The following excerpts are from Chapter 15 of my new book manuscript ...
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... in which I let loose with some sincere if wild hunches, suspicions and speculations on why our universe was so fine tuned for your, the reader's, birth.
The chapter posits a "Natural Intelligence" (N.I.) that may have organically evolved in the universe from simple beginnings through ordinary natural selection, with certain planning, decision making, design and engineering capabilities (in that regard, resembling our current A.I. in those capabilities, but more much sophisticated due to evolutionary time scales) ... a relatively powerful and smart (but nonetheless finite and limited) entity that (unlike most religious notions) can be explained and understood logically regarding its simple origins, evolution, acquisition of intelligence and abilities which strengthened over time, and current functioning in the world ... an intelligence that evolved through natural selection, and that also uses natural selection as a tool ... a phenomenon that, if it exists, can be reliably evidenced, is falsifiable and testable in various ways (as I describe below).
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Enjoy!
And so, how?
You are alive and self-aware (pinch self to confirm), with an ability to ponder how seemingly unlikely was your birth, the apparent product of wild and rambling events, intertwined chance encounters, constant “need not have happened but happened anyway” happenings, generations of “right place at the right time” survivals and “wrong place at the wrong time” deaths, all right for you in the end. In order for your experience of consciousness to be occurring, not a single physical property, chemical reaction, biological process or emergence from evolution, not one during any moment throughout the billions of years, ever failed to occur if that property, reaction, process or emergence was somehow irreplaceable and necessary to your being you now. Furthermore, not one physical property, chemical reaction, biological process or emergence from evolution, not any time throughout the billions of years, ever occurred if that property, reaction, process or emergence would have foreclosed your being here now. Not one. Likewise for the events of human and familial history. This is proven irrefutably and inarguably by your being here now, pondering the fact.
Assuming it was not but farcical luck, what might explain so fantastic a feat?
In this chapter, let’s have some fun:
I wish to think outside the box and be creative, offering ‘hunches’ and wild speculations on what might have brought about your appearance, dear reader, here in the middle of time and space. If not just an unimaginable accident, what could conceivably have shortened the odds, or fully determined your presence at this current end of the unthinkable thread of astronomical, chemical, solar, planetary, environmental, biological, evolutionary, neurological, world historical, social and familial occurrences? In hazarding a guess, I will try to stay within the bounds of what is possible and plausible, even if more than a touch speculative and fantastic sometimes. However, whenever lacking empirical evidence, please take these suppositions, bits of whimsy and lighthearted “maybes” with utmost skepticism and plentiful grains of salt. Since, so far, we lack sensible explanations for many phenomena, we might as well consider some outlandish ones.
... While this very strange coincidence might be nothing more than an outcome of obscene luck, or alternatively, just what happened in an “everything happens” multiverse, I propose that an odds shortening or outcome determining mechanism, process or intelligence is a much more likely explanation.
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[Y]ou find yourself born amid the most ultra-fine tuned conditions, brought about like an historical “house of cards,” occurring on a planet that has proven itself uniquely and flawlessly hospitable to your birth and life, seemingly the only place in this universe where such conditions could have come together for you (assuming that, however unlikely, even a perfect twin on any other world would not be you. You cannot experience being them. It seems that you can only experience this you, on this Earth, so are not them on their world. Otherwise, we need to greatly revise what we currently think “you” means.)
Likewise, it is possible that, in a multiverse of varied universes, there are hospitable and inhospitable entire universes, only some with conditions right for creatures like us. Maybe there are many universes just like this one, or close to it, with many “yous” just like you, or close to it. However, I would note that, even if that is the case, you exist in the only universe of any multiverse where you (this one) can exist: That is again because (test it out if you doubt me!) you only experience yourself in this one, here and now. ... Likewise, punch any other “you” in the nose, and this “you’s” nose does not get bloody. Save any other “you” from drowning, and this “you” may still drown. For that reason, even if we may somehow assert that those other “you(s)” are you, any “you” in parallel universes seems to do you not a lick of good.
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N.I. – DESIGN BY NATURAL INTELLIGENCE?
In spite of the hit and miss of natural selection, you, dear reader, made it through. Amid the chaos of history, your birth required amazing specificity. That specificity must be accounted for in a universe in which so many events seem wild and random, assuming it is not simply the product of the “preposterous winning streak” or “everything happens.”
What kind of process or natural mechanism could do that: letting nature take its rambling and bloody course much of the time, yet allowing or mandating highly specific outcomes? Is it possible that something allows for rough and tumble happenings, evolution and diversity across space and time, yet “tweaks” nature and adjusts events here and there? If so, where and how? Are there other comparable phenomena in the world?
While most events of nature, including planetary development and natural selection, appear to function by scattershot and chance, not all do. We have already mentioned the bird’s navigation, the bat’s sonar, the hidden hand of gravity on planetary motion, and the adequately effective body layouts of natural selection: Each is a natural mechanism and explanation for finely tuned outcomes without which such outcomes would be more unlikely.
...
[A] farmer might select rich soil, then till and prepare it, planting particular fruit seeds in expectation of later harvesting a particular kind of fruit. Though much of the surrounding environment and growth process remains at the mercy of chance and wild nature’s fickleness, the farmer’s hands and eyes lessen the elements of chance, and better ensure the desired outcome. A biologist might breed and care for a particular clutch of sea turtle eggs, paying special attention to specific eggs with desired genetic traits among the group, and might thus select for and genetically intervene to birth only turtles with those desired traits. Wild nature, however, still has the last word on success. Likewise, a fertility specialist can help little sperm on their way, then select among fertilized eggs for implanting, even if much chance and (sadly) many failures will be inevitable as part of the process. Despite their best efforts, not every seed the farmer plants will grow tall or at all, not every turtle and desired trait or embryo will prove viable. Nature’s fickleness largely still runs the show, with the choosing hand exerting no more than an influence. (These days, if we wish to remove consciousness from the picture, A.I. systems exist which can intelligently replicate the work of choosing and nurturing by farmer, geneticist or doctor, even if without its own consciousness.) ... Much like that of the farmer or physician, an influential choosing and nurturing “hand” may be light and conservative in its application, and furthermore, not in total control of outcomes amid the overall power of capricious chance, wild events, and the world’s general complexity and chaos.
If such selecting intelligences as farmers, biologists and physicians evolved on this planet, using in their work natural processes of reproduction and evolution which they allow to do the “heavy lifting,” but guiding them here and there toward certain outcomes, might a like selecting intelligence have evolved or otherwise have come to be with regard to the universe as a whole?
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Thus, is it possible that there could have evolved a kind of “N.I.” (Natural Intelligence), an evolved “neural network” or other clever system or mind which itself grew more sophisticated through natural selection (or an equivalent growth and mutation process)? Amoeba became ants, then apes, then eventually astronomers, each with increasing levels of intelligence, including planning and engineering skills, all evolving naturally on Earth. Our naturally evolved human intelligence can manipulate matter, build things, engineer genetic traits, and now artificial intelligences of our own can do the same. In like fashion, might some underlying intelligence have naturally appeared and evolved over time to become a basic, primary “operating system” for this universe? Is it possible that such an N.I. is now running the show or, better said, steering events here and there, with an adjustment to the rudder now and then, tweaking outcomes that otherwise remain quite wild? Could nature have become a meta-farmer-physician-biologist-engineer of our universal realm?
... Such process, like in cases of ordinary natural selection or A.I., may exhibit a certain “intelligence” without sentience, or it may be accompanied by its own sentience. It would function to shorten, or even fully determine, certain outcomes amid otherwise random and varying conditions, such as the specific outcomes that are “you” and “me.” ...
Is it possible (although thoroughly speculative, absent evidence right now) that this “Natural Intelligence” organically developed or evolved within the universe (or more likely, in an underlying foundation from which our “fine tuned for life” universe has arisen) as a phenomenon that has power to set and achieve goals, make plans for solving those goals, reason solutions to problems, design visual and other environments (even on vast scales compared to our small abilities), manipulate materials to create solid structures, and otherwise engineer or farm, much as does our own human designed A.I.? What is more, like any engineer or farmer, such an agent or process may be very skilled in its abilities, but far from perfect in its power to control all factors and events, limited by what available materials, physical/chemical laws and wild conditions it must work with. Like a gifted chef, it can set an oven and mix batter employing the ingredients at hand, but there is never guaranty how the cake will ultimately bake.
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Assuming that events are not totally random and blind, nor fully and deterministically controlled, then it is possible that there is more “intervention” and “adjustment” than strictly controlled “design.” For this reason, history often takes violent and harsh turns, including times of war or plague, with much loss of life which human beings do not welcome, yet the result can be radically unlikely outcomes (e.g., us) that appear as a product. Namely, there is often a laissez-faire attitude toward natural events, but sometimes tweaks and adjustments to its course.
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What if (and it remains thoroughly a fun “what if” absent evidence) … , what if a fully natural intelligence, controlling process, operating and design system began as the product of a “cosmic soup” fluctuation, not unlike that posited by theoreticians of a Boltzmann Brain. Many more physicists propose such a fluctuation as trigger for the Big Bang itself.[1] However, unlike the Boltzmann Brain, “N.I.” need not start off “fully loaded and ready to go.” Rather, more like the universe of the Big Bang, it would begin simply, growing in complexity. As in the case of the Big Bang cosmos, N.I. could begin bare bones, the simplest physical structure, and only later develop through evolution in its complexity, intelligence and control abilities, becoming a “Natural Intelligence,” much as we have evolved to a human intelligence in a universe that began as barely more than hydrogen clouds.
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As we witnessed in our own universe, the matter that resulted from the Big Bang was able to survive annihilation, pull together, grow and produce more of itself in all varieties of the Periodic Table, thus to become complex structures including stars and planets, and even living, intelligent bodies like you and me through evolution.
Now, imagine that the original “popping up” and “sticking around” was similar to that, but at a more fundamental level prior to the Big Bang, resulting in something which grew complex in organization, then began to evolve or expand in some way (perhaps by parts of the single entity coming to compete against other parts of the single entity, much like your right arm wrestling your left arm for dominance, or like single cells which produce nearly duplicate cells with minor variations whereby one becomes many that compete among themselves.) This original simple state itself developed increasing abilities, and even intelligence over time, as a result of this struggle and competition or varied expansion within itself. It may have literally become its own jungle, and set up its own fights for survival, with facets of itself as both predator and prey. It may have become its own petri dish, developing like a varied colony of self-replicating cells, allowing mutation and competition among themselves, but within itself. With literally all the time in the world to do this, the outcome might have been evolution, competition and complexity, certainly taking long ages … but there was no hurry.
The intelligence which eventually resulted could be much like modern A.I., a process that can do things and achieve goals without sentience. Or, perhaps, some sentience may have naturally arisen in the structure over long spans of time. We know for certain that sentience can evolve with time from something inanimate because sentience arose in the structures which are “us” with sufficient time, and we evolved from inanimate stuff. Why would sentience be capable of evolving within us, and in other life, but not of evolving at a more basic level, in a more fundamental structure of the universe from which we, and our little sentience, arose? To deny that possibility is not unlike saying that milk evolved to exist in ice cream, a conclusion derived because you are holding an ice cream in hand, tasting the milk on your tongue, while denying the possibility that cows exist because you don’t see a cow!
Perhaps in this way, N.I., the natural intelligence manifesting in this universe … tremendously powerful by human standards (but not necessarily unlimited in power) … a cosmic farmer/engineer/chef/biologist/artist of sorts … was born.
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It really would not matter (pun intended) whether N.I. created our universe and its matter/energy from scratch (perhaps from something more basic or from bits of itself), or merely learned to manipulate matter/energy that was already present outside itself somehow (like a chef working with ingredients which happen to be at hand), or if our universe of matter/energy somehow exists within N.I. (as if a dreamer dreaming a dream of life, or an A.I. creating its own internal simulation.) In any such case, N.I. might possess an ability to control or lightly adjust events in this universe, even if not fully. One clue that this universe was created with life, including intelligent life, already in the cards from the ‘get-go’ is found in the fact that the Big Bang included so many fine tuned, life-friendly characteristics from its first moments. It is as if the stage were set. Within those parameters, however, and apart from minor adjustments, universal events are allowed to run unhindered in accordance with the laws of physics and chemistry, competition, natural selection and the like. This last fact explains the “red in tooth and claw” bloodshed and violence we witness in this otherwise “life-friendly” world.
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This N.I. process, system or being is a highly-evolved, resourceful and powerful designer (compared to us), even if not all-powerful in being so. Employing processes of evolution, natural selection and creation (mirroring the processes of evolution, natural selection and creation from which it itself may have emerged), this universal gardener, artist, engineer and chef might have cultivated, sculpted, planned (in whole or parts) or stirred up a universe (or universes) capable of internally evolving, naturally selecting and creating other stuff, including living stuff. ... Such capacities would surely be far beyond what puny us can muster although, all things being relative, it need not be infinite and unlimited in power! Our abilities as human engineers surely will amaze a cocker spaniel, assuming the doggie could even begin to understand our talents in building bridges, rocket ships and super computers. (Granted, we cannot sniff all that a K-9 can sniff.) A power and intelligence which evolved to a level able to work isolated adjustments in the universe would be, as the great Arthur C. Clark famously said, an “advanced technology … indistinguishable from magic.” In this case, if nature itself engineered such intelligence naturally through a process of evolution, the intelligence may be indistinguishable from evolution and nature.
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Today, if asked to do so (or by its own choice to do so without human intervention). A.I. will sketch the face of a famous person, for example, “George Washington,” even without conscious awareness of who “George Washington” was. A.I. can also make images, or whole virtual simulations of “people” who have never lived at all. Soon, A.I. may be capable of building roboticized, or even fully biological, versions of such “people” able to function in the world, perhaps indistinguishable from ordinary people. Is it so hard to imagine that N.I. might do the same, with or without sentience, using matter as its paints, clay and pixels? Just as “George Washington” is a particular person with a unique life story, N.I. could select for a certain life and life story, not much different from the human artist drawing a particular face.
Why do human beings think that they can manage such intelligent selections of specific individuals, products, art, outcomes and destinations, but nature cannot? Why do we feel certain that we are smarter and more capable than nature which managed (despite its alleged lifelessness and insensibility) to produce living, feeling us? Was it not nature that, in its resourcefulness, gave birth to biologists, artists, pilots and farmers, not the other way around? Do we stand outside nature, or are we as much nature, and beholden to its powers while beneficiary of its abilities, as are the insects and trees? If designers plan and build A.I., might N.I. plan and build A.I. designers?
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CAN WE TEST FOR ANY OF THIS?
Yes. There are ways.
Statistical anomalies may be identified using probability analysis, pinpointing large numbers of phenomena which were required for human existence, but which seemingly possessed an exceptionally much higher probability of being in some other state hostile to human existence. The smaller the apparent probability that a phenomenon would be found in a condition conducive to human existence relative to the higher probability of a hostile state, the stronger would be an inference that the human-conducive outcome is not the product of chance alone. This would be especially the case where extremely large numbers of such phenomena are found, in ornate relationships and sequences. For example, an event which occurred based on a 50/50 chance of not occurring has far less probative value compared to an event with an astronomically low (e.g., < 10⁻¹²⁰) chance of occurring. A great ensemble of such astronomically improbably phenomena occurring in a mutually dependent web further strengthens the conclusion. Such an inference requires that there be no alternative explanation for why the subject phenomena are found with their exceptionally unlikely characteristics rather than the hostile characteristics, such as identifiable physical laws that required the non-hostile characteristics. The strength of statistical evidence will increase the greater the apparent unlikelihood without alternative explanation. It will also increase if the phenomenon required not a simple a single unlikely factor to occur, but an intricate serious of factors or contributing causes, bound in complex relationships, in order to occur, each unlikely and unexplained but together combined to result in the astronomically unlikely condition.
Improbable, life-friendly phenomena can include basic universal properties at or near the time of the Big Bang that made later events possible, such as the strength and other characteristics of fundamental forces and elements, fundamental chemical properties, astronomical events such as the positioning and characteristics of solar system bodies, events in planetary development, as well as in biological and evolutionary development, including human body and brain structure.
... Worth consideration are events very early in time which appeared to “set up” events much later in time upon which life is dependent, but without obvious need for the earlier event to have been so, e.g., the characteristics of various elements of the period table, such as carbon, which permitted the varied structures of molecules, such as proteins, upon which our lives are dependent. Also of interest would be phenomena which were highly likely to occur in a manner which would have foreclosed human life, but which did not occur at all or in such manner, for no identifiable reason.
Information theory and complexity can be used to identify natural systems which exhibit highly ordered, functional information content that cannot be reduced to physical laws. Shannon entropy, a mathematical measure of uncertainty in a random variable, can quantifying the amount of information contained within a system based on the probabilities of different possible states occurring. However, content which can be explained by physical laws and processes (such as natural selection) should be rejected as evidence, thus avoiding a mistake made by some “intelligent design” advocates, for example, in arguing for the unlikelihood of DNA structure or human eye structure, which can be well-explained through natural evolutionary processes. However, the unlikelihood of a particular DNA arrangement, eye structure or the like may have evidentiary value.
For example, the existence of DNA and our entire genetic system is now well understood and explainable, as is the evolution of the human eye. However, the evolution of a particular species, such as Homo sapiens (and more precisely, an individual in that species including the individual’s particular family line) seems still to be left largely as a matter of chance within the constraints of the genetic system. In other words, earthly DNA coding and lines of genetic inheritance seemingly could easily have resulted in a different intelligent species other than Homo sapien, and alternative family lines which would not include a particular individual. Furthermore, while the evolution of DNA, eyes, brain features, other bodily organs and the like, in general, can be well explained through natural selection, the life of a particular individual whose own bodily structure depends on those organs existing in general (and a particular set of those organs existing) cannot now be explained except as largely random chance.
Of particular interest would be long sequences exhibiting a “hard emergence” of phenomena such as chemical structures, natural properties, bodily functions and other “higher properties” which cannot be directly and simply attributed to the characteristics of constituent lower level contributing phenomena. This is especially probative if the emergent phenomenon proves something inevitably necessary for human life in general that cannot be otherwise explained. Also of interest would be known constituent factors which appear to have come together in intricate and fragile arrangements to cause the emergence of a phenomenon necessary to human life, but the complex arrangements cannot be explained or appear highly unlikely.
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A.I. can be employed for extremely large data analysis to identify patterns and correlations that may otherwise escape notice. A.I. can also be used to rule out alternative explanations for such patterns and correlations. Ordered structures where only chaos is expected would be of high interest. Of special note are phenomena which deviate from expected natural randomness, for example, the so-called “Axis of Evil” identified in the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) radiation as an unusual alignment of temperature fluctuations which appears to correlate with the plane of our solar system in a manner which possibly contradicts the notion that our system’s location should not be special. Of specific interest would be unexplained patterns and correlations which constitute apparent necessities for human life, rather than anomalies, patterns and correlations which appear unrelated to any significant contribution to intelligent life in general, or human life in particular.
A.I. and advanced computer systems can be used to run “Monte Carlo” simulations of universal development and planetary events with varied conditions to see how often life emerges in general, human life in particular, and a specific human life most particularly. Artificial Life Simulations can be run to test whether known natural processes can generate complex order without guidance, especially with regard to the emergence of a particular species and individual within the species. Emphasis should be placed on conditions which seemingly had a high likelihood in occurring in ways hostile to such life. Finally, our continued work with ever more advanced A.I. and simulated environments, as well as biological and neurological research, may someday confirm whether we can create conscious minds of our own by engineering and artificial means not directly related to standard biological reproduction.
While no single statistical test can "prove" an interference based on apparently chance events which display outcomes weighted toward human life (or a particular human life), accumulating improbable anomalies across multiple domains would strengthen the inference.
In addition, there is strong predictive power:
Anthropic reasoning has predictive power. Furthermore, your life (yes, yours, dear reader) has predictive power regarding the basic fabric of the universe, physics and chemistry, biology, evolution and human history. Simply stated, if there is any property, interaction, event or other phenomenon that, at any point in time prior to your birth or currently, has needed to be precisely X, and no other way, were your birth to occur and your life to be ongoing now (even if that property, interaction, event or other phenomenon apparently need not have been X) that property, interaction, event or other phenomenon, when measured, will be found to be precisely X even if there is no other identifiable reason that the phenomenon needed to be precisely X. Therefore, predictions can be made about any property, interaction, event or other phenomenon necessary for your birth and life based on your birth and life alone.
In this way your life, dear reader, has predictive power with regard to fundamental phenomena and events of this universe.
... An example of anthropic prediction not based on a particular individual, but on complex life in general, concerns carbon. In 1953, physicist Fred Hoyle made perhaps the first anthropic prediction, anticipating the existence of an excited state in the carbon-12 atomic nucleus ... Other anthropic predictions have included properties of Dark Matter and Dark Energy which, although yet to be fully understood and identified, inevitably must exist with properties in ranges to allow our human existence, and likewise for all else that exists in the universe. The Cosmological Constant was also predicted on the basis of anthropic reasoning, later confirmed.[2] Predictions were made about the temperature of the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation which, naturally, must be low enough for complex chemistry but high enough to prevent a cold universe, thus falling within the anthropic range.[3]
In like fashion, your personal, most particular life can be used for very precise predictive purposes: Namely, if there is any physical phenomenon of this universe which must be X, and not Y, in order for you to exist, we can confidently predict that the phenomenon will be determined to be X, and not Y, upon examination, even if X is a most extreme and unlikely outcome. That is true even if the prediction is in regards to an event millions or billions of years ago, or an event billions of light years away, if that event would be causally necessary for your birth.
.. Finally, if there is a mechanism such as N.I. that physically influences properties, interactions, events or other phenomena in physics and chemistry, biology, evolution and human history, it is possible that the nature of that mechanism can be the subject of hypothesis and, if the mechanism leaves traces, those can be identified, tested for and measured. It is possible that, if Natural Intelligence does function as something like an “operating system” for this universe, running in patterns driven by algorithms and other mathematical formuli in the manner of any software, an A.I. analysis of physical events in this universe may detect those mathematical patterns playing out in universal phenomena. ....
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[1] (Barrow, John D. and Frank J. Tipler (1986). The Anthropic Cosmological Principle. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press., p. 253.) However, Hoyle may not have originally thought of his prediction in anthropic terms: https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/5332/1/3alphaphil.pdf
[2] https://inspirehep.net/literature/655308
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ULTRA-FINE TUNING
The improbable, implausible, nearly impossible twists and turns
of physics, chemistry, biology, evolution, human history and more,
from the Big Bang to your own Birth
The improbable, implausible, nearly impossible twists and turns
of physics, chemistry, biology, evolution, human history and more,
from the Big Bang to your own Birth
... in which I let loose with some sincere if wild hunches, suspicions and speculations on why our universe was so fine tuned for your, the reader's, birth.
The chapter posits a "Natural Intelligence" (N.I.) that may have organically evolved in the universe from simple beginnings through ordinary natural selection, with certain planning, decision making, design and engineering capabilities (in that regard, resembling our current A.I. in those capabilities, but more much sophisticated due to evolutionary time scales) ... a relatively powerful and smart (but nonetheless finite and limited) entity that (unlike most religious notions) can be explained and understood logically regarding its simple origins, evolution, acquisition of intelligence and abilities which strengthened over time, and current functioning in the world ... an intelligence that evolved through natural selection, and that also uses natural selection as a tool ... a phenomenon that, if it exists, can be reliably evidenced, is falsifiable and testable in various ways (as I describe below).
.
Enjoy!
~ ~ ~
And so, how?
You are alive and self-aware (pinch self to confirm), with an ability to ponder how seemingly unlikely was your birth, the apparent product of wild and rambling events, intertwined chance encounters, constant “need not have happened but happened anyway” happenings, generations of “right place at the right time” survivals and “wrong place at the wrong time” deaths, all right for you in the end. In order for your experience of consciousness to be occurring, not a single physical property, chemical reaction, biological process or emergence from evolution, not one during any moment throughout the billions of years, ever failed to occur if that property, reaction, process or emergence was somehow irreplaceable and necessary to your being you now. Furthermore, not one physical property, chemical reaction, biological process or emergence from evolution, not any time throughout the billions of years, ever occurred if that property, reaction, process or emergence would have foreclosed your being here now. Not one. Likewise for the events of human and familial history. This is proven irrefutably and inarguably by your being here now, pondering the fact.
Assuming it was not but farcical luck, what might explain so fantastic a feat?
In this chapter, let’s have some fun:
I wish to think outside the box and be creative, offering ‘hunches’ and wild speculations on what might have brought about your appearance, dear reader, here in the middle of time and space. If not just an unimaginable accident, what could conceivably have shortened the odds, or fully determined your presence at this current end of the unthinkable thread of astronomical, chemical, solar, planetary, environmental, biological, evolutionary, neurological, world historical, social and familial occurrences? In hazarding a guess, I will try to stay within the bounds of what is possible and plausible, even if more than a touch speculative and fantastic sometimes. However, whenever lacking empirical evidence, please take these suppositions, bits of whimsy and lighthearted “maybes” with utmost skepticism and plentiful grains of salt. Since, so far, we lack sensible explanations for many phenomena, we might as well consider some outlandish ones.
... While this very strange coincidence might be nothing more than an outcome of obscene luck, or alternatively, just what happened in an “everything happens” multiverse, I propose that an odds shortening or outcome determining mechanism, process or intelligence is a much more likely explanation.
_________________________________
[Y]ou find yourself born amid the most ultra-fine tuned conditions, brought about like an historical “house of cards,” occurring on a planet that has proven itself uniquely and flawlessly hospitable to your birth and life, seemingly the only place in this universe where such conditions could have come together for you (assuming that, however unlikely, even a perfect twin on any other world would not be you. You cannot experience being them. It seems that you can only experience this you, on this Earth, so are not them on their world. Otherwise, we need to greatly revise what we currently think “you” means.)
Likewise, it is possible that, in a multiverse of varied universes, there are hospitable and inhospitable entire universes, only some with conditions right for creatures like us. Maybe there are many universes just like this one, or close to it, with many “yous” just like you, or close to it. However, I would note that, even if that is the case, you exist in the only universe of any multiverse where you (this one) can exist: That is again because (test it out if you doubt me!) you only experience yourself in this one, here and now. ... Likewise, punch any other “you” in the nose, and this “you’s” nose does not get bloody. Save any other “you” from drowning, and this “you” may still drown. For that reason, even if we may somehow assert that those other “you(s)” are you, any “you” in parallel universes seems to do you not a lick of good.
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N.I. – DESIGN BY NATURAL INTELLIGENCE?
In spite of the hit and miss of natural selection, you, dear reader, made it through. Amid the chaos of history, your birth required amazing specificity. That specificity must be accounted for in a universe in which so many events seem wild and random, assuming it is not simply the product of the “preposterous winning streak” or “everything happens.”
What kind of process or natural mechanism could do that: letting nature take its rambling and bloody course much of the time, yet allowing or mandating highly specific outcomes? Is it possible that something allows for rough and tumble happenings, evolution and diversity across space and time, yet “tweaks” nature and adjusts events here and there? If so, where and how? Are there other comparable phenomena in the world?
While most events of nature, including planetary development and natural selection, appear to function by scattershot and chance, not all do. We have already mentioned the bird’s navigation, the bat’s sonar, the hidden hand of gravity on planetary motion, and the adequately effective body layouts of natural selection: Each is a natural mechanism and explanation for finely tuned outcomes without which such outcomes would be more unlikely.
...
[A] farmer might select rich soil, then till and prepare it, planting particular fruit seeds in expectation of later harvesting a particular kind of fruit. Though much of the surrounding environment and growth process remains at the mercy of chance and wild nature’s fickleness, the farmer’s hands and eyes lessen the elements of chance, and better ensure the desired outcome. A biologist might breed and care for a particular clutch of sea turtle eggs, paying special attention to specific eggs with desired genetic traits among the group, and might thus select for and genetically intervene to birth only turtles with those desired traits. Wild nature, however, still has the last word on success. Likewise, a fertility specialist can help little sperm on their way, then select among fertilized eggs for implanting, even if much chance and (sadly) many failures will be inevitable as part of the process. Despite their best efforts, not every seed the farmer plants will grow tall or at all, not every turtle and desired trait or embryo will prove viable. Nature’s fickleness largely still runs the show, with the choosing hand exerting no more than an influence. (These days, if we wish to remove consciousness from the picture, A.I. systems exist which can intelligently replicate the work of choosing and nurturing by farmer, geneticist or doctor, even if without its own consciousness.) ... Much like that of the farmer or physician, an influential choosing and nurturing “hand” may be light and conservative in its application, and furthermore, not in total control of outcomes amid the overall power of capricious chance, wild events, and the world’s general complexity and chaos.
If such selecting intelligences as farmers, biologists and physicians evolved on this planet, using in their work natural processes of reproduction and evolution which they allow to do the “heavy lifting,” but guiding them here and there toward certain outcomes, might a like selecting intelligence have evolved or otherwise have come to be with regard to the universe as a whole?
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Thus, is it possible that there could have evolved a kind of “N.I.” (Natural Intelligence), an evolved “neural network” or other clever system or mind which itself grew more sophisticated through natural selection (or an equivalent growth and mutation process)? Amoeba became ants, then apes, then eventually astronomers, each with increasing levels of intelligence, including planning and engineering skills, all evolving naturally on Earth. Our naturally evolved human intelligence can manipulate matter, build things, engineer genetic traits, and now artificial intelligences of our own can do the same. In like fashion, might some underlying intelligence have naturally appeared and evolved over time to become a basic, primary “operating system” for this universe? Is it possible that such an N.I. is now running the show or, better said, steering events here and there, with an adjustment to the rudder now and then, tweaking outcomes that otherwise remain quite wild? Could nature have become a meta-farmer-physician-biologist-engineer of our universal realm?
... Such process, like in cases of ordinary natural selection or A.I., may exhibit a certain “intelligence” without sentience, or it may be accompanied by its own sentience. It would function to shorten, or even fully determine, certain outcomes amid otherwise random and varying conditions, such as the specific outcomes that are “you” and “me.” ...
Is it possible (although thoroughly speculative, absent evidence right now) that this “Natural Intelligence” organically developed or evolved within the universe (or more likely, in an underlying foundation from which our “fine tuned for life” universe has arisen) as a phenomenon that has power to set and achieve goals, make plans for solving those goals, reason solutions to problems, design visual and other environments (even on vast scales compared to our small abilities), manipulate materials to create solid structures, and otherwise engineer or farm, much as does our own human designed A.I.? What is more, like any engineer or farmer, such an agent or process may be very skilled in its abilities, but far from perfect in its power to control all factors and events, limited by what available materials, physical/chemical laws and wild conditions it must work with. Like a gifted chef, it can set an oven and mix batter employing the ingredients at hand, but there is never guaranty how the cake will ultimately bake.
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Assuming that events are not totally random and blind, nor fully and deterministically controlled, then it is possible that there is more “intervention” and “adjustment” than strictly controlled “design.” For this reason, history often takes violent and harsh turns, including times of war or plague, with much loss of life which human beings do not welcome, yet the result can be radically unlikely outcomes (e.g., us) that appear as a product. Namely, there is often a laissez-faire attitude toward natural events, but sometimes tweaks and adjustments to its course.
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What if (and it remains thoroughly a fun “what if” absent evidence) … , what if a fully natural intelligence, controlling process, operating and design system began as the product of a “cosmic soup” fluctuation, not unlike that posited by theoreticians of a Boltzmann Brain. Many more physicists propose such a fluctuation as trigger for the Big Bang itself.[1] However, unlike the Boltzmann Brain, “N.I.” need not start off “fully loaded and ready to go.” Rather, more like the universe of the Big Bang, it would begin simply, growing in complexity. As in the case of the Big Bang cosmos, N.I. could begin bare bones, the simplest physical structure, and only later develop through evolution in its complexity, intelligence and control abilities, becoming a “Natural Intelligence,” much as we have evolved to a human intelligence in a universe that began as barely more than hydrogen clouds.
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As we witnessed in our own universe, the matter that resulted from the Big Bang was able to survive annihilation, pull together, grow and produce more of itself in all varieties of the Periodic Table, thus to become complex structures including stars and planets, and even living, intelligent bodies like you and me through evolution.
Now, imagine that the original “popping up” and “sticking around” was similar to that, but at a more fundamental level prior to the Big Bang, resulting in something which grew complex in organization, then began to evolve or expand in some way (perhaps by parts of the single entity coming to compete against other parts of the single entity, much like your right arm wrestling your left arm for dominance, or like single cells which produce nearly duplicate cells with minor variations whereby one becomes many that compete among themselves.) This original simple state itself developed increasing abilities, and even intelligence over time, as a result of this struggle and competition or varied expansion within itself. It may have literally become its own jungle, and set up its own fights for survival, with facets of itself as both predator and prey. It may have become its own petri dish, developing like a varied colony of self-replicating cells, allowing mutation and competition among themselves, but within itself. With literally all the time in the world to do this, the outcome might have been evolution, competition and complexity, certainly taking long ages … but there was no hurry.
The intelligence which eventually resulted could be much like modern A.I., a process that can do things and achieve goals without sentience. Or, perhaps, some sentience may have naturally arisen in the structure over long spans of time. We know for certain that sentience can evolve with time from something inanimate because sentience arose in the structures which are “us” with sufficient time, and we evolved from inanimate stuff. Why would sentience be capable of evolving within us, and in other life, but not of evolving at a more basic level, in a more fundamental structure of the universe from which we, and our little sentience, arose? To deny that possibility is not unlike saying that milk evolved to exist in ice cream, a conclusion derived because you are holding an ice cream in hand, tasting the milk on your tongue, while denying the possibility that cows exist because you don’t see a cow!
Perhaps in this way, N.I., the natural intelligence manifesting in this universe … tremendously powerful by human standards (but not necessarily unlimited in power) … a cosmic farmer/engineer/chef/biologist/artist of sorts … was born.
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It really would not matter (pun intended) whether N.I. created our universe and its matter/energy from scratch (perhaps from something more basic or from bits of itself), or merely learned to manipulate matter/energy that was already present outside itself somehow (like a chef working with ingredients which happen to be at hand), or if our universe of matter/energy somehow exists within N.I. (as if a dreamer dreaming a dream of life, or an A.I. creating its own internal simulation.) In any such case, N.I. might possess an ability to control or lightly adjust events in this universe, even if not fully. One clue that this universe was created with life, including intelligent life, already in the cards from the ‘get-go’ is found in the fact that the Big Bang included so many fine tuned, life-friendly characteristics from its first moments. It is as if the stage were set. Within those parameters, however, and apart from minor adjustments, universal events are allowed to run unhindered in accordance with the laws of physics and chemistry, competition, natural selection and the like. This last fact explains the “red in tooth and claw” bloodshed and violence we witness in this otherwise “life-friendly” world.
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This N.I. process, system or being is a highly-evolved, resourceful and powerful designer (compared to us), even if not all-powerful in being so. Employing processes of evolution, natural selection and creation (mirroring the processes of evolution, natural selection and creation from which it itself may have emerged), this universal gardener, artist, engineer and chef might have cultivated, sculpted, planned (in whole or parts) or stirred up a universe (or universes) capable of internally evolving, naturally selecting and creating other stuff, including living stuff. ... Such capacities would surely be far beyond what puny us can muster although, all things being relative, it need not be infinite and unlimited in power! Our abilities as human engineers surely will amaze a cocker spaniel, assuming the doggie could even begin to understand our talents in building bridges, rocket ships and super computers. (Granted, we cannot sniff all that a K-9 can sniff.) A power and intelligence which evolved to a level able to work isolated adjustments in the universe would be, as the great Arthur C. Clark famously said, an “advanced technology … indistinguishable from magic.” In this case, if nature itself engineered such intelligence naturally through a process of evolution, the intelligence may be indistinguishable from evolution and nature.
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Today, if asked to do so (or by its own choice to do so without human intervention). A.I. will sketch the face of a famous person, for example, “George Washington,” even without conscious awareness of who “George Washington” was. A.I. can also make images, or whole virtual simulations of “people” who have never lived at all. Soon, A.I. may be capable of building roboticized, or even fully biological, versions of such “people” able to function in the world, perhaps indistinguishable from ordinary people. Is it so hard to imagine that N.I. might do the same, with or without sentience, using matter as its paints, clay and pixels? Just as “George Washington” is a particular person with a unique life story, N.I. could select for a certain life and life story, not much different from the human artist drawing a particular face.
Why do human beings think that they can manage such intelligent selections of specific individuals, products, art, outcomes and destinations, but nature cannot? Why do we feel certain that we are smarter and more capable than nature which managed (despite its alleged lifelessness and insensibility) to produce living, feeling us? Was it not nature that, in its resourcefulness, gave birth to biologists, artists, pilots and farmers, not the other way around? Do we stand outside nature, or are we as much nature, and beholden to its powers while beneficiary of its abilities, as are the insects and trees? If designers plan and build A.I., might N.I. plan and build A.I. designers?
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CAN WE TEST FOR ANY OF THIS?
Yes. There are ways.
Statistical anomalies may be identified using probability analysis, pinpointing large numbers of phenomena which were required for human existence, but which seemingly possessed an exceptionally much higher probability of being in some other state hostile to human existence. The smaller the apparent probability that a phenomenon would be found in a condition conducive to human existence relative to the higher probability of a hostile state, the stronger would be an inference that the human-conducive outcome is not the product of chance alone. This would be especially the case where extremely large numbers of such phenomena are found, in ornate relationships and sequences. For example, an event which occurred based on a 50/50 chance of not occurring has far less probative value compared to an event with an astronomically low (e.g., < 10⁻¹²⁰) chance of occurring. A great ensemble of such astronomically improbably phenomena occurring in a mutually dependent web further strengthens the conclusion. Such an inference requires that there be no alternative explanation for why the subject phenomena are found with their exceptionally unlikely characteristics rather than the hostile characteristics, such as identifiable physical laws that required the non-hostile characteristics. The strength of statistical evidence will increase the greater the apparent unlikelihood without alternative explanation. It will also increase if the phenomenon required not a simple a single unlikely factor to occur, but an intricate serious of factors or contributing causes, bound in complex relationships, in order to occur, each unlikely and unexplained but together combined to result in the astronomically unlikely condition.
Improbable, life-friendly phenomena can include basic universal properties at or near the time of the Big Bang that made later events possible, such as the strength and other characteristics of fundamental forces and elements, fundamental chemical properties, astronomical events such as the positioning and characteristics of solar system bodies, events in planetary development, as well as in biological and evolutionary development, including human body and brain structure.
... Worth consideration are events very early in time which appeared to “set up” events much later in time upon which life is dependent, but without obvious need for the earlier event to have been so, e.g., the characteristics of various elements of the period table, such as carbon, which permitted the varied structures of molecules, such as proteins, upon which our lives are dependent. Also of interest would be phenomena which were highly likely to occur in a manner which would have foreclosed human life, but which did not occur at all or in such manner, for no identifiable reason.
Information theory and complexity can be used to identify natural systems which exhibit highly ordered, functional information content that cannot be reduced to physical laws. Shannon entropy, a mathematical measure of uncertainty in a random variable, can quantifying the amount of information contained within a system based on the probabilities of different possible states occurring. However, content which can be explained by physical laws and processes (such as natural selection) should be rejected as evidence, thus avoiding a mistake made by some “intelligent design” advocates, for example, in arguing for the unlikelihood of DNA structure or human eye structure, which can be well-explained through natural evolutionary processes. However, the unlikelihood of a particular DNA arrangement, eye structure or the like may have evidentiary value.
For example, the existence of DNA and our entire genetic system is now well understood and explainable, as is the evolution of the human eye. However, the evolution of a particular species, such as Homo sapiens (and more precisely, an individual in that species including the individual’s particular family line) seems still to be left largely as a matter of chance within the constraints of the genetic system. In other words, earthly DNA coding and lines of genetic inheritance seemingly could easily have resulted in a different intelligent species other than Homo sapien, and alternative family lines which would not include a particular individual. Furthermore, while the evolution of DNA, eyes, brain features, other bodily organs and the like, in general, can be well explained through natural selection, the life of a particular individual whose own bodily structure depends on those organs existing in general (and a particular set of those organs existing) cannot now be explained except as largely random chance.
Of particular interest would be long sequences exhibiting a “hard emergence” of phenomena such as chemical structures, natural properties, bodily functions and other “higher properties” which cannot be directly and simply attributed to the characteristics of constituent lower level contributing phenomena. This is especially probative if the emergent phenomenon proves something inevitably necessary for human life in general that cannot be otherwise explained. Also of interest would be known constituent factors which appear to have come together in intricate and fragile arrangements to cause the emergence of a phenomenon necessary to human life, but the complex arrangements cannot be explained or appear highly unlikely.
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A.I. can be employed for extremely large data analysis to identify patterns and correlations that may otherwise escape notice. A.I. can also be used to rule out alternative explanations for such patterns and correlations. Ordered structures where only chaos is expected would be of high interest. Of special note are phenomena which deviate from expected natural randomness, for example, the so-called “Axis of Evil” identified in the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) radiation as an unusual alignment of temperature fluctuations which appears to correlate with the plane of our solar system in a manner which possibly contradicts the notion that our system’s location should not be special. Of specific interest would be unexplained patterns and correlations which constitute apparent necessities for human life, rather than anomalies, patterns and correlations which appear unrelated to any significant contribution to intelligent life in general, or human life in particular.
A.I. and advanced computer systems can be used to run “Monte Carlo” simulations of universal development and planetary events with varied conditions to see how often life emerges in general, human life in particular, and a specific human life most particularly. Artificial Life Simulations can be run to test whether known natural processes can generate complex order without guidance, especially with regard to the emergence of a particular species and individual within the species. Emphasis should be placed on conditions which seemingly had a high likelihood in occurring in ways hostile to such life. Finally, our continued work with ever more advanced A.I. and simulated environments, as well as biological and neurological research, may someday confirm whether we can create conscious minds of our own by engineering and artificial means not directly related to standard biological reproduction.
While no single statistical test can "prove" an interference based on apparently chance events which display outcomes weighted toward human life (or a particular human life), accumulating improbable anomalies across multiple domains would strengthen the inference.
In addition, there is strong predictive power:
Anthropic reasoning has predictive power. Furthermore, your life (yes, yours, dear reader) has predictive power regarding the basic fabric of the universe, physics and chemistry, biology, evolution and human history. Simply stated, if there is any property, interaction, event or other phenomenon that, at any point in time prior to your birth or currently, has needed to be precisely X, and no other way, were your birth to occur and your life to be ongoing now (even if that property, interaction, event or other phenomenon apparently need not have been X) that property, interaction, event or other phenomenon, when measured, will be found to be precisely X even if there is no other identifiable reason that the phenomenon needed to be precisely X. Therefore, predictions can be made about any property, interaction, event or other phenomenon necessary for your birth and life based on your birth and life alone.
In this way your life, dear reader, has predictive power with regard to fundamental phenomena and events of this universe.
... An example of anthropic prediction not based on a particular individual, but on complex life in general, concerns carbon. In 1953, physicist Fred Hoyle made perhaps the first anthropic prediction, anticipating the existence of an excited state in the carbon-12 atomic nucleus ... Other anthropic predictions have included properties of Dark Matter and Dark Energy which, although yet to be fully understood and identified, inevitably must exist with properties in ranges to allow our human existence, and likewise for all else that exists in the universe. The Cosmological Constant was also predicted on the basis of anthropic reasoning, later confirmed.[2] Predictions were made about the temperature of the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation which, naturally, must be low enough for complex chemistry but high enough to prevent a cold universe, thus falling within the anthropic range.[3]
In like fashion, your personal, most particular life can be used for very precise predictive purposes: Namely, if there is any physical phenomenon of this universe which must be X, and not Y, in order for you to exist, we can confidently predict that the phenomenon will be determined to be X, and not Y, upon examination, even if X is a most extreme and unlikely outcome. That is true even if the prediction is in regards to an event millions or billions of years ago, or an event billions of light years away, if that event would be causally necessary for your birth.
.. Finally, if there is a mechanism such as N.I. that physically influences properties, interactions, events or other phenomena in physics and chemistry, biology, evolution and human history, it is possible that the nature of that mechanism can be the subject of hypothesis and, if the mechanism leaves traces, those can be identified, tested for and measured. It is possible that, if Natural Intelligence does function as something like an “operating system” for this universe, running in patterns driven by algorithms and other mathematical formuli in the manner of any software, an A.I. analysis of physical events in this universe may detect those mathematical patterns playing out in universal phenomena. ....
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[1] (Barrow, John D. and Frank J. Tipler (1986). The Anthropic Cosmological Principle. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press., p. 253.) However, Hoyle may not have originally thought of his prediction in anthropic terms: https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/5332/1/3alphaphil.pdf
[2] https://inspirehep.net/literature/655308
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