Chapter II
A probabilistic model of universe
1) The suggested model is a model of rigorously scientific and
non-speculative or metaphysical nature. It
is thus subjected to the criterion of falsifiability of Popper and the
einsteinian requirement of observable facts ( the bases of the theory of
General Relativity 1916 ).
2) Determinism : The most
completed expression of determinism is the conception of Laplace (1814). According to this conception, it would be
enough to know completely the state of the universe at a given time so that the
totality of the last states is known and that the totality of the future states
becomes prédictible. This theoretical
conception is practically unobservable and unrealizable. In addition, it constitutes an exponential
and arbitrary extrapolation, perfectly
anthropocentric of
causality. It is to affirm, for
example, that the great biological mass extinctions on the earth were predictable before even as our galaxy, the Milky Way, was
born, there is several billion years ago.
This assertion, of laplacian meaning, does not have any scientific base
and is in formal contradiction with the observations and realities of
nature.
Determinism rests on a wrongly extensive conception of causality. The phenomena of nature occur when certain
physical conditions are joined together.
The nuclear reactions, inside the stars, start only when, for
example, hydrogen is available and a
minimal threshold of temperature is reached, by the gravitational
contraction. The star must also have a
certain mass. The life is conceived,
currently, as being able to exist only starting from cells, prokaryotes or
eukaryotes. What is said to be the
causes of a phenomenon are, ultimately,only certain dominating conditions (mass
of star, presence of hydrogen, temperature, cellular organization, etc...),
" all equal things in addition ".
The laws of science establish bonds between the phenomena. They indicate that, when certain conditions
are met, certain phenomena necessarily occur or occur with a great probability
(examples above, presence of masses causing a newtonian gravitational
attraction or an Einsteinian curve of the space-time, " cause "
starting of the nuclear reactions inside a star, presence of oxygen at the Precambrian " cause " of appearance
of aerobic organims, etc...).
Thus one can say that the concept of causality, in the phenomena,
actually only represent the dominating
influence of certain conditions, called causes (temperature, cells, masses,
oxygen, etc...) among a multitude of other conditions (minimal mass of a star,
cellular genes, density of matter, presence or not of a cellular core, etc...). The laws indicate the way in which the
dominating influence, i.e. probabilistic, of these conditions appears.
3) The probabilistic model proposes to reject the concept of determinism
or causality, an abusive and inadequate concept, as we have just shown it, to
the profit of the concept of chance, defined as
a concept of probability. The
concept of determinism or causality is an antiscientific concept which,
moreover, is made of, historically, a
true anthropocentric or religious background ( first cause, final cause, first
engine, origin, creation, etc...).
Thus is the universe the only fruit of the chance?
The probabilistic model of the universe proposes this conception.
4) What is chance ?
Chance is generally conceived like the absence of any law, chaos, the
absolute contingency, the meeting of two independent causal series (Cournot
1843) and, finally, the unpredictability.
Actually, the true nature of chance is the negation of determinism or causality, an absolute
concept, to the profit of the relative
concept of probability. In a certain
state of the universe, characterized by many conditions, phenomena occur when
certain conditions are present (minimal temperature for the release of the
nuclear reactions within a star, need for present oxygen for the operation of
the eucaryotes cells of the metazoans ).
These conditions constitute dominating but non-single factors of
probability, interpreted, within the deterministic framework, as factors of
causality.
The concept of probability is defined sometimes like subjective
sometimes like objective. We will retain
here only the theory of probabilities as a mathematical model of the chances of
production of an " event " and its application, the law of the large
numbers or law of Jacques Bernoulli (1680).
Summarily translated, this law expresses that the events, of which the
probabilities or the chances are very weak, occur rarely or never and , vice
versa, those of which the probabilities or the chances are high (example of the
typist monkeys of Emile Borel, Boursin 1986) occur. The concept of probabilities, introduced by
Blaise Pascal (1654), establishes the ratio of the number of favourable
outcomes to the number of possible
cases. If one takes the example of a
coin thrown in the air, the chances of seeing
the side pile appear are 1/2. In
the case of a dice, the probabilities of seeing each face appear are 1/6.
The physical or chemical constitution of the coin or the dice, the
height, the speed, the duration of the jet, etc..., are factors or conditions
which play a negligible role in the result of the jet. The probabilities thus arises, among a whole
of conditions, like a dominating but non-single factor. The probabilities orders and simplifies the
" events ": the result of the
throwings, according to their mathematical chances, in fact 1/2 or 1/6.
Ultimately, the probability selects, among the many parameters which
condition the production of an " event " ( in the above mentioned
example, the structure, the chemical composition, the kinetic energy of the
object, etc...), only one parameter, the number of faces of the object (2 or
6), which simplifies the phenomenon and determines the mathematical chances to
which the law of Bernoulli applies. The
mathematical developments of the theory of probabilities are complex but it is
not the place here to expose the details of them.
The application of the law of the large numbers is largely justified,
knowing that all the phenomena of nature utilize gigantic numbers : approximately 100 billion galaxies in the
observable universe, average mass of a galaxy approximately 10^42 kg, average
number of stars in a galaxy 100-300 billion, number of Avogadro Na =
6,022.10^23 mol-1, number of neurons in
a human brain, approximately 100 billion, etc…
The intervention of considerable numbers in phenomena, physical or
biological, justifies the use of mathematics in the development of knowledge,
just as the concept of space generated geometry. Mathematics, resulting from the everyday life
of the human beings, developed and got free of their empirical origin. They can thus work out imaginary
concepts ( imaginary numbers, imaginary
time, etc…). The mathematical truth does
not have any need for the physical validity.
Its only validity is its coherence with its premises. Thus, the not-Euclidean geometries have the
same validity as the Euclidean geometry.
Mathematics constitute a powerful tool of research and theorization of
physics as it, for example, the evolution of the theory of the gravitation
shows it. It is at the same time their
force and their weakness. Their force,
because they allow the development and the verification of sophisticated
physical theories (physical statistics, thermodynamics, gravitation, etc…). Their weakness, because their coherence, the
only criterion of their validity, is unable to validate a physical theory
without experimental or observational verification. Thus, the concepts of imaginary or reversible
time, parallel universes, holes of worm, singularities, instantons, etc…; fashionable
in contemporary astrophysics and cosmology can be mathematically
coherent but, physically, highly speculative and quasi-unverifiable in
experiments.
The force and the weakness of mathematics apply without restriction on
the data-processing models.
The role of the probability that we propose in our model is apparent in
many fields, as we enumerate it in the following chapter. Being given the complexity of the phenomena
of the universe and the very different scales where they are held, the presence
of the probability is not always obvious, although it is underlying. The properties of an atom, those of an
eukaryote cell or a star seem to concern apparently very different laws,
regarding the distance of their respective dimensional scale (approximately
10^-15 m; 10^ - 5 m; 7 10^8 m).
Actually, these various phenomena are the result of the theory of
probabilities applied to different conditions, as the determinism allotted it to causality. According to the probabilistic model, the
phenomena of the universe, as well physical as biological, are the product of
the chance, defined as the field of the
theory of probabilities and the law of the large numbers. The theory of probabilities is the fundamental
law of the phenomena of the universe.
This law applies to the ultimate elements of matter-energy (particles or superstrings )
which exist and generate all the diversity of the phenomena, from the
microscopic scale to the macroscopic
scale, by the play of the probabilities and the law of the large numbers.
Chance is the single, visible or underlying manufacturer, of the multiple and
varied phenomena of universe. It
replaces the concepts of causality and of determinism. The natural laws are the
expression of the complex systems where the probability developed. The indeterminism of nature, far from being a
factor of chaos or disorder, as it is generally believed, is, in last analysis,
a factor of order and organization of the phenomena, on every scale. The theory of probabilities allows, by its
application, a predictability of the phenomena.
Applied to the problem of biology, the theory of probabilities
singularly clarifies the correlations between the various factors of the
environment and their organic correspondence (biochemistry, morphology, sensory
tissues, etc...). According to the
theory of probabilities, the most probable " events " occur. We thus proposed, in accordance with the
preceding observations, that the current constitution of the living organisms
is the result of the most probable interaction, statistically, between the
stimuli of the environment and the specific properties (biochemical, genetic,
anatomical, behavioural, etc...) of the living matter. The environment having evolved, in its
complexity, since the Precambrian one, the evolution of the living organisms
would be also the result of the most probable interaction (see: A probabilistic model of the biological
evolution: < http://site.voila.fr/dinosaurs >.
The probabilistic model proposes that the concepts and the physical or
biological theories of the universe (gravitation, Newtonian or Einsteinian,
quantum mechanics, superstrings, cosmology, etc..., constitution and evolution
of the organisms, etc...) are the phenomenological expression of the underlying
probabilistic structure of the universe.
5) To know or to understand the universe ?
In contemporary sciences, the scientists seek the knowledge of the
phenomena which they study, i.e. their structures and their operations. Wether they are stars, galaxies, genomes,
quarks or strings. The ultimate goal of
science is to gather the whole of the phenomena in unified theories (example
the Theory of All - Theory of Everything in
physics ). Actually, it is a
question of knowing, not of understanding the universe. More prosaically, the scientists seek it how,
not it why phenomena work. The reason of
the phenomena (microscopic or macroscopic, physical or biological) does not
seem to belong to their field. Metaphysics and religious myths bring here
their obscurantist and dogmatic phantasms.
Next : III Proposals of the probabilistic model of universe
Return to Home page
Return to Table of contents