sim planet

Why is the Universe Fine-Tuned?

First, there’s a very, VERY weird thing about the place we live in – something so weird and profound it sends shivers down your spine. For in fact, the Universe seems to be ‘fine-tuned’ to make life possible!

It has to do with the stuff most people find boring in school: the laws of physics. Ultimately, all of these laws are founded upon the ‘physical constants’. Such as the force of gravity, the ‘strong force’ that glues atomic nuclei together and the electromagnetic force, the driving hand behind stuff like lightning and computers. But why do these fundamental ‘presets’ have the values they have? Why aren’t they a little bigger, or smaller?

The British cosmologist Fred Hoyle was the first to realise this is no coincidence. A very peculiar thing about the fundamental constants is that they appear to have exactly the right values. If they were slightly smaller or bigger, atoms, stars, planets and people simply wouldn’t exist!

Take the strong force inside atomic nuclei. If the force were just slightly stronger, it would boost up the burning of stars so much, that they would explode only seconds after they were formed. We wouldn’t have a sun – or even a planet. If on the other hand the force were a tad weaker, it would be too weak to hold together elements like the heavy hydrogen isotope deuterium. Stars wouldn’t light up. And we wouldn’t be here either.

Astonishingly, the same goes for all other constants. As the famous British astronomer Martin Rees put it: “Wherever we look, we see examples of fine-tuning. Most of the physical constants and the initial conditions of the Universe examined so far appear to be fine-tuned to some extent.”

That leaves us with a gnawing, unsettling question: Why? Why are all physical contants exactly the way they are? Every cosmologist agrees that this can hardly be a coincidence. So what, or who, set the rules?

Er..Duh. This blurb is from Exit Mundi (see link in sidebar, or above title). I am amazed at the extreme explanations people will come up with to avoid saying God exists. Oh why didn't I think of this before, I'm a Sim in a game tweaked by aliens.

the maxims of stupidity

To be stupid, selfish, and have good health are three requirements for happiness, though if stupidity is lacking, all is lost.
~ Gustave Flaubert

To succeed in the world it is not enough to be stupid, you must also be well-mannered.
~ Voltaire

It is dangerous to be sincere unless you are also stupid.
~ George Bernard Shaw, Maxims for Revolutionists

Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
~ Unknown, Hanlon's Razor

Hmm. Yes, hmm. Let us think on this. How stupid are we? One cannot deny that there are many people that seem stupid. In fact, every person will at one time or another do a stupid thing. But one cannot say whether said person will realize what they have done is stupid. Smart people do stupid things. I regularly do and say stupid things. I could quote many people I know who have said stupid things to me in particular. Let me quote myself from a conversation two days ago, "Oh yeah, Lindsay bought a house. She has carpet in her basement. (silence) Now, I know that sounds like a stupid thing to say," etc. At this point the other party (who was male) bursts out laughing. It seemed stupid anyway, which was enough to make it stupid, whether there was a point to stating the obvious or not. Oscar Wilde believes stupidity is a sin.

There is no sin except stupidity. ~ Oscar Wilde, The Critic As Artist, Pt. II

But I think there are worse things than being stupid.

There are entire books about stupidity:

Amazon.com says this: "Matthijs van Boxsel believes that no one is intelligent enough to understand their own stupidity. In The Encyclopedia of Stupidity he shows how stupidity manifests itself in all areas, in everyone, at all times, proposing that stupidity is the foundation of our civilization."

If no one is intelligent enough to understand their own stupidity, then the aforementioned Libby and I must be semi-intelligent to have concluded weeks ago: The answer to every question is, "Yes, I am stupid."

What else can I say? I can spend my whole life trying to be non-stupid and most people wouldn't notice. We are all condemned as such, one in the same, by many a stupider person.

a sarcastic comment on spelling.

Too many people don't know how to spell the word: separate. I see it as "seperate" everywhere. (Most recently, in a comment on a blog I read two seconds ago.) I had a professor (well, not really...he was a grad student I think) who taught partial differential equations when I was in undergrad. He was always solving said PDEs on the board in front of the class, and he always put the heading "seperation of variables" on the board at least once a week, all semester, which eventually became very irritating. Nearly everyone in the class noticed eventually, and each time it happened, we would all look around the room at one another as if to say, "he still hasn't figured it out." Nobody ever said anything...I really wanted to write him a note on my final, but decided against it for fear of negative effect. Maybe he still spells it the same way.

On another note, I keep seeing spelling typos in books...really obvious ones with three "e"s in a row or letters swapped..I can't see why some authors don't use spell check. It would be so easy.

The Spew Forth Nasty Author test.

I have developed a new test. I call it the "Spew Forth Nasty Author" test. As was to be expected, I spent my entire Christmas break reading. 25 books, to be precise. Embarrassing? Yes. I tend to rush into a book with break-neck speed, finding myself in a puddle of drivel after about 3 hours, yet I am too stubborn to not finish the book. And so I finish it. Then I decide if I like the book. If I think the book is crap, then I never read that author again. If it is ok, or if I really like it, I leave it on my list of "Somewhat Tolerable Books to Read in a Long Evening." There are those however that leave deep impressions, whether it is praise or hatred, but are few. Anyway. Back to the spew test. Well, I have come to the conclusion that the majority of all contemporary fiction can be described in the following way: If you've read one, you've read them all (on a per author basis). And it is so pathetic. After reading 2 books by an author I have a suspicion that they are in the "spew forth" category. So I read a third book. And it is the exact same. If I think about it long enough, I am impressed at how an author can re-write the same story over and over and yet remain on the best-seller list, where the characters are no more unique than they are unpredictable. The only talent I can attribute to authors such as these is the ability to skew circumstances so as to give the impression that the new story really is new. The characters are really the same, from book to book. And so, as per habit, in reading an obscene amount of fiction, I somewhat unconsciously practice the "Spew Forth Nasty Author" test. In that nasty authors spew forth generic crap in excessive amounts, and I recognize them for what they are, and demote them. I must figure out how to get paid for reading too much.

An extremely short sketch on the nature of things.

The nature of things is dependent on many factors. These factors are, of course, other things. Those other things depend on yet more things. Surely, somewhere down the chain, one of the dependent factors is the original thing or thought to which the original statement is ascribed, and when such an idea is realized it makes the nature of things somewhat easier to grasp..

Thoughts on Birthdays

Birthdays are birthdays. You can celebrate the anniversary of your day of birth, but that is different from celebrating turning 19, or 45, or whatever. Technically, on my 23rd birthday, it will be the first day of my 24th year, so I should really be celebrating the day before the birthday --the day I am finishing my 23rd year. That is more cause to celebrate turning 23, is it not?