A Universe Conscious of Itself
Modern cosmology has
rediscovered the ancient covenant between humanity and the cosmos. Humans are
the children of stars, the siblings of wild animals, and the cousins of plants
and flowers; we are all star dust. Astrophysics teaches us that the emergence
of life from the primordial soup depended on an extremely delicate adjustment
of the laws of Nature and the initial conditions of the universe. A minute change in the intensity of the
fundamental forces, and we would not be around to talk about it. The stars
would not have formed and started their marvelous nuclear alchemy. None of the
heavy elements that constitute the basis of life would have seen the light of
day. The precision of the fine-tuning
of the physical constants and of the initial conditions is astonishing. It is
similar to the precision that a marksman has to exercise in order to put a
bullet through a square target of 1 cm
on a side located at the edge of the observable universe some 15 billion
light-years away. This fine-tuning is at the basis of what is called the
“anthropic principle”, from the Greek “anthropos” which means “man.”
The laws of physics are
special from an even more subtle point of view. Not only did they permit
humanity to step on the stage, but they also conferred on us the ability to be
conscious and understand the world in which we live. The fact that humans do
not simply and blindly endure the laws of Nature without understanding them is
highly significant. Darwinian selection certainly played a role in fashioning
our brain to help us cope with the many challenges of life, but the ability to
ask questions about the universe and understand the mathematical laws governing
it is not necessary and seems to have come as a bonus. Does this mean that humanity has reclaimed a
central place in the universe?
Hardly! The physical and
chemical processes that unfolded on Earth and led to life and consciousness are
probably not unique to our planet. An extraterrestrial intelligence endowed
with scientific and mathematical knowledge would be just as suitable to give
the universe a meaning.
Contributed by: Trinh Xuan Thuan
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