one has said we are in the universe where no intelligent life could form. That's an obvious statement and you can't draw any conclusions from it.
I think much of the controversy over the term "fine tuned" comes from the inherent ambiguity of meaning in the language. Once the term is defined/bounded, the discussion becomes enlightening/fascinating, rather than meaningless or argumentative. Thanks for your careful and considered thoughts on this, Isaac!
I deeply appreciate the honest humility here to say “we don’t know.” That said, we pick a worldview and live (generally) according to it: either materialistic or theistic.
Amazing episode! I’ve had so many questions you answered while I couldn’t even coherently put the questions to words! I rewound and relistened to to part so frequently to make sure I got it all. Great ep! I need to also listen to this week in space!
Thanks for frequently posting content. Although I don't get much objectivity from your channel, the way you delve is absolutely enthralling. I love your imagination and knowledge of science and science fiction to bring us top notch well narrated possibilities for the universe. Those snacks are really hitting my kuiper belt though.
Just a note that goes beyond stating the obvious, that your videos are excellent and beyond parallel... may I say that your notice at 9.15 about turning on CC _if_ people find you hard to understand... please note that as an Englishman, your recent(ish) surgery, has made this a moot point (for all of us fellow English speakers) and maybe you don't have to include that caveat any more? I can't speak for your non-English speaking audience however but I imagine that they will be having no more difficulty than when they hear any other English-spoken video here on UA-cam. Just thought I'd mention it. Stay safe
Somewhere around the end where you describe there being many empty universes, some universes like our own, a few that more populated by life than ours, and a very few where every rock is alive, it leaves me wondering the age old, profound question, "Why anything rather than nothing?" This question is one of the weirdest ones out there. I really don't know how to answer it. It bothers me much, like how staring off the edge of a cliff or tall building does. It's this sense of staring into the abyss. There's a feeling of the heart dropping and a feeling of maybe waking up from a dream.
Yes, as a Christian I can say that Christianity doesn't answer it, for instance. Answering it seems to be a contradiction of terms in a sense. About the feeling, yes. One of the other poster expressed anxiety over the genetic contingency of his existence. But that is just the merest microcosm of the contingency of the species, the taxa, life, Earth and the universe upon not just a chance, but WE CAN KNOW NOT WHAT. But personally, I don't find the contemplation fruitful, since I've already figured that there can't be an answer by the nature of the question. So it doesn't frighten me for long before it starts to bore me. Sorry if your mileage varies.
@@cosmictreason2242It doesn't answer it at all unless you're either ignorant or indoctrinated. Or both. Christianity isn't even a theory, just a bunch of old stories with no evidence whatsoever.
39:40 It's funny to imagine a multiverse where the little universes relate or act on one another, especially affecting each other's physics. That would be maddeningly complicated, and what's weird is if it's possible for one pair or group of universes to affect each other, then perhaps it's possible for many universes to affect each other. 😅 This makes the anthropic principle or Copernican principle even more strange: we happened to be in a normal universe, one that happens to be good for life to live in it, and all the other universes around us somehow affect us just right to support life. How absurdly complicated the full picture might be. 😅 What's more, I think you offered an example of this very concept in another sci-fi book (you didn't mention it in this video). The Gods Themselves by Isaac Asimov is just what you and I are thinking about. You talked about this book in another video. I listened to the audiobook, and it was a truly interesting book. Asimov is ridiculously good. That book was published in 1972.
11:40 There is potential evidence for the existence of the multivers. It is dark matter and dark energy being gravitational energy and anti-gravitational energy coming in from different universes with matter like our universe and the polar opposite to our universe's matter and mass negative matter. It would be a demonstration of conservation of information and energy between universes.
If everything was twice as big, you WOULD notice, because the volume of things would have expanded more than twice, so the proportions of surface area to volume would be off.
Not as measured by an in universe meter stick. But yes, you'd have to adjust some other constants to compensate to hide the effects, and if not it's not quite clear what you mean by "making it bigger". The quantification of physics ASSUMES the integrity of the measuring device.
كل شيء بالكون له بداية ونهاية حتى الكون نفسه يأتي وقت وينتهي وينولد كون آخر وهكذا إلى مالا نهاية وليس كوننا فقط بل الأكوان المتعددة الأخرى يأتي وقت وتنتهي وتنولد اكوان أخرى مما يدل على أن الوجود أزلي .....
توجد فرضية تقول إن سبب تمدد الكون أسرع من الضوء هو بسبب اصطدام اكوان متعددة بكوننا على مسافات 10مليار سنة ضوئية أو أكثر بسبب انزياح اللون الاحمر و بسرعات أكثر من سرعة الضوء مما يؤدي إلى تمدد الكون أسرع من الضوء و ايضا هناك انفجارات عظيمة تولد اكوان متعددة في كل لحظة وكوننا ليس وحده في الوجود ولكل كون قانونه الخاص ❤
It's more that this is a universe where life can exist Similar to Earth, Venus and Mars don't have life (this could age badly), ot just means that life could only exist on the planet that could support it Not that the planet was fine tuned, rather, it was the only option
With using the anthropomorphic principle to answer the fine tuning argument, I always thought it could work without needing other universes. That is, this universe that we find ourselves in, by the fact we find ourselves in it, would need to be suitable for life (and therefore not surprising that it is, no matter the odds, even assuming all values are options when a universe begins), and that wouldn't necessarily imply that there are a bunch of other universes. There could be, but wouldn't logically have to be.
If your explanation is improbable to result in the observed phenomena to be "explained", then we can say that your explanation is unlikely to be the true one, by principles of reasoning we use routinely. You see, several of the constants in question would not just flatten "intelligent life as we know it", but any sort of usable complexity. The Weak Anthropic Principle needs the origin multiverse to work. If it didn't nobody would bother with it. This idea is illustrated by the title and first paragraph of this article in _Evolution_ _News_ _&_ _Science_ _Today_ : "TO AVOID THE IMPLICATIONS OF COSMIC FINE-TUNING, A CONTINUING QUEST" "Remember, the multiverse is the currently favored prophylactic against the theistic implications of cosmic fine-tuning. So if the following sounds a bit abstruse, remember what’s at stake."
@@digitalnomad9985 @digitalnomad9985 "By the principles of reasoning we use routinely". But most of the time, the reasoning we do doesn't make use of the anthropomorphic principle, at least not to the extent of existing at all. When it is used in day to day usage, it is more like examples given in this video "Ah, I'm in a shop, therefore this person approaching me is probably a sales person.", where the use of the anthropomorphic principle in that case needs the fact that you are in a shop, not just that you exist. The mere fact of our (or indeed anyone's) existence doesn't get used on its own for a basis of an use of the anthropomorphic principle except usually in these big metaphysical sorts of discussions. I guess I believe in what might be called a strong anthropomorphic principle. The reasoning is it doesn't matter what the odds are of a thing happening were, if there is no way of anyone at all anywhere being around if it did not happen. By that set up, where it is not anything about a potential obverser or their situation, just that someone exists at all that matters, there is no scenario where anyone could find themselves in which wouldn't imply that that thing happened, and thus you can conclude nothing about the probability from before it happened of it happening.
@@digitalnomad9985 Whether or not there are multiverses does not change the probabilities needed to be overcome if using the anthropomorphic principle in this case. Either you just have one universe and if the values for the fundamental constants could randomly be anything they would most likely be ones unsuited for life (or indeed as you say even any complexity) so the fact that we find them to actually be suitable would be surprising if you can't use the anthropomorphic principle to be able to logically explain why you find yourself in a situation where it happens to be that the odds of what has happened happening in the first place were very low. Or there are loads of multiverses, and then yes, the one we happened to be in would be guaranteed to exist, since there would be universes for every combination of values, so it would not be unlikely that it exists. But you still have the likelihood of happening to find yourself in one of those universes where the values are suitable for life to deal with, which will be very much in the minority, and so the odds of that will still be very low. Having there be a Multiverse doesn't change the odds (if it is being done by random), it just changes what the odds are about. In one case its the odds of the values of the one universe that exists happening to be suitable for life, and in the other case its the odds of happening to find yourself, out of all the universes there are, in one with values suitable for life, but the likelihood of those odds will be about the same. As such, if the anthropomorphic principle can't be used to logically explain why you find yourself in a situation which before it happened had very low odds of happening, then having a multiverse doesn't help, you still can't use it cos you still have very unlikely odds to overcome. Personally, I disagree with the idea that the anthropomorphic principle can't be used to explain low odds. Yes, it's generally not used that way in everyday reasoning, but those are generally examples where the particulars of the situation are the things being considered, not just existing at all (like video example, this person approaching me is likely to be a sales person cos I'm in a shop, not just somebody happens to exist at all making that so).
Talking about 4D and higher reality it is interesting that one of the reasons that orbits seem to be not possible because if angular momenum is concerved in a 3D system all angular momentum collapse to a plane but in 4D there will be at least 2 perpendicular planes of rotation thus collisions and things off the mane orbital plains will be unstable.
Here's a theory. We're in a simulation after-all, and dark energy is just a floating-point rounding up error that compounds over distance^2. My tongue is in my cheek, but this is something to at least discuss, maybe. idk The way I'm describing this doesn't exactly work by itself, but what if that rounding is a function of the averages of all local jumps in electron energy levels, and that local effect is not noticeable...not even in local solar system, or even in local galaxy, but eventually at a large enough scale compounds enough to cause noticeable compounding displacement? idk, I'm just spit-balling in a weird mental state right now. Lots of stomach pain and I'm trying to take my mind of it thinking about stuff. ;)
in an infinite universe it makes sense to catch solar wind (mars as a mega machine ) - pull cables from pole to pole for the dynamo effect (humans are really good at pulling cables ) - a ring ocean around the equator would ignite the magnetic field of mars by tidal forces (machines made mining easy ) - to collect asteroids before they vanish into the sun is a mission (every mars garage will have orbital rockets )
Love this topic. Many years ago I heard about the 'fine tuned universe' idea and quickly concluded there are 4 possible explanations: 1.) Our universe is lone and unique, randomly generated, and just happened to come out just right. This is the only answer we can actually run statistics on. A Harvard professor did so years ago, and while I don't remember the exact value, it was MASSIVELY exponential in scientific notation and represented basically the largest jackpot in the universe. 2.) Our universe is just one of a vast multiverse, possibly infinite. Each universe is randomly created, but only those with 'right' values produce life capable of noticing. This requires faith in a vast, infinitely powerful universe-generating mechanism. 3.) Our universe isn't random and was specially created by some higher power to create life as we know it. This is the 'god' option, and requires faith in such a higher power with a plan. 4.) Our universe isn't random and there are some as-of-yet undiscovered principles that dictate that these forces MUST be what they are and couldn't be anything else. This requires faith in as-of-yet undiscovered science. In short, three of the four require faith in SOMETHING. The only one that doesn't requires the single most improbable circumstances that we have ever conceived of, to my knowledge. All this to say that: Science can't prove or disprove God, but it can certainly leave Him on the table of possibilities.
Would the Simulation Hypothesis be in your #4 category, or would that be a fifth possible explanation? Whether it is part of the fourth or a fifth scenario, it still would require a belief in a higher intelligence to create and run the simulation that we perceive as our Universe.
@@FlintIronstag23that would probably sit under Explanation 3, as the folks making the simulation would be functionally indistinguishable from a creator deity, from our perspective inside the simulation anyway. They could create from apparently nothing, return the dead to life (restore from backup?) and strike down the living, warp natural phenomena to their will, and likely enter into the simulation while retaining that control, to appear as divine figures or great teachers.
@@TheCrazyCapMaster Unless the simulation we are in is an ancestor simulation created by future humans to relive a past era of human history. Perhaps future humans found time travel to the past was impossible, so they created virtual time travel through historical simulations. They upload their minds in the simulation and are "born", live their lives in the simulation with no memory of their true reality and when they "die" in the simulation return to reality with their experiences of the past intact. There would still have to be a creator of the true Universe that let the future humans create a virtual universe to be Explanation 3.
This is the example of flawed logic. By believing in a mechanism or god, you simply postpone the problem, creating the illusion of solving the problem. Weak minds do not perceive such deception. When you assume god or mechanism you simply move the original problem 1 level up. Because now you have to explain the existence of a universe that hosts your invented god or other mechanism. So it leaves original question unanswered. This is a trick used by some people to fool other people into their flavor of religion designed to enslave weak minded people.
Speaking on fine-tuning the universe as we know it, are we ever going to see an episode related to quantum suicide & immortality? Oh wait, maybe I do see such an episode at some point in my own immortal timeline.
😂 lmao'd at 8:45 "there is as yet insufficient data for a meaningful answer" Great reference. The Last Question, anyone who has not yet listen or read it, plz do.
If I pulled a blue marble I would feel less confidence they were all a half an inch wide, because now I have knowledge they can be different from each-other, which increases the likelihood that size can differ.
Fair point, but that's based on prior experience or an assumption a variation in one trait could indicate others, eg a scratched marble being encountered doesn't seem to imply different colors or sizes, just different ages or uses
@@Raye938 you thought you could infer difference in size after observing a difference in color between equally sized marbles. There are two ways of rebutting this. One is that the marbles already possess A size, your observation of their size and color are innately connected and color is an emergent property of its mass (size), AND you have a different size from the marble, so you are not in fact inferring size differences from color differences but from already existing size differences. The other way of rebutting it is to think more abstractly and consider that you can't conceive of something you have absolutely no analog to. We can think of examples if you like. But to get away from the problems of size and color, instead conceive of point-like particles. Still existing inside 3d space, we can have particles attract or repel each other. If they are of two types (electrons, protons) they can both attract and repel other particles. But now try to imagine what it would mean to assign a number to them. What would a 5 proton be compared to a 1 proton? Or what if instead of traveling forward or backward in time, one of the particles travels upward?? You can't conceive of it. And likewise, you would not be able to infer it from the properties you do know about them.
There's no evidence that there's an invisible dragon in my garage, or that there's a small chocolate teapot orbiting Jupiter and there's no evidence that there isn't
@@lemdixon01 there is evidence there isn't, as those things are known to have been invented at specific points in history and have no mechanism to naturally occur in space.
Well, I'm glad you brought up the fact that 'they might not change at all' We have no evidence for that. Also, very valid point about them maybe being emergent properties of other more fundamental fields interactions. We also don't know. Ultimately, like you said, not enough information for a meaningful answer. And I think that's about as far as we can realistically speculate on the matter.
There's a kinda funny phrase: I have no interest in joining a club that would accept _me_ as a member. Sometimes, I feel the same on a cosmic scale: I have no interest in being part of a universe that's _fine tuned_ for a creature like _homo sapiens sapiens_ to exist 😅
Do we really need to assume that the universe is uniform when we can use spectroscopy to examine objects halfway or all the way across the universe? Spectroscopy is our window to the universe.
Imagine looking for apartments to live in, and there's always been something wrong with all the ones you've looked at so far, one was too expensive, one had rats, another had termites, another had a broken heater, yadayadayada, and then you find IT, the perfect apartment for a reasonable price, and you move in, would you say "wow this apartment was built for me!!" or would you say "thank god i finally found a place to live", that apartment was the only one suitable for you, it's that simple
So I ate some skittles during this. I pulled 100 skittles out of the bag and determined the chance of me pulling x color out of the bag from what was left over. I have a question though. If you were to scale this up. Could you not use it to predit the last variable (last color of skittles) almost perfectly? Like in a simulation you could use this well if scaled. Like you could use it to predict outcomes and save space. If you know the outcome of a scenario because it's related but "random" you could produce an output based off of the other results you have. With skittles you could count 3 or 4 colors and pull 100 skittled from a bag and predict the others and you could output a result easily accurate without wasting space on your hyper advanced cpu.
I find it interesting how the fine tuning discussion always focuses on life and intelligence. Obviously, we’re biased and want, need a universe that provides for that. Nobody ever considers the wonders not realized from alternately tuned universes. Considering what we know of physics, I doubt we could predict the possibility of biological intelligence if we weren’t it. So, what do we fail to predict in other tuning scenarios? There could be natural phenomena equally or more amazing in another universe, but, oh well. It didn’t happen. Biological intelligence only seems interesting because we don’t have anything else interesting to compare it to. I really don’t get why nobody wants to think we just got a lucky roll of the cosmic dice.
Interesting things in a universe without consciousness to contemplate them begs a question. Is there beauty in the absense of the beholder? And positing multiple unknown kinds of intelligences is the same class of dodge as the multiverse, particularly since a great number of the constants in question flatten not merely LIFE but COMPLEXITY. But that is beside the point. It doesn't matter what we want to think. It matters what is reasonable. Your "argument" is Bulverism, what they teach in school nowadays instead of critical thinking. Instead of engaging an argument, you posit an irrational or ignoble CAUSE for your opponent's view, thus relieving yourself and your readers (you hope) from the obligation of engaging the argument intellectually. Quote from Bulverism by C. S. Lewis: You must show that a man is wrong before you start explaining why he is wrong. The modern method is to assume without discussion that he is wrong and then distract his attention from this (the only real issue) by busily explaining how he became so silly. In the course of the last fifteen years I have found this vice so common that I have had to invent a name for it. I call it "Bulverism". Some day I am going to write the biography of its imaginary inventor, Ezekiel Bulver, whose destiny was determined at the age of five when he heard his mother say to his father - who had been maintaining that two sides of a triangle were together greater than a third - "Oh you say that because you are a man." "At that moment", E. Bulver assures us, "there flashed across my opening mind the great truth that refutation is no necessary part of argument. Assume that your opponent is wrong, and explain his error, and the world will be at your feet. Attempt to prove that he is wrong or (worse still) try to find out whether he is wrong or right, and the natural dynamism of our age will thrust you to the wall." That is how Bulver became one of the makers of the Twentieth Century. Suppose I think, after doing my accounts, that I have a large balance at the bank. And suppose you want to find out whether this belief of mine is "wishful thinking." You can never come to any conclusion by examining my psychological condition. Your only chance of finding out is to sit down and work through the sum yourself. When you have checked my figures, then, and then only, will you know whether I have that balance or not. If you find my arithmetic correct, then no amount of vapouring about my psychological condition can be anything but a waste of time. If you find my arithmetic wrong, then it may be relevant to explain psychologically how I came to be so bad at my arithmetic, and the doctrine of the concealed wish will become relevant - but only after you have yourself done the sum and discovered me to be wrong on purely arithmetical grounds. It is the same with all thinking and all systems of thought. If you try to find out which are tainted by speculating about the wishes of the thinkers, you are merely making a fool of yourself. You must first find out on purely logical grounds which of them do, in fact, break down as arguments. Afterwards, if you like, go on and discover the psychological causes of the error.
I always wanted to listen to Raft because it's the start of a really awesome series with literally one of the biggest Mega structures but I can't find the audiobook anywhere
If a boltzmann brain appears over and over again only long enough for it to experience a moment of life, givin a multiverse, the same pattern of conciousness would appear over and over again creating an experientially continuous being. Much like a multiversal transporter based on randomness. That experience would be indistinguishable from our own
@@djdrack4681 interestingly enough you wouldnt even need to have the thoughts be In order or instantaneous to have continuity be experienced, as long as our experience of continuity is also part of the quantum flux as well. Just like if you flip to a random page in a book, all the characters will still act as though the previous events have happened to them, you can repeat flipping to random pages and still get the full story. And you can take as long as you like to flip pages, whether it's a second per page or a centery. Continuity will still be maintained for the characters in the story. And if there is infinite space then all frames or pages of experience emerge instantly at all times across infinity so every moment of life always exists
@@djdrack4681 I have had the experience of passing out before and I must say time sense is clearly a product of the brains computation as I felt no time pass very strange, the experience was continuous for me I just somehow teleported to a chair from the outside ( learned later that some friends had carried me lol)
@@andrewsallans589 different levels of consciousness (not just 1 or even 2 states of 'dreaming/sleeping'), different parts of brain work on 'low power mode' it seems (if I've understood the papers I've read), other parts stay doing what they do; different enzymes/chems get released/used... I would posit it is a 'fair' argument to say that repeatable types of 'senses' that one has while asleep/dreaming (lucid dreaming) could constitute a set of proper 'senses' you have (nowadays the lower number is something like 15-20 different senses)...and usually 'dream senses' are absent from the list.
@@andrewsallans589 Hmm. That 'page flipping' scenario implies 'reversability' or causal permanence. IF there is a multiverse, there's no guarantee its not like Rick n Morty where you Leap to rando Universe but you don't 'replace' the 'you' that may have been there...and you being there may or may not have paradoxal repercussions...probably not (if universes are 'closed systems'). The reversability aspect is something some sci-fi writers have touched on...but not many. Think of portal between universes as a doorway: you walk thru it...and either it disappears, or you can NEVER 'go back' through the same portal again. In an infinite multiverse this could be a detrimental issue if it were true (Stephen Kings 'Drawing of the Three sort of had the idea'). How do you 'map' a series of doorways to get back to your 'original' universe? REMEMBER, each one could be wildly different than the last...so much so, that the very fundamental physics/chem of one may be toxic/dangerous for you to be in...Being forced to 'only venture forward' = a threatening aspect if such were the case.
You are missing the obvious see the first time zefod beeblebrox started up the infinite improbability drive, the ship the Heart of gold calculated that it would need to rematerialize some place some time and so despite the improbability the universe popped into place out of politeness merely not to disappoint Zefod. That is why Zefod could look into Total Perspective Vortex.
22:26 The disjunct between relativity and quantum physics seems to me a good argument for the simulation hypothesis. The programmers never intended us to gain understanding to the level where the contradictions became apparent, but Ggor■■li÷ forgot to pause the experiment when [it] [went for] [a drink] and a [snack].
Yeah, but you can power past any theistic implications of LOCAL CONDITIONS by positing a sufficiently LARGE universe to overwhelm any improbability. At the present we have a LOWER limit for the size of the universe, but to meaningfully calculate UNIVERSAL probabilities, we also need to narrow down an UPPER limit for the size, and we can't do that yet. This isn't as tendentious as the multiple universes dodge of cosmic fine tuning, because we already have a universe, and only need ONE of a certain size, (yet to be calculated, but finite) and we have no sound reason to suppose ours falls short of that size. On evolutionary assumptions, sufficiently rare conditions could still be an effective filter, even with an arbitrarily large or infinite universe, if the required conditions are so rare that any given intelligent species is unlikely to emerge in the same light speed causality bubble (light cone) as another, in which case there could be an arbitrarily large array of intelligent species, non of which we can even theoretically contact (without FTL coms, at least).
I never got the "fine tuned for life" argument. Most of the universe will instantly kill you, and even our little paradise planet is only so because life itself shaped it to be so over hundreds of millions of years, all the while the cosmos tried to kill it off constantly.
Interesting - where are you right now? I bet you a billion dead universes that you're in an air environment with temperature between 50 & 85°F. We're discussing the fact that that environment is available anywhere at all - not everywhere.
Our definition of life may be entirely too narrow. Unfortunately we have only one example to go off so we correctly assume our specific form of life can only exist in these conditions. But even in a place with vastly different laws, anything thar allows a self replicating Turing complete structure could be said to be habitable
12:09 quote, "there is absolutely no evidence that they (multiverses) exist - or that they doesn't exist - so simply assuming they do exist to explain away the Fine-Tuned Universe reasoning tends to seem like a bit of a cop out." Now to Isaac's credit he is not specifically talking about God, but instead is refereeing to any "outside entity" as he put it, But it's hard for me to not take issue with what he said at about 12:09. My first issue with this comment is that if the multiverse can be presented as a cop out for not believing in an "outside entity" then isn't the "outside entity" belief a cop-out for the multiverse? My second objection is most of the people I know that advocate for the "Fine-Tuned Universe reasoning" advocate this as absolute proof that not only is there a God, but obviously there is only one God, and he loves us, and he made the universe for us, and he very much likes to weigh in on morality issues and oh by the way it is defiantly the Christian God, and oh by the way not believing in him is a sin and you go to hell forever and ever if you happen to not be convinced of his existence at the moment of your death. But in my experience when someone is "advocating" for the multi-verse hypothesis they are usually offing it up at an alternative to God, and they are merely trying to prove that we don't know that there is a God. In other words, if the average "proponent" of the multi-verse hypothesis were to suddenly find out that it's not true they wouldn't totally and utterly devastated the way Christians would be (if they found out their religion was false) because they haven't invested all of the their emotional eggs in the basket of the multi-verse they way Christians have put every single last egg they have (and then some) into the God basket. For my part the multi-verse hypothesis is the best guess we have right now, but I fully expect it to be incorrect, we have so little information it is unlikely that our best guess will be correct. Think about 15th humans trying to guess what life would be like today. They could come up with a million random guesses and they still wouldn't stumble on the idea of electricity or computers.
I have heard folks rampantly abuse the theory in every possible direction, I can't speak to your own experience but I have definitely seen folks use multiverse as clear proof there is no God, feel free to scroll through the comments on this video for some examples :)
The Universe may be fine tuned but it isn't fine tuned for life. Even on the most optimistic estimates about life in the Universe would seem to indicate that it is 99.9999999999999....... etc., hostile to life. Life seems to be very rare so that if anything the fine tuning of the Universe is against life but not entirely so, after all there is life on Earth.
this has been my fav channel since 2017. Of the three or four actually optimistic physicists on UA-cam, Isaac is the most fun BY FAR.
Who are the other optimistic ones? I’d like to check them out
@@AB-ee5tbJohn Micheal Godiard
@@gp2917 in this universe in which we liiiiiive
@@gp2917Godier
Alright, I've got my drink and a snack. Let's go
I always watch Isaac's videos to chill out after work at night, so by then I've already eaten dinner and watch his videos with ice cream.
The fundamental law of probability... No matter how impossible it is statistically, if its true, you can pound sand
what if I don't have sand?
@@abhigyanrastogi1662 Wait patiently, eventually sand will form in your region of the galaxy :)
@@abhigyanrastogi1662 are you 100% sure?
@@abhigyanrastogi1662 the point of the phrase is "do something useless that at best exhausts you and maybe even hurts you." It's a more polite and creative way to tell someone to ... thrust themselves through.
(1)There is no "fundamental law of probability."
(2) Although probability & statistics are related fields they focus on different aspects of analyzing and interpreting data.
Isaac Arthur and JMG videos are what I keep looking forward to every week. May our simulation overlords bless both of you and your crew with long lives.
Much appreciated!
@@isaacarthurSFIA The fact that you are the gold standard of Science Futurism is a wonderful thing. A man I respect holds the keys to the universes I wish to inhabit in my mind. This is a good thing and I am pleased by this turn of events.
me too.
Here! Here! It’s the Island of Sanity.
You should also check out Anton Petrov. Slightly different format. But high quality stuff
Honestly, at this point Isaac's channel is an oasis of optimistic poetic naturalism in a desert of AI generated, ad-driven, derivative, bland content. It's hard to express how much support I feel in this day and age from this one guy's wide-eyed love for STEM. You inspire hope for the future in a time where isolationism, declinism, fearmongering and virality define the majority of interpersonal discourse.
Thank you thank you thank you from the Netherlands
actually, what's worse is that most of that other stuff doesn't have any IA involved whatsoever, even if some use an ai voice of a kind.
@@xBINARYGODx And the thumnail is ai art...
So generous of you to support Planet Wild. 👏🏻 I’ve been a member for over a year now and really like the work they do.
"I felt myself on the edge of the world, peering over the rim into a fathomless chaos of eternal night"
Dagon definitely is one the more mind-shredding cosmos examples of HPL's work :)
Did it stare back?
Then the cat pushes you off it.
That saying about the puddle thinking the pothole it's in must have been made for it because it's the same exact shape it is, comes to mind.
Yes, its a good one, I tihnk I first saw in Terry Pratchett's work though I imagine he borrowed it. I've also heard some bad attempted parallels today, including a couple that were literal intelligent design examples, like your clothes fitting, the issue with the puddle example though is that life didn't arise in the puddle and contemplate it, so I tihnk it gets stretches as a valid parallel to the observable universe.
The Cosmological Constant is the one that really blows me away. Being balanced to 10 to the 122 is greater than the odds of picking out one atom out of all in the atoms in the Universe which is around 10 to the 82. We are fortunate indeed to even exist!
Appreciated the allusion to "The Last Question"
Some of my favorite questions are “we love asking questions, and we’re not afraid to admit we don’t know the answers” types.
Militant Agnostic Club, “I don’t know and neither do you!”
“The enforcement of theories as truths is less science and more propaganda or religion”
At least this agnostic/atheist is willing to change my mind if presented with falsifiable evidence that some deity both exists and has some affect on reality that we can interact with. If it exists and just does its scientifically understandable or at least observable thing without us being able to interact, then cool I guess but no reason to worry about it anymore than I worry why gravity continues to work or unicorns don't exist. (again subject to new data)
@@matthewgordon3281 At least you and PRETTY MUCH EVERY OTHER atheist brag about the same and in practice act like belonging to a cult
DEMONSTRATION:
You could argue that all this charade about Fermi Paradox should have ended YEARS AGO when RAYTHEON-CERTIFIED US Navy videos were released, if Scientism adepts were NOT a bunch of corrupt cult members
But of course you will NEVER say that about your correligionists
Yet we are both equally correct!
Now how does that work?
@@AaronAlso No, we don't know if either of the two are correct. Maybe one is, maybe neither is. We are in a position of not really knowing. We can make guesses or hypotheses, but we have to wait for evidence to support or rule out any position. Saying you don't know is more honest than claiming to know without being able to back it up.
A person walking in a forest with no idea of direction tends to circle. They could end up wearing a path that they then follow. Essentially thinking the forest is endless when in reality it isn't anywhere near that big.
For the Sentinelese, their 10 mile wide island was their entire universe. In our modern day to day existence, when was the last time you travelled outside your work/home bubble to a different city, state or country?
That's just curved space-time.
Dang that's crazy
@@lefthookouchmcarm4520 usually these experiments are done at night. A steady light source like the sun or moon provides direction
@@thesenate1844 I move around a lot. Live between cities, towns, and countries across two continents. We don't all live in a bubble.
Gonna have to rewatch this one a few times to be able to absorb all this information.
Still an excellent and thought provoking episode as always, Isaac.
If we weren't in a universe in which intelligent life could form, we wouldn't be sitting here discussing it, now would we!
Intelligent life may be found on this planet, but looking at MAGA America I doubt it is human life!
cogito ergo sum.
I think, therefore, I am
And? No one has said we are in the universe where no intelligent life could form. That's an obvious statement and you can't draw any conclusions from it.
I think much of the controversy over the term "fine tuned" comes from the inherent ambiguity of meaning in the language. Once the term is defined/bounded, the discussion becomes enlightening/fascinating, rather than meaningless or argumentative. Thanks for your careful and considered thoughts on this, Isaac!
The beauty of your logic and how you use it to observe our world and universe is... exquisite. Thank you for sharing your worldview with us.
That is indeed the most amazing fact.. we are here, the universe, the cookie.. able to witness us. ❤🎉😊
The catch in this is that we can imagine universes with various changes, but are they even possible? Currently we can't prove that.
@@vojtechpribyl7386 if something never happens in infinite time and space then it's impossible
@@cosmictreason2242 The thing is that we don't know for sure and have no way of telling as we have exactly one observable universe.
I love this thought exercise.
I deeply appreciate the honest humility here to say “we don’t know.” That said, we pick a worldview and live (generally) according to it: either materialistic or theistic.
Nope. The world just isn't that two dimensional.
Amazing episode! I’ve had so many questions you answered while I couldn’t even coherently put the questions to words! I rewound and relistened to to part so frequently to make sure I got it all. Great ep! I need to also listen to this week in space!
I love your videos, Man... Insanely good editing, pace and production. I love em; thank you
I appreciate that!
Loved the energy in this one. Isaac sounds as excited as ever. :o)
Thanks for frequently posting content. Although I don't get much objectivity from your channel, the way you delve is absolutely enthralling. I love your imagination and knowledge of science and science fiction to bring us top notch well narrated possibilities for the universe. Those snacks are really hitting my kuiper belt though.
Just a note that goes beyond stating the obvious, that your videos are excellent and beyond parallel... may I say that your notice at 9.15 about turning on CC _if_ people find you hard to understand... please note that as an Englishman, your recent(ish) surgery, has made this a moot point (for all of us fellow English speakers) and maybe you don't have to include that caveat any more? I can't speak for your non-English speaking audience however but I imagine that they will be having no more difficulty than when they hear any other English-spoken video here on UA-cam. Just thought I'd mention it.
Stay safe
Isaac you are a physicist but also one of the most profound philosophers of our generation
Somewhere around the end where you describe there being many empty universes, some universes like our own, a few that more populated by life than ours, and a very few where every rock is alive, it leaves me wondering the age old, profound question, "Why anything rather than nothing?" This question is one of the weirdest ones out there. I really don't know how to answer it. It bothers me much, like how staring off the edge of a cliff or tall building does. It's this sense of staring into the abyss. There's a feeling of the heart dropping and a feeling of maybe waking up from a dream.
Yes, as a Christian I can say that Christianity doesn't answer it, for instance. Answering it seems to be a contradiction of terms in a sense. About the feeling, yes. One of the other poster expressed anxiety over the genetic contingency of his existence. But that is just the merest microcosm of the contingency of the species, the taxa, life, Earth and the universe upon not just a chance, but WE CAN KNOW NOT WHAT. But personally, I don't find the contemplation fruitful, since I've already figured that there can't be an answer by the nature of the question. So it doesn't frighten me for long before it starts to bore me. Sorry if your mileage varies.
@@digitalnomad9985 uh what. It's the only thing that answers it. Why are you misleading this man?
It's not a question that begs an answer tbh
@@cosmictreason2242It doesn't answer it at all unless you're either ignorant or indoctrinated. Or both.
Christianity isn't even a theory, just a bunch of old stories with no evidence whatsoever.
@@JohnsonPadder you could benefit from a Google search
39:40 It's funny to imagine a multiverse where the little universes relate or act on one another, especially affecting each other's physics. That would be maddeningly complicated, and what's weird is if it's possible for one pair or group of universes to affect each other, then perhaps it's possible for many universes to affect each other. 😅 This makes the anthropic principle or Copernican principle even more strange: we happened to be in a normal universe, one that happens to be good for life to live in it, and all the other universes around us somehow affect us just right to support life. How absurdly complicated the full picture might be. 😅
What's more, I think you offered an example of this very concept in another sci-fi book (you didn't mention it in this video). The Gods Themselves by Isaac Asimov is just what you and I are thinking about. You talked about this book in another video. I listened to the audiobook, and it was a truly interesting book. Asimov is ridiculously good. That book was published in 1972.
Yet another awesome video! Bravo, sir 👏 👏 👏
Cheers from Toronto the racoons appreciate the episode 🦝
Racoon overlords.
Loved the opening on this one!
Isaac with his beautiful poetry
Hi Isaac, Please consider making a video about the possible Civilizations of the future.
11:40 There is potential evidence for the existence of the multivers. It is dark matter and dark energy being gravitational energy and anti-gravitational energy coming in from different universes with matter like our universe and the polar opposite to our universe's matter and mass negative matter. It would be a demonstration of conservation of information and energy between universes.
I've always had an issue with the copernican principal the intro heroes priceless
If everything was twice as big, you WOULD notice, because the volume of things would have expanded more than twice, so the proportions of surface area to volume would be off.
Not as measured by an in universe meter stick. But yes, you'd have to adjust some other constants to compensate to hide the effects, and if not it's not quite clear what you mean by "making it bigger". The quantification of physics ASSUMES the integrity of the measuring device.
كل شيء بالكون له بداية ونهاية حتى الكون نفسه يأتي وقت وينتهي وينولد كون آخر وهكذا إلى مالا نهاية وليس كوننا فقط بل الأكوان المتعددة الأخرى يأتي وقت وتنتهي وتنولد اكوان أخرى مما يدل على أن الوجود أزلي .....
Speaking in certainties is not scientific. You don't know. We don't know. We don't have enough data
توجد فرضية تقول إن سبب تمدد الكون أسرع من الضوء هو بسبب اصطدام اكوان متعددة بكوننا على مسافات 10مليار سنة ضوئية أو أكثر بسبب انزياح اللون الاحمر و بسرعات أكثر من سرعة الضوء مما يؤدي إلى تمدد الكون أسرع من الضوء و ايضا هناك انفجارات عظيمة تولد اكوان متعددة في كل لحظة وكوننا ليس وحده في الوجود ولكل كون قانونه الخاص ❤
It's more that this is a universe where life can exist
Similar to Earth, Venus and Mars don't have life (this could age badly), ot just means that life could only exist on the planet that could support it
Not that the planet was fine tuned, rather, it was the only option
Best i got - this reality has some *preventative features* built-in or bolted-on, which prevent internal consciousnesses from finding their way out.
Listening to this while tripping on acid....... 😊
I tend to suspect the cover art I chose as the base was similarly created :)
With using the anthropomorphic principle to answer the fine tuning argument, I always thought it could work without needing other universes. That is, this universe that we find ourselves in, by the fact we find ourselves in it, would need to be suitable for life (and therefore not surprising that it is, no matter the odds, even assuming all values are options when a universe begins), and that wouldn't necessarily imply that there are a bunch of other universes. There could be, but wouldn't logically have to be.
If your explanation is improbable to result in the observed phenomena to be "explained", then we can say that your explanation is unlikely to be the true one, by principles of reasoning we use routinely. You see, several of the constants in question would not just flatten "intelligent life as we know it", but any sort of usable complexity. The Weak Anthropic Principle needs the origin multiverse to work. If it didn't nobody would bother with it. This idea is illustrated by the title and first paragraph of this article in _Evolution_ _News_ _&_ _Science_ _Today_ :
"TO AVOID THE IMPLICATIONS OF COSMIC FINE-TUNING, A CONTINUING QUEST" "Remember, the multiverse is the currently favored prophylactic against the theistic implications of cosmic fine-tuning. So if the following sounds a bit abstruse, remember what’s at stake."
@@digitalnomad9985 @digitalnomad9985 "By the principles of reasoning we use routinely". But most of the time, the reasoning we do doesn't make use of the anthropomorphic principle, at least not to the extent of existing at all. When it is used in day to day usage, it is more like examples given in this video "Ah, I'm in a shop, therefore this person approaching me is probably a sales person.", where the use of the anthropomorphic principle in that case needs the fact that you are in a shop, not just that you exist. The mere fact of our (or indeed anyone's) existence doesn't get used on its own for a basis of an use of the anthropomorphic principle except usually in these big metaphysical sorts of discussions. I guess I believe in what might be called a strong anthropomorphic principle. The reasoning is it doesn't matter what the odds are of a thing happening were, if there is no way of anyone at all anywhere being around if it did not happen. By that set up, where it is not anything about a potential obverser or their situation, just that someone exists at all that matters, there is no scenario where anyone could find themselves in which wouldn't imply that that thing happened, and thus you can conclude nothing about the probability from before it happened of it happening.
@@digitalnomad9985 Whether or not there are multiverses does not change the probabilities needed to be overcome if using the anthropomorphic principle in this case.
Either you just have one universe and if the values for the fundamental constants could randomly be anything they would most likely be ones unsuited for life (or indeed as you say even any complexity) so the fact that we find them to actually be suitable would be surprising if you can't use the anthropomorphic principle to be able to logically explain why you find yourself in a situation where it happens to be that the odds of what has happened happening in the first place were very low.
Or there are loads of multiverses, and then yes, the one we happened to be in would be guaranteed to exist, since there would be universes for every combination of values, so it would not be unlikely that it exists. But you still have the likelihood of happening to find yourself in one of those universes where the values are suitable for life to deal with, which will be very much in the minority, and so the odds of that will still be very low. Having there be a Multiverse doesn't change the odds (if it is being done by random), it just changes what the odds are about.
In one case its the odds of the values of the one universe that exists happening to be suitable for life, and in the other case its the odds of happening to find yourself, out of all the universes there are, in one with values suitable for life, but the likelihood of those odds will be about the same.
As such, if the anthropomorphic principle can't be used to logically explain why you find yourself in a situation which before it happened had very low odds of happening, then having a multiverse doesn't help, you still can't use it cos you still have very unlikely odds to overcome. Personally, I disagree with the idea that the anthropomorphic principle can't be used to explain low odds. Yes, it's generally not used that way in everyday reasoning, but those are generally examples where the particulars of the situation are the things being considered, not just existing at all (like video example, this person approaching me is likely to be a sales person cos I'm in a shop, not just somebody happens to exist at all making that so).
Great upcoming episodes! I want to hear about the migration theories!
Talking about 4D and higher reality it is interesting that one of the reasons that orbits seem to be not possible because if angular momenum is concerved in a 3D system all angular momentum collapse to a plane but in 4D there will be at least 2 perpendicular planes of rotation thus collisions and things off the mane orbital plains will be unstable.
"There is as yet insufficient information for a meaningful answer." Someone's been re-reading 'The Last Question'.
😄 Had the same thought. 🤝
The whole universe is a very detailed day dream.
Yeah, I have bad dreams, too!
I think about my existence every day. Why, out of the trillions of possibilities, did it have to be me who has to work every day and pay taxes?
Better than some of the alternatives at least :)
Better you than I!
Here's a theory. We're in a simulation after-all, and dark energy is just a floating-point rounding up error that compounds over distance^2. My tongue is in my cheek, but this is something to at least discuss, maybe. idk
The way I'm describing this doesn't exactly work by itself, but what if that rounding is a function of the averages of all local jumps in electron energy levels, and that local effect is not noticeable...not even in local solar system, or even in local galaxy, but eventually at a large enough scale compounds enough to cause noticeable compounding displacement? idk, I'm just spit-balling in a weird mental state right now. Lots of stomach pain and I'm trying to take my mind of it thinking about stuff. ;)
I'm sorry your stomach is hurting you. Hope it gets better!
in an infinite universe it makes sense to catch solar wind (mars as a mega machine )
- pull cables from pole to pole for the dynamo effect (humans are really good at pulling cables )
- a ring ocean around the equator would ignite the magnetic field of mars by tidal forces (machines made mining easy )
- to collect asteroids before they vanish into the sun is a mission (every mars garage will have orbital rockets )
to surrect planets is how to live in a universe - mars belongs to life
(life as center of the universe )
Love this topic. Many years ago I heard about the 'fine tuned universe' idea and quickly concluded there are 4 possible explanations:
1.) Our universe is lone and unique, randomly generated, and just happened to come out just right. This is the only answer we can actually run statistics on. A Harvard professor did so years ago, and while I don't remember the exact value, it was MASSIVELY exponential in scientific notation and represented basically the largest jackpot in the universe.
2.) Our universe is just one of a vast multiverse, possibly infinite. Each universe is randomly created, but only those with 'right' values produce life capable of noticing. This requires faith in a vast, infinitely powerful universe-generating mechanism.
3.) Our universe isn't random and was specially created by some higher power to create life as we know it. This is the 'god' option, and requires faith in such a higher power with a plan.
4.) Our universe isn't random and there are some as-of-yet undiscovered principles that dictate that these forces MUST be what they are and couldn't be anything else. This requires faith in as-of-yet undiscovered science.
In short, three of the four require faith in SOMETHING. The only one that doesn't requires the single most improbable circumstances that we have ever conceived of, to my knowledge. All this to say that: Science can't prove or disprove God, but it can certainly leave Him on the table of possibilities.
Would the Simulation Hypothesis be in your #4 category, or would that be a fifth possible explanation? Whether it is part of the fourth or a fifth scenario, it still would require a belief in a higher intelligence to create and run the simulation that we perceive as our Universe.
@@FlintIronstag23that would probably sit under Explanation 3, as the folks making the simulation would be functionally indistinguishable from a creator deity, from our perspective inside the simulation anyway. They could create from apparently nothing, return the dead to life (restore from backup?) and strike down the living, warp natural phenomena to their will, and likely enter into the simulation while retaining that control, to appear as divine figures or great teachers.
@@TheCrazyCapMaster Unless the simulation we are in is an ancestor simulation created by future humans to relive a past era of human history. Perhaps future humans found time travel to the past was impossible, so they created virtual time travel through historical simulations. They upload their minds in the simulation and are "born", live their lives in the simulation with no memory of their true reality and when they "die" in the simulation return to reality with their experiences of the past intact. There would still have to be a creator of the true Universe that let the future humans create a virtual universe to be Explanation 3.
@@colinsmith1495 all such philosophy ignores the fact of divine revelation. God doesn't expect you to come to know him apart from his word
This is the example of flawed logic. By believing in a mechanism or god, you simply postpone the problem, creating the illusion of solving the problem. Weak minds do not perceive such deception. When you assume god or mechanism you simply move the original problem 1 level up. Because now you have to explain the existence of a universe that hosts your invented god or other mechanism. So it leaves original question unanswered. This is a trick used by some people to fool other people into their flavor of religion designed to enslave weak minded people.
I am relieved to know that Mr. Mxyzptlk‘s Zrff in the 5th Dimension is still possible.
Possible? It's well nigh obligatory among the interdimensionally trendy.
A good friend of mine! Met him just yesterday!
The marbol analogy is fantastic!
Speaking on fine-tuning the universe as we know it, are we ever going to see an episode related to quantum suicide & immortality? Oh wait, maybe I do see such an episode at some point in my own immortal timeline.
😂 lmao'd at 8:45 "there is as yet insufficient data for a meaningful answer"
Great reference. The Last Question, anyone who has not yet listen or read it, plz do.
If I pulled a blue marble I would feel less confidence they were all a half an inch wide, because now I have knowledge they can be different from each-other, which increases the likelihood that size can differ.
Fair point, but that's based on prior experience or an assumption a variation in one trait could indicate others, eg a scratched marble being encountered doesn't seem to imply different colors or sizes, just different ages or uses
Iow what would size mean if you'd never encountered it?
@@cosmictreason2242 Could you clarify?
@@Raye938 you thought you could infer difference in size after observing a difference in color between equally sized marbles. There are two ways of rebutting this. One is that the marbles already possess A size, your observation of their size and color are innately connected and color is an emergent property of its mass (size), AND you have a different size from the marble, so you are not in fact inferring size differences from color differences but from already existing size differences. The other way of rebutting it is to think more abstractly and consider that you can't conceive of something you have absolutely no analog to. We can think of examples if you like. But to get away from the problems of size and color, instead conceive of point-like particles. Still existing inside 3d space, we can have particles attract or repel each other. If they are of two types (electrons, protons) they can both attract and repel other particles. But now try to imagine what it would mean to assign a number to them. What would a 5 proton be compared to a 1 proton? Or what if instead of traveling forward or backward in time, one of the particles travels upward?? You can't conceive of it. And likewise, you would not be able to infer it from the properties you do know about them.
There's no evidence that there's an invisible dragon in my garage, or that there's a small chocolate teapot orbiting Jupiter and there's no evidence that there isn't
Thats not really a great example, you're putting string theory and many worlds on par with absent teapots
@@lemdixon01 there is evidence there isn't, as those things are known to have been invented at specific points in history and have no mechanism to naturally occur in space.
Until there is evidence of either of those things it's safe to assume they don't exist.
@@JohnsonPadderunfortunatley, many people believe in things with little or no evidence due to propaganda and fake evidence
Zero sum game part. Whole episode. I like it
Geezus kriste. I love this channel. Thank you, Isaac.
Have Isaac Arthur ever made a video about the big alien theory?
Not as main topic, no, but is tempting :)
Are you quoting Asimov? "As of yet..."
I guess I should expect you to be familiar with the work of your namesake. 😁👍
Oh yes, we have a few other episodes riffing on the last question this summer too
12:00 Ummmm i think about the improbability of my existence (as just described by you) ALL THE TIME! I assumed everyone did.
You got a like because you honestly admit what you don’t know.
What nobody knows
The graphics are top notch these days
Arthrursday is my favorite color!
Trees are one thing Isaac, but we all know it's Turtles All the Way Down.
You forgot the elephants in between!
Well, I'm glad you brought up the fact that 'they might not change at all' We have no evidence for that.
Also, very valid point about them maybe being emergent properties of other more fundamental fields interactions. We also don't know.
Ultimately, like you said, not enough information for a meaningful answer.
And I think that's about as far as we can realistically speculate on the matter.
There's a kinda funny phrase: I have no interest in joining a club that would accept _me_ as a member.
Sometimes, I feel the same on a cosmic scale: I have no interest in being part of a universe that's _fine tuned_ for a creature like _homo sapiens sapiens_ to exist 😅
Love the nod to The Last Question 😊
Do we really need to assume that the universe is uniform when we can use spectroscopy to examine objects halfway or all the way across the universe? Spectroscopy is our window to the universe.
Please create a video about Human Civilizations in the future.
Not easy to imagine. Would anyone before 2016 would have thought anyone would be stupid enough to form the MAGA movement??
Imagine looking for apartments to live in, and there's always been something wrong with all the ones you've looked at so far, one was too expensive, one had rats, another had termites, another had a broken heater, yadayadayada, and then you find IT, the perfect apartment for a reasonable price, and you move in, would you say "wow this apartment was built for me!!" or would you say "thank god i finally found a place to live", that apartment was the only one suitable for you, it's that simple
26:40 this what I think is true, that civilization is too rare for us to notice it
So I ate some skittles during this. I pulled 100 skittles out of the bag and determined the chance of me pulling x color out of the bag from what was left over. I have a question though. If you were to scale this up. Could you not use it to predit the last variable (last color of skittles) almost perfectly?
Like in a simulation you could use this well if scaled. Like you could use it to predict outcomes and save space. If you know the outcome of a scenario because it's related but "random" you could produce an output based off of the other results you have. With skittles you could count 3 or 4 colors and pull 100 skittled from a bag and predict the others and you could output a result easily accurate without wasting space on your hyper advanced cpu.
Oh you big tease. You got me with we don't know. 😂
Every time I see Space Whales, I can only think of Worm
I find it interesting how the fine tuning discussion always focuses on life and intelligence. Obviously, we’re biased and want, need a universe that provides for that. Nobody ever considers the wonders not realized from alternately tuned universes. Considering what we know of physics, I doubt we could predict the possibility of biological intelligence if we weren’t it. So, what do we fail to predict in other tuning scenarios? There could be natural phenomena equally or more amazing in another universe, but, oh well. It didn’t happen. Biological intelligence only seems interesting because we don’t have anything else interesting to compare it to. I really don’t get why nobody wants to think we just got a lucky roll of the cosmic dice.
Interesting things in a universe without consciousness to contemplate them begs a question. Is there beauty in the absense of the beholder? And positing multiple unknown kinds of intelligences is the same class of dodge as the multiverse, particularly since a great number of the constants in question flatten not merely LIFE but COMPLEXITY.
But that is beside the point. It doesn't matter what we want to think. It matters what is reasonable. Your "argument" is Bulverism, what they teach in school nowadays instead of critical thinking. Instead of engaging an argument, you posit an irrational or ignoble CAUSE for your opponent's view, thus relieving yourself and your readers (you hope) from the obligation of engaging the argument intellectually.
Quote from Bulverism by C. S. Lewis:
You must show that a man is wrong before you start explaining why he is wrong. The modern method is to assume without discussion that he is wrong and then distract his attention from this (the only real issue) by busily explaining how he became so silly.
In the course of the last fifteen years I have found this vice so common that I have had to invent a name for it. I call it "Bulverism". Some day I am going to write the biography of its imaginary inventor, Ezekiel Bulver, whose destiny was determined at the age of five when he heard his mother say to his father - who had been maintaining that two sides of a triangle were together greater than a third - "Oh you say that because you are a man." "At that moment", E. Bulver assures us, "there flashed across my opening mind the great truth that refutation is no necessary part of argument. Assume that your opponent is wrong, and explain his error, and the world will be at your feet. Attempt to prove that he is wrong or (worse still) try to find out whether he is wrong or right, and the natural dynamism of our age will thrust you to the wall." That is how Bulver became one of the makers of the Twentieth Century.
Suppose I think, after doing my accounts, that I have a large balance at the bank. And suppose you want to find out whether this belief of mine is "wishful thinking." You can never come to any conclusion by examining my psychological condition. Your only chance of finding out is to sit down and work through the sum yourself. When you have checked my figures, then, and then only, will you know whether I have that balance or not. If you find my arithmetic correct, then no amount of vapouring about my psychological condition can be anything but a waste of time. If you find my arithmetic wrong, then it may be relevant to explain psychologically how I came to be so bad at my arithmetic, and the doctrine of the concealed wish will become relevant - but only after you have yourself done the sum and discovered me to be wrong on purely arithmetical grounds. It is the same with all thinking and all systems of thought. If you try to find out which are tainted by speculating about the wishes of the thinkers, you are merely making a fool of yourself. You must first find out on purely logical grounds which of them do, in fact, break down as arguments. Afterwards, if you like, go on and discover the psychological causes of the error.
Love this one. Very thorough
quoting the " The Last Question " quite often! :-)
I always wanted to listen to Raft because it's the start of a really awesome series with literally one of the biggest Mega structures but I can't find the audiobook anywhere
God I love this channel SO much
If a boltzmann brain appears over and over again only long enough for it to experience a moment of life, givin a multiverse, the same pattern of conciousness would appear over and over again creating an experientially continuous being. Much like a multiversal transporter based on randomness. That experience would be indistinguishable from our own
So if I understood the idea: basically Quantum Leap, (but across universes) and it happens so quickly (
@@djdrack4681 interestingly enough you wouldnt even need to have the thoughts be In order or instantaneous to have continuity be experienced, as long as our experience of continuity is also part of the quantum flux as well.
Just like if you flip to a random page in a book, all the characters will still act as though the previous events have happened to them, you can repeat flipping to random pages and still get the full story. And you can take as long as you like to flip pages, whether it's a second per page or a centery. Continuity will still be maintained for the characters in the story.
And if there is infinite space then all frames or pages of experience emerge instantly at all times across infinity so every moment of life always exists
@@djdrack4681 I have had the experience of passing out before and I must say time sense is clearly a product of the brains computation as I felt no time pass very strange, the experience was continuous for me I just somehow teleported to a chair from the outside ( learned later that some friends had carried me lol)
@@andrewsallans589 different levels of consciousness (not just 1 or even 2 states of 'dreaming/sleeping'), different parts of brain work on 'low power mode' it seems (if I've understood the papers I've read), other parts stay doing what they do; different enzymes/chems get released/used...
I would posit it is a 'fair' argument to say that repeatable types of 'senses' that one has while asleep/dreaming (lucid dreaming) could constitute a set of proper 'senses' you have (nowadays the lower number is something like 15-20 different senses)...and usually 'dream senses' are absent from the list.
@@andrewsallans589 Hmm. That 'page flipping' scenario implies 'reversability' or causal permanence. IF there is a multiverse, there's no guarantee its not like Rick n Morty where you Leap to rando Universe but you don't 'replace' the 'you' that may have been there...and you being there may or may not have paradoxal repercussions...probably not (if universes are 'closed systems').
The reversability aspect is something some sci-fi writers have touched on...but not many. Think of portal between universes as a doorway: you walk thru it...and either it disappears, or you can NEVER 'go back' through the same portal again.
In an infinite multiverse this could be a detrimental issue if it were true (Stephen Kings 'Drawing of the Three sort of had the idea'). How do you 'map' a series of doorways to get back to your 'original' universe? REMEMBER, each one could be wildly different than the last...so much so, that the very fundamental physics/chem of one may be toxic/dangerous for you to be in...Being forced to 'only venture forward' = a threatening aspect if such were the case.
You are missing the obvious see the first time zefod beeblebrox started up the infinite improbability drive, the ship the Heart of gold calculated that it would need to rematerialize some place some time and so despite the improbability the universe popped into place out of politeness merely not to disappoint Zefod. That is why Zefod could look into Total Perspective Vortex.
"There are a lot of numbers smaller than infinity."
Truuuuuue.
it might be finely tuned, but that doesn't mean it's the most optimal, like why is the speed of light so slow?
4:34 The universe may be fine tuned, but those dice aren't. Several of them have 2 sides with a value of 2.
I apologize in advance but I can't resist. Ahem. Baby shark! Do do do do do do. Baby shark! Do do do do do do.
Yeah I really wanted to play that song in the spot :)
22:26 The disjunct between relativity and quantum physics seems to me a good argument for the simulation hypothesis. The programmers never intended us to gain understanding to the level where the contradictions became apparent, but Ggor■■li÷ forgot to pause the experiment when [it] [went for] [a drink] and a [snack].
fine tuned universe sounds like it would have a lot of overlap with rare earth
Yeah, but you can power past any theistic implications of LOCAL CONDITIONS by positing a sufficiently LARGE universe to overwhelm any improbability. At the present we have a LOWER limit for the size of the universe, but to meaningfully calculate UNIVERSAL probabilities, we also need to narrow down an UPPER limit for the size, and we can't do that yet. This isn't as tendentious as the multiple universes dodge of cosmic fine tuning, because we already have a universe, and only need ONE of a certain size, (yet to be calculated, but finite) and we have no sound reason to suppose ours falls short of that size.
On evolutionary assumptions, sufficiently rare conditions could still be an effective filter, even with an arbitrarily large or infinite universe, if the required conditions are so rare that any given intelligent species is unlikely to emerge in the same light speed causality bubble (light cone) as another, in which case there could be an arbitrarily large array of intelligent species, non of which we can even theoretically contact (without FTL coms, at least).
I never got the "fine tuned for life" argument. Most of the universe will instantly kill you, and even our little paradise planet is only so because life itself shaped it to be so over hundreds of millions of years, all the while the cosmos tried to kill it off constantly.
Interesting - where are you right now? I bet you a billion dead universes that you're in an air environment with temperature between 50 & 85°F.
We're discussing the fact that that environment is available anywhere at all - not everywhere.
Yeah but you are missing the point that the fine tuning is that it allows any possibility of having some zone where life can exist at all
With respect, it's not just fine tuning for life, it's fine tuning for molecules and atoms over the size of hydrogen to exist
and that idea is in fact discussed in the video around 40:00
Then you didn't read / understand the argument.
I am simple person. I see Fermi Paradox entry, I click
Science is in fact pretty rad.
I can hear that smile 😂
I hope we can get to a million big dog
I used to have big Boulders but I was a soft hearted kid and would get cheated trading. Marbles.
Our definition of life may be entirely too narrow. Unfortunately we have only one example to go off so we correctly assume our specific form of life can only exist in these conditions. But even in a place with vastly different laws, anything thar allows a self replicating Turing complete structure could be said to be habitable
Yes, and a great number of these constants flatten not only organic chemistry, but COMPLEXITY.
"I will now go ahead and give you the answer to all of those." - For a brief moment I was expecting a Burning Bush to next appear on my screen, LOL.
12:09 quote, "there is absolutely no evidence that they (multiverses) exist - or that they doesn't exist - so simply assuming they do exist to explain away the Fine-Tuned Universe reasoning tends to seem like a bit of a cop out."
Now to Isaac's credit he is not specifically talking about God, but instead is refereeing to any "outside entity" as he put it, But it's hard for me to not take issue with what he said at about 12:09.
My first issue with this comment is that if the multiverse can be presented as a cop out for not believing in an "outside entity" then isn't the "outside entity" belief a cop-out for the multiverse?
My second objection is most of the people I know that advocate for the "Fine-Tuned Universe reasoning" advocate this as absolute proof that not only is there a God, but obviously there is only one God, and he loves us, and he made the universe for us, and he very much likes to weigh in on morality issues and oh by the way it is defiantly the Christian God, and oh by the way not believing in him is a sin and you go to hell forever and ever if you happen to not be convinced of his existence at the moment of your death.
But in my experience when someone is "advocating" for the multi-verse hypothesis they are usually offing it up at an alternative to God, and they are merely trying to prove that we don't know that there is a God. In other words, if the average "proponent" of the multi-verse hypothesis were to suddenly find out that it's not true they wouldn't totally and utterly devastated the way Christians would be (if they found out their religion was false) because they haven't invested all of the their emotional eggs in the basket of the multi-verse they way Christians have put every single last egg they have (and then some) into the God basket.
For my part the multi-verse hypothesis is the best guess we have right now, but I fully expect it to be incorrect, we have so little information it is unlikely that our best guess will be correct. Think about 15th humans trying to guess what life would be like today. They could come up with a million random guesses and they still wouldn't stumble on the idea of electricity or computers.
God is made up. The end.
I have heard folks rampantly abuse the theory in every possible direction, I can't speak to your own experience but I have definitely seen folks use multiverse as clear proof there is no God, feel free to scroll through the comments on this video for some examples :)
Only 5 constants are named after a person. I be upset if I discovered a constant and it wasn't named after me.
Many of the "person named" constants would have rather awkward names otherwise.
The Universe may be fine tuned but it isn't fine tuned for life. Even on the most optimistic estimates about life in the Universe would seem to indicate that it is 99.9999999999999....... etc., hostile to life. Life seems to be very rare so that if anything the fine tuning of the Universe is against life but not entirely so, after all there is life on Earth.
Crud, we got buzzed by the Heart of Gold and that's why we exist. Another thing to blame on Beeblebrox.
Zaphod, my friend, what did you do? And, most important: Where´s your towel???
@@macdieter23558 do you know what tea is, Zaphod?