Chapter III
Proposals of the probabilistic model
of the universe
1)
Speculation or critical mind
Our first proposal is in
contradiction with the spirit of our time.
Imagination is a necessary quality to the researcher which leads it out
off the beaten track and allows him to propose new solutions to the new or recurring problems (Copernic,
Galileo, Kepler, Newton then Einstein;
Planck; Lamarck then Darwin; Mendel then Crick and Watson, etc...). But imagination without the rigour of the
critical mind can carry out knowledge only to a dead end. The fasifiability of Popper and the
observable facts of Einstein are relegated today to the row of the old moons.
The mathematical and sophisticated
data-processing models dominate today.
What seems most significant, today, is more their internal coherence
than the obsolete criteria of Popper and Einstein. Current astrophysics and quantum cosmology
are highly representative in this respect:
parallel or twin unknowable universes, multuniverses, holes of worm
distorting time, purely speculative exponential inflation arbitrarily
extrapolating the laws of physics to save the Big Bang, granular structure of
space, theories of Pre-Big Bang (theories of Instanton, information,
complexity, etc…) that allow to avoid
the disastrous singularity of the Big Bang, ex-nihilo creation of
matter-energy, etc... The speculation
breaks out. The experimental validation
becomes an optional epiphenomenon. The
researchers compete of imagination, far from the poor constraints of observable
reality.
We put forward a measure considered
today as largely obsolete but which remains at the base even of scientific
knowledge, the rejection of any no verifiable speculation or, in other words,
which violates the precepts of Popper or Einstein.
2)
To understand the universe
According to Einstein, " It is
incomprehensible that the universe is comprehensible ".
Which significance can one allot to
this reflexion of oneof the founders of modern physics?
That nature is subjected to laws
that the human intelligence succeeded in deciphering would concern the
incompréhensible. The researchers, theorists and/or experimenters, succeeded
into 2 or 3 millennia to work out theories,based of facts and concepts, which explain innumerable
physical and biological phenomena (gravitation, cosmology, biology, genetics,
biological evolution, etc...) and allow, often, to foresee, qualitatively and
quantitatively, other phenomena.
Where do these laws and these theories come from whereas
one could suppose that the structure and the operation of nature concern chaos
?
Would nature be rational, ordered,
cartesian ?
The formulation even of this
assertion or assumption comes, according to us, from a perfectly
anthropocentric or anthropic conception of nature, just as was the geocentric
conception of Ptolemaic cosmology. We propose, to try to understand the
universe, the rejection of any anthropic attitude with respect to nature. This inversion of the anthropic attitude in
scientific research seems to us undeniable
if we want to claim " to understand " the universe. It is not an easy task because it is opposed
to a plurimillennial attitude of the men and the natural inclination of the
common sense. We will analyze, in the
following chapter, a certain number of major scientific concepts and will
propose an ananthropic interpretation of it ( i.e. without an anthropic
interpretation ).
3)
Scientific ananthropic concepts
We will analyze in turn the physical
or biological concepts of space, time, speed limit, principle of conservation
of energy, finality, optimization and the Second Principle of
Thermodynamics.
We place ourselves deliberately
within the framework of physical or biological reality. If the mathematical concepts and the
data-processing models are powerful tools for the theorization and the
modelling of the phenomena, it is obvious that
mathematical models can be coherent while being without direct relationship
to the physical reality of the phenomena.
Our study will be limited only to the critical analysis of these general
concepts by primarily being based on their physical reality and the observable
facts.
How can one distinguish an
ananthropic concept from an anthropic concept ?
Several criteria seem to us adequate with this distinction:
1) An ananthropic concept must be
neutral or objective with respect to nature.
In other words, it should not be, in any case, subjective or express a judgment of value. Thus, the current interpretation of the
quantum mechanics which closely binds the observable to the observer cannot
assert the ananthropic statute because of its subjectivity. In the same way, in biology, the darwinian
concepts of " advantage " and
" natural selection ", which imply a judgment of value and a
biological purpose are anthropic concepts.
2) An irrational or speculative
concept, elaborate at the expense of the critical mind, must be regarded as
anthropic. It is the case of the concept
of inflation and the inflationary theories in cosmology, which extrapolate or
violate, arbitrarily, the known laws of nature without observational or
experimental validation. Their only
justification is the creation of ad hoc models making it possible to alleviate
the difficulties of the theory of the Big Bang.
It is the same for the unverifiable concepts of Pre-Big Bang, of the
parallel and multiple universes or of the imaginary instantons.
3) The concepts which transgress
what one can name the Principle of Reality, i.e. the scientific facts and laws
validated, cannot claim to the ananthropic statute. They miss falsifiability required by this
statute. It is thus for the concepts of
instantaneous action, supraluminic speed, ex nihilo creation of matter or
energy, etc... One can only reject them
if no observation or experimentation confirms their validity.
4) The contradictory concepts cannot
naturally reach the ananthropic statute.
Thus the concept of quantum vacuum filled of quantum fluctuations and
virtual particles cannot be regarded as ananthropic because contradictory.
In last analysis, an ananthropic
concept is a concept which rejects the human being like stallion of any
phenomenon, physical or biological ( darwinian advantage, physical optimization
of the movement, of energy or of action, etc…).
Next : IV Anthropic and ananthropic concepts
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