Damien B. responds to Hal who responded to Peter:
>>If life works to prevent the formation of black holes that would otherwise
>>have formed, then universes in which life evolves will have fewer
>>offspring than universes in which it does not (unless life also triggers
>>the formation of more baby universes than would otherwise happen)
>
>If life choses to tweak black hole formation to raise the likelihood of
>life-congenial baby universes, a kind of meta-cosmic gardening,* while
>cutting back the overall number of black holes (to use the stellar material
>for other purposes), presumably a huge range of equilibria is possible.
An interesting topic.
First off, we'd have to assume that life couldn't nearly as easily create
baby universes that it could enter into, or we'd expect those baby universes
to be filled with descendants of the creators. Sure there might be some
"empty" universes made, but that wouldn't be the majority.
Second, if life wanted to gain max negentropy, it would eventually want to
create the biggest holes possible, as black hole entropy goes as the square
of the mass. The best way to do might be to make small holes then merge
them. But how many baby universes are made by holes that get merged,
as many as the holes you started with, or as the holes you end up with?
If the former, life helps make more babies, but if the latter, life hurts.
Robin Hanson
hanson@econ.berkeley.edu http://hanson.berkeley.edu/
RWJF Health Policy Scholar FAX: 510-643-8614
140 Warren Hall, UC Berkeley, CA 94720-7360 510-643-1884
Received on Mon Nov 9 17:30:32 1998
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