Cosmopsychism

[Ninshub]

Is the Universe a conscious mind?
by Philip Goff
aeon.co

Cosmopsychism might seem crazy, but it provides a robust explanatory model for how the Universe became fine-tuned for life.

In the past 40 or so years, a strange fact about our Universe gradually made itself known to scientists: the laws of physics, and the initial conditions of our Universe, are fine-tuned for the possibility of life. It turns out that, for life to be possible, the numbers in basic physics – for example, the strength of gravity, or the mass of the electron – must have values falling in a certain range. And that range is an incredibly narrow slice of all the possible values those numbers can have. It is therefore incredibly unlikely that a universe like ours would have the kind of numbers compatible with the existence of life. But, against all the odds, our Universe does.
Here are a few of examples of this fine-tuning for life:

•  The strong nuclear force (the force that binds together the elements in the nucleus of an atom) has a value of 0.007. If that value had been 0.006 or less, the Universe would have contained nothing but hydrogen. If it had been 0.008 or higher, the hydrogen would have fused to make heavier elements. In either case, any kind of chemical complexity would have been physically impossible. And without chemical complexity there can be no life.
  
•  The physical possibility of chemical complexity is also dependent on the masses of the basic components of matter: electrons and quarks. If the mass of a down quark had been greater by a factor of 3, the Universe would have contained only hydrogen. If the mass of an electron had been greater by a factor of 2.5, the Universe would have contained only neutrons: no atoms at all, and certainly no chemical reactions.
  
•  Gravity seems a momentous force but it is actually much weaker than the other forces that affect atoms, by about 1036. If gravity had been only slightly stronger, stars would have formed from smaller amounts of material, and consequently would have been smaller, with much shorter lives. A typical sun would have lasted around 10,000 years rather than 10 billion years, not allowing enough time for the evolutionary processes that produce complex life. Conversely, if gravity had been only slightly weaker, stars would have been much colder and hence would not have exploded into supernovae. This also would have rendered life impossible, as supernovae are the main source of many of the heavy elements that form the ingredients of life.
  

Is the Universe a conscious mind?
by Philip Goff
aeon.co

Cosmopsychism might seem crazy, but it provides a robust explanatory model for how the Universe became fine-tuned for life.

When philosophizing while sitting on their well fed behinds philosophers should take it upon themselves to know the history and the future evolution of our universe. When the universe was young life would not have been possible - too hot.  In the distant future life will be impossible - not enough energy to perform work (Heat Death). Right now at this time in the evolution of our universe we live in a Goldilocks period.  If we do not leave this planet humanity will cease because our life giving Sun will swell up baking our little ball of dirt. 
This philosopher should take a ride to outer space. Once there wearing nothing but his clothes open the door and step out.  Immediately he'll discover the air in his lungs rushing out, his vision becoming tunnel like as his blood begins to boil. He'll also be roasted by x-rays, gamma rays, ultraviolet light and bombarded by high energy particles. Within say 30 seconds he'll be unconscious a few more he'll be dead so it won't really matter what he thinks. 
Is this universe fined tuned? It will take more than this old logic argument. Probably not.

I'd be interested in knowing what energy is and how it is measured/quantified that we can genuinely know that there won't be enough to perform whatever "work" is...

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From Panexperentialism.net ->

The Goldilocks Enigma

https://panexperientialism.blogspot.com....nigma.html

Paul Davies recent book "The Goldilocks Enigma" is a fascinating exploration of why the universe seems to be "just right" for life. Interest in the fine tuning issue (which is related to the anthropic principle) has received something of a revival in recent years, primarily because of the attention paid by some physicists to the view that our universe has an improbably appropriate amount of dark energy to allow galaxies to form and hence life to evolve. In this post, I aim to evaluate possible solutions to the fine tuning problem from a panexperientialist perspective.

I'd be interested in knowing what energy is and how it is measured/quantified that we can genuinely know that there won't be enough to perform whatever "work" is...

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Spend some time web searching the subject. Search "heat death". The short answer is in the extremely non intuitively incomprehensibly distant evolution of the universe it reaches thermal equilibrium.

Spend some time web searching the subject. Search "heat death". The short answer is in the extremely non intuitively incomprehensibly distant evolution of the universe it reaches thermal equilibrium.

What's energy? - I see it mentioned a lot in places explaining heat death?

[Laird]

What's energy?

Technically, in physics, at least by the definition with which I'm familiar from high school and a bit at university, energy is the capacity to do work. Too, according to that same physics, energy can neither be created nor destroyed: it can only change forms, e.g., from potential gravitational energy to the kinetic energy of motion. In this latter respect it is curious that Steve001 claims that “In the distant future life will be impossible - not enough energy to perform work”: curious because the total amount of energy in the universe (assuming that the universe is closed, which is a questionable assumption) according to the physics with which I'm familiar does not change, so it is not that at the hypothesised heat death of the universe there will be "not enough" energy to perform work - there will be the same amount of energy as at any other point in time - but that the energy, being uniformly distributed in maximal entropy, will not exist in a form that can be readily harnessed to perform work.

On the topic of the heat death of the universe, Isaac Asimov wrote a short story titled The Last Question. I remember our physics teacher at school talking about this very story.

Technically, in physics, at least by the definition with which I'm familiar from high school and a bit at university, energy is the capacity to do work. Too, according to that same physics, energy can neither be created nor destroyed: it can only change forms, e.g., from potential gravitational energy to the kinetic energy of motion. In this latter respect it is curious that Steve001 claims that “In the distant future life will be impossible - not enough energy to perform work”: curious because the total amount of energy in the universe (assuming that the universe is closed, which is a questionable assumption) according to the physics with which I'm familiar does not change, so it is not that at the hypothesised heat death of the universe there will be "not enough" energy to perform work - there will be the same amount of energy as at any other point in time - but that the energy, being uniformly distributed in maximal entropy, will not exist in a form that can be readily harnessed to perform work.

It's not my claim. This is way beyond high school physics and the little university learning you had. 
Do know what thermal equalibrium means? And what implications that would have for life as we know it? Search "is energy conserved in the universe" or similar keywords.

On the topic of the heat death of the universe, Isaac Asimov wrote a short story titled The Last Question. I remember our physics teacher at school talking about this very story.

It's been a long time since reading this story.