Related papers: Life in a random universe: Sciama's argument recon…
The discovery of the present accelerated expansion of space changed everything regarding cosmology and life's ultimate prospects. Both the optimistic scenarios of an ever (but decelerated) expanding universe and of a collapsing universe…
The suggestion that there is a maximum luminosity (maximum power) in nature has a long and somewhat convoluted history. Though this idea is commonly attributed to Freeman Dyson, he was actually much more circumspect in his views. What is…
If the human race comes to an end relatively shortly, then we have been born at a fairly typical time in history of humanity. On the other hand, if humanity lasts for much longer and trillions of people eventually exist, then we have been…
Do completely unpredictable events exist in nature? Classical theory, being fully deterministic, completely excludes fundamental randomness. On the contrary, quantum theory allows for randomness within its axiomatic structure. Yet, the fact…
We discuss how, in a Universe restricted to the causal region connected to the observer, General Relativity implies the quantum nature of physical phenomena and directly leads to a string theory scenario, whose dynamics is ruled by a…
Quantum theory allows for randomness generation in a device-independent setting, where no detailed description of the experimental device is required. Here we derive a general upper bound on the amount of randomness that can be generated in…
In this talk, we discuss the possibility that the vacuum is dynamically determined in the history of the universe. The point is that some of the bubbles with a certain vacuum shrink by the evolution of the universe via gravity and may…
Some properties of the world are fixed by physics derived from mathematical symmetries, while others are selected from an ensemble of possibilities. Several successes and failures of ``anthropic'' reasoning in this context are reviewed in…
Selection effects in cosmology are often invoked to "explain" why some of the fundamental constant of Nature, and in particular the cosmological constant, take on the value they do in our Universe. We briefly review this probabilistic…
How do complex adaptive systems, such as life, emerge from simple constituent parts? In the 1990s Walter Fontana and Leo Buss proposed a novel modeling approach to this question, based on a formal model of computation known as $\lambda$…
The linear mathematics of quantum mechanics gives many versions of reality instead of the single version we perceive, with the perceived version chosen at random according to a probability law. Because of these peculiarities, the theory…
Randomness is both a useful way to model natural systems and a useful tool for engineered systems, e.g. in computation, communication and control. Fully random transformations require exponential time for either classical or quantum…
The Dark Energy Survey (DES) and the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) measurements claim that the dark energy equation of state $w \ne -1$. This observation can be explained by the axion Dark Energy (aDE) model of an ultralight…
Where is everybody? This phrase distills the foreboding of what has come to be known as the Fermi Paradox - the disquieting idea that, if extraterrestrial life is probable in the Universe, then why have we not encountered it? This conundrum…
In the {\em Many Worlds Interpretation} of quantum mechanics, the range of possible worlds (or histories) provides variation, and the Anthropic Principle is a selective principle analogous to natural selection. When looked on in this way,…
The Great Filter interpretation of Fermi's great silence asserts that $Npq$ is not a very large number, where $N$ is the number of potentially life-supporting planets in the observable universe, $p$ is the probability that a randomly chosen…
Complex systems throughout Nature display structures and functions that are built and maintained, at least in part, by optimal energies flowing through them--not specific, ideal values, rather ranges in energy rate density below which…
Oceanic planets formed by type Ia supernovae become spectacularly abundant as stars cease to shine. However, the timing may not be altogether inappropriate. Neutrino annihilation might thermally regulate iron-cored water-worlds, sustaining…
We show that dark matter with certain minimal properties can convert the majority of baryons in galaxies to black holes over hundred trillion year timescales. We argue that this has implications for cosmologies which propose that new…
The universal concept of complexity by the dynamic redundance paradigm and the ensuing concept of extended dynamic fractality (physics/9806002) are applied here to higher levels of complexity corresponding to living systems. After recalling…