The second law of thermodynamics is a bummer. It says that the entropy of an isolated system will increase with time. It’s the reason why teacups break when they fall, why smashing eggs is easier than mending them and why teenagers’ bedrooms inevitably become messier.<\/p>\n
That’s all rather annoying but when applied to the Universe, the second law becomes apocalyptic. It means that the Universe will just get messier and messier until there is no order at all, a demise known as heat death (the study of the death of the universe is called physical eschatology apparently). Even black holes are expected to evaporate in about 10^150 years time. And that’s bad news for us.<\/p>\n
But Clement Vidal, a philosopher at the Free University of Brussels in Belgium has come up with a solution based on artificial life or ALife. His idea that we will soon be able to recreate not just the physical features of our universe in a simulation but also the biological and cultural ones too.<\/p>\n
When this happens, we’ll have created our own cosmos. Artificial cosmogenesis is the term for this, says Vidal (who is remarkably good at naming complex areas of study).<\/p>\n
Vidal also says a number of physicists have tried to explain the fact that our universe seems fine-tuned for life by hypothesising that universes may be created by the gazillion inside black holes, each with a different set of physical laws. Only those with conditions that are ripe for life (like ours) ever get observed.<\/p>\n
That’s all promising but then he goes off the rails somewhat.<\/p>\n
Vidal seems to suggest that all we have to do to survive heat death is to recreate our universe inside a black hole, cough. And then go and live in it, splutter. (I’m not making this up.)<\/p>\n
The moral of this posting: beware philosophers bearing gifts for physicists.<\/p>\n