Related papers: Life in a random universe: Sciama's argument recon…
How can probabilities make sense in a deterministic many-worlds theory? We address two facets of this problem: why should rational agents assign subjective probabilities to branching events, and why should branching events happen with…
The physical processes that determine the properties of our everyday world, and of the wider cosmos, are determined by some key numbers: the 'constants' of micro-physics and the parameters that describe the expanding universe in which we…
Our laws of nature and our cosmos appear to be delicately fine-tuned for life to emerge, in a way that seems hard to attribute to chance. In view of this, some have taken the opportunity to revive the scholastic Argument from Design,…
In this paper we discuss the creation of our universe using the idea of extra dimensions. The initial, multidimensional Lagrangian contains only metric tensor. We have found many sets of the numerical values of the Lagrangian parameters…
Life is a discrete, stochastic phenomena : for a biological organism, the time of the two most important events of its life (reproduction and death) is random and these events change the number of individuals of the species by single units.…
A well-known topic within the philosophy of physics is the problem of fine-tuning: the fact that the universal constants seem to take non-arbitrary values in order for live to thrive in our Universe. In this paper we will talk about this…
An oscillating universe cycles through a series of expansions and contractions. We propose a model in which ``phantom'' energy with a supernegative pressure ($p < - \rho$) grows rapidly and dominates the late-time expanding phase. The…
One way that an anthropic selection mechanism may be manifest in a physical theory involves multiple domains in the universe with different values of the physical parameters. If this mechanism is to be relevant for understanding the small…
High-energy astrophysical events that cause galaxy-scale extinctions have been proposed as a way to explain or mollify the Fermi Paradox, by making the universe at earlier times more dangerous for evolving life, and reducing its present-day…
The molecular biology revolution of the last seventy five years has transformed our view of living systems. Scientific explanations of biological phenomena are now synonymous with the identification of the genes, proteins, and signaling…
The notion that there are many "universes" with different properties is one answer to the question of "why is the universe so hospitable to life?" This notion also naturally follows from current ideas in eternal inflation and string/M…
Many of life's most fascinating phenomena emerge from interactions among many elements--many amino acids determine the structure of a single protein, many genes determine the fate of a cell, many neurons are involved in shaping our thoughts…
We consider a quantum mechanical system to model the effect of quantum fields on the evolution of the early universe. The system consists of an inverted oscillator bilinearly coupled to a set of harmonic oscillators. We point out that the…
A universe described by braneworlds is studied in a cyclic scenario. As expected such an oscillating universe will undergo turnarounds, whenever the phantom energy density reaches a critical value from either side. It is found that a…
This paper questions the generally accepted assumption that one can make a random choice that is independent of the rest of the universe. We give a general description of any setup that could be conceived to generate random numbers. Based…
We propose an approach to explaining why naive large quantum fluctuations are not the right estimate for the cosmological constant. We argue that the universe is in a superposition of many vacua, in such a way that the resulting…
Even when completely and consistently formulated, a fundamental theory of physics and cosmological boundary conditions may not give unambiguous and unique predictions for the universe we observe; indeed inflation, string/M theory, and…
The purpose of this paper is to propose an extension to Lee Smolin's hypothesis that our own universe belongs to a population of universes evolving by natural selection. Smolin's hypothesis explains why the parameters of physics possess the…
In the 1970s, the renowned physicist Victor Weisskopf famously developed a research program to qualitatively explain properties of matter in terms of the fundamental constants of physics. But there was one type of matter prominently missing…
The doomsday argument is a probabilistic argument that claims to predict the total lifetime of the human race. By examining the case of an individual lifetime, I conclude that the argument is fundamentally related to consciousness. I derive…