In my last post (Tuning the Universe: Constants) we talked about a fine tuned Universe which is in a way perfectly suitable for our existence. We also created a hypothetical Universe where some of the constants were slightly or drastically different and analyzed its effects on our perception of reality. But the question that was left unanswered was “Who did this fine tuning?” or “Is it a mere coincidence?” You might wonder about the possible candidates for fine tuning that I mentioned in my previous post and how one would work this problem out.
Theologians keep arguing about a Divine Creator who turns a few knobs of constants to tune this Universe until it reaches a perfect configuration to sustain human life. The argument comes from the rare possibility of constants attaining those stable values by themselves. Lets have a look at two such theories on fine tuning.
Alien Design
You all might be familiar with Engineers from the movie Prometheus and how Elizabeth Shaw led a mission to a faraway mysterious alien planet seeking the underlying truth about our very own existence, funded by a multibillionaire in search of immortality. Ancients called them God but actually they were a technologically far superior alien civilization. What if that is true?
One hypothesis about fine-tuning is that universe was designed and fine tuned by highly advanced aliens. This solves the problem of Universe fine tuning it by itself. To understand this imagine after a few centuries and with the current exponentially increasing pace of technological advancement we reach a point where our supercomputers surpass the combined potential of every single human that ever lived. The knowledge of physics reaches beyond the understanding of the Universe and we can explore the hidden dimensions, biochemistry and biology unlocking the basic design rules for all the organic life forms., That will be the time we ourselves will be capable enough to create an artificial universe or life – using all the correct ingredients. Artificial Universe is something outside our dimension or within a computer simulation or maybe outside our universe, there is a vast possibility and uncertainty where this universe can exist. That universe will not require an abstract fine tuning because we already know what constants are stable and would have figured out the missing pieces in the next few centuries. Quite similarly it is possible that our universe itself is a product of such calculated design. Those super advanced aliens could have eventually learned to engineer a new Universe and we could have emerged in one of those, deliberately or as a byproduct.
Theologists take this hypothesis in their defense and call it a certain proof of a God. But they miss the argument that even a super advanced alien race is a product of Darwinian Evolution and thus no different than we humans. And certainly in religious concepts God is a supernatural power with no concept of something before or after him, but here our intelligent guys are nothing but simply an advanced alien race. So, don’t confuse Alien Design with Creationism. In the words of Richard Dawkins, the famous author of ‘The God delusion’:
” It could be that at some earlier time, somewhere in the universe, a civilization evolved, probably by some kind of Darwinian means, probably to a very high level of technology, and designed a form of life that they seeded onto perhaps this planet.”
Alien Design is quite a fascinating hypothesis that can’t be denied because if you look at the Universe, physics, biochemistry or biology, you will find a signature of some kind of a fine-tuning or a designer. It’s kind of a fingerprint, of the Designer.
Oscillatory universe
Thanks to the Big Bang Theory we all are familiar with the Big Bang, but you might not be aware of the term ‘The Big Crunch’.
To recap, Big bang is an abrupt expansion of the universe from a very small, hot and dense state or singularity (which is an infinitely high energy and density at zero volume), whereas Big Crunch is the collapse of the same universe almost to singularity once it reaches the maximum point of expansion. And if the Oscillatory Universe theory is true, our Universe is something that exists between a never ending cycle of a Big Bang and a Big Crunch. Or you can say that our universe can be the first of a possible series of universes or it can be the nth universe in the series.
Some physicists don’t believe that universe reaches singularity after Big crunch but it bounces back to an expanding one due to the infinite repulsive forces, thus expansion followed by Collapse and so on. One bounce represents end of the previous universe and it is quite possible that every time one cycle completes the laws of physics reset themselves to same or different values of constants and thus providing every following universe with a new set of constants. Or we are here discussing about these constants because eventually there turned out to be one universe out of those n number of universes which supports the evolution of intelligent beings. 
Oscillatory universe theory raised many questions about the way universe work and our purpose in it, in a constant search for answers physicists stumbled upon something beyond our understanding, Dark matters and Dark energy. If mass of all the visible materials is calculated then it constitutes only 4% of the total mass of the Universe, and rest is invisible. That invisible mass is Dark energy and Dark matter, we can’t see them but can indirectly observe their effect on galaxies and space. For Big Crunch it’s necessary for gravity to slow down the expansion of the Universe and collapse it back, but that is not happening and expansion of the Universe is accelerating at an increased rate, and the reason is Dark Energy. With the new findings about Dark Energy and Dark Matter Oscillatory Universe hypothesis doesn’t stand strong and probably the Universe will end in a Big Freeze, without collapsing and without giving us a second chance.
In my next post we will discuss about more fine tuning candidates like Multiverse theory, Simulation Hypothesis and Alternate realities.
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