Finding Meaning in the Cosmos

From the University of California [Research] website: "A UC Santa Cruz husband-and-wife team -- an astrophysicist and philosopher -- explore the cultural and social implications of the modern scientific understanding of the universe." For more information, please visit http://new-universe.org.

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[commandercool1953]

Humanity will become meaningfully richer on a grand scale with fascinating adventures and unimaginable beauty waiting in the wings of the future. Genetic engineering, unbelievable medical advances, nanotechnology, computer driven robots, virtual reality, high-tech innovations, cyber security, entrepreneurial adventures, and an endless stream of fascinating gadgets and gizmos will continue to alter our world, changing everything around us. Still, the Natural World matters to us.

[AtheistKharm]

I think these simulations are some of the most important things that people need to be seeing to put themselves in perspective and also understand how the universe formed. It is also interesting to hear how people rationalize what they see with a "grand design". Either way its progress and as long as we all have the mind to seek truth I think we are headed in the right direction.

[TheisticThinker]

@StevenErnest To say 'Clearly there is some grand design to the Universe' does not make you a ID proponent. I would say that there is a grander design, but I'm not an ID proponent because of that. Biology and Cosmology is two different fields.

[StevenErnest]

I would like to share this video with some friends -- but the statement that "Clearly there is some grand design to the universe" will turn off many of them. I don't believe the authors are supporters of Intelligent Design -- they mean that we now have an understanding of the structure of the universe, of Dark Matter and Dark Energy, the Big Bang, and Cosmic Inflation.

I agree with their premises and conclusions re out place in the cosmos, but they should choose their words more carefully.

[StevenErnest]

@TheisticThinker Your wording, "They were set exactly right..." implies a force or intelligent designer doing the setting. How about, they just were right...? If the parameters of the universe had been such that life could not exist, then it would not. The Anthropic Principle uses a kind of circular reasoning.

Needing an observer for a wave function collapse, so as to create the universe, is highly speculative. Mainly, it is our measuring on the quantum scale that creates effects.

[StevenErnest]

I'm reading their book, "The New Universe," and find it fascinating. I agree that the human species is unique and important, and we need to know and understand the structure of the universe, so as to know our own value.

[TheisticThinker]

@StevenErnest Well, the physical constants could have been set in any other way at the Big Bang. They were set exactly right for life to be able to emerge. Not just humans, but any life, anytime in the Universe. That is why John Wheeler said so in the Preface in the book. You could also argue that Humans, atleast conscious beings, are essential as Observers to Wave function collapses in Quantum Mechanics. There are many ways Humankind is important to the Universe.

[StevenErnest]

@TheisticThinker It's doubtful that "we humans are central to the Universe." Looking at the universe, I would say that life appears to have adapted to physics, and not vice versa.

[TheisticThinker]

Nice video! Yes, we humans are central to the Universe. I'm reading 'The Anthropic Cosmological Principle' by Physicists/Cosmologists John D Barrow and Frank Tipler. One interesting quote from the book is "Not only is we adapted to the Universe, but the Universe is adapted to man.". :)