So, last year, I wrote a speculative cosmology piece called Blowtorch Theory. It rather cheekily extended the American theoretical physicist Lee Smolin's wonderful, powerful, oddly neglected theory of cosmological natural selection; the idea that universes reproduce, with variation, leading to Darwinian evolution of universes. While I was having dinner with my five-year-old, a friend texted to say that the piece was at number one on Hacker News. At the time, I didn't really know anything about the website, or its readers – but I learned a LOT over the next few hours, as my dinner went cold (and my son got to watch cartoons)! Anyway, I greatly enjoyed (most of) the robust discussion that followed there, and thought Hacker News readers might be interested in this new Smithsonian Magazine overview of the remarkably healthy state of evolutionary cosmology, a new field emerging around these ideas. Think of it as a startup disrupting cosmology!
I think it was in the book Pale Blue Dot by Carl Sagan where I read that why the planets orbit in circular motion is because they are the planets that survived what must have been a chaotic early universe.
In the early universe, those planetary bodies must have been moving in different ways and colliding into one another, and the rate of collisions must have been very high.
Ultimately, the constant collisions led to eventual clearing off of bodies that did not move in circular motion, and that's what we see today. A natural selection of objects of the cosmos.
I might be misremembering Carl Sagan's description. But I'm almost certain I read this in Pale Blue Dot. I keep meaning to re-read that book.
Sagan is terrific. And it's true that the planets and moons that survive have made it through a pretty brutal era of orbit-clearance. But the evolutionary cosmology model I and others have been exploring is at the level of universes, and is genuinely Darwinian; it gives an evolutionary explanation for why our universe has parameters of matter that allow for the generation of long-term stable planets, and the development of lifeforms on those planets, and the development of technologies by those lifeforms. I would love you to read the Smithsonian Magazine piece and come back to me; it's a beautiful explanation of why universes contain little blue dots at all! I think Sagan would have loved it. Maybe not been convinced by it (it's still a speculative theory, though it is currently having predictive successes), but he would certainly have thought it worth exploring.
I just finished reading the article. Thanks for sharing.
Yes, I'm familiar with the multiverse idea, and I think I was first introduced to it in The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins.
I think the idea is plausible because if we have multitudes of planets, and multitudes of stars and galaxies, it might be reasonable to expect multiple universes as well.
Another idea which I've read about, and I think still in the God Delusion (but it might have been a Carl Sagan book, I don't quite remember), is that perhaps there aren't multiple universes currently existing. That is, there is no multiverse, but the universe, following the Big Bang, expands up to a point and then eventually collapses in a Big Crunch, and then explodes again in yet another Big Bang with different variations in its laws of physics.
In some of these new iterations of the universe, life as we know it cannot emerge; but in certain configurations, just as we have in this current universe, life has the necessary physical constants and environment to emerge and eventually be able to contemplate the universe that gave rise to it.
The strong Anthropic Principle is an interesting concept, but it's unfortunate that we have insufficient or even no evidence for any of these postulations.
I don't know if you were already familiar with the idea of an infinite series of Big Bangs and Big Crunches instead of the existence of parallel universes (a.k.a. multiverse), but if you weren't, it's the reason you sometimes see the Big Bang defined as something as -
"the cosmic explosion that marked the beginning of the universe or its current iteration."
The "current iteration" stated in those definitions refer to the idea just exponded.
Thanks again for sharing, I love reading about the universe, even though I'm not a physicist.
Yes, I'm familiar with the idea of a Big Bang/Big Crunch cycle. It's intriguing. But, though it too gives you a sequence of universes, its automatic 1-to-1-to-1-to-1 sequential structure doesn't really give you an evolutionary mechanism. I think connecting collapsing mass/energy in a parent universe (a black hole) to expanding mass/energy in a child universe (a Big Bang) makes a lot of sense; even more than a Big Bang/Big Crunch. As the great physicist John Wheeler pointed out in the 1970s, it solves the two otherwise bewildering mysteries involving singularities in our universe! (Black holes, and the Big Bang.) And, because any small variation in the basic parameters of matter means the child universe will generate either more or less black holes (offspring), there is a Darwinian evolutionary ratchet; a reason why universes might get more complex over time, as the ratchet of evolution fine-tunes universes to produce more offspring by whatever means works. (Down three different black hole formation channels, in my model; each more complex than the last, and each emerging from the one before. Strong circumstantial evidence for an evolutionary history!)
> And, because any small variation in the basic parameters of matter
Does this mean variations in laws of physics, or just the configuration of matter? Is there any evidence that physics might vary between black holes? Is that necessary for cosmic evolution?
one random thought I have that is probably wrong is that at some point a black hole has to end. If a black hole is "stuff goes in but does not come out" then if that continued forever, at some point the whole universe would be in one super giant black hole. Since we are not in one super giant black hole, something has to happen to reverse that process. A black hole has to die somehow, just like stars die eventually.
A "big crunch" sounds awfully like all the matter in the universe ends up in one gigantic black hole. And maybe when all the matter in the universe is inside one black hole, then gravity gets weird because there is no "outside" matter to maintain the integrity of the black hole. So the black hole then can just "explode" in a "big bang" from the pressure inside. Just a random theory from a non physics person.
Where does the distinction lie between infinite parallel universes and infinite universes in a cycle? Does time pass through the cycle unbroken? Wouldn’t it also require a “superuniverse” with its own laws such that any universe it contains must be constructed so that a big crunch has to happen?
A more physical way to think through this may be: imagine many many bits of rock all with their own semi random velocity. The overall system has an angular momentum that must be preserved. So as these bits of rock accrete you end up with orbits of large bodies that all must add up to the initial angular momentum of the system. Since every planet is a conglomeration of many bits it is extremely likely that all orbits are in the same rotational direction, though not guaranteed.
I can't find the reference, but there are many integer or near-integer relationships among the planets of our solar system. Such a preponderance that it seems improbable.
Yes, they slip into resonances. This is even more pronounced in the case of the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. The resonances give them stability. As I've written before, elsewhere; Ganymede, Europa, and Io, for example, are in 1:2:4 resonance with each other: that is, for every single orbit of Jupiter that Ganymede makes, Europa makes two, and Io makes four. That keeps all three orbits stable, longterm: if one were to drift slightly, the others would gravitationally nudge it back into resonance.
So what we are seeing here is a strong, simple, robust, self-stabilising system that should automatically build out large numbers of potentially habitable worlds in every solar system. Order automatically emerges from randomness, and is automatically maintained. There’s no delicate single-point-of-failure to worry about. No precise, narrow Goldilocks zone you have to stay in. But of course, the question then is WHY are the basic parameters of matter, and the laws of physics, tuned so that this is the natural result! What tuned them? I would argue, evolution is the answer.
Maybe thinking of Titius-Bode laws? Or perhaps the notion of Musica universalis? These are not taken too seriously since they do not hold to close observation.
I think it's worth noting that the universe-selection theory outlined in this article is a lot more conservative than the full Blowtorch Theory about cosmic structure formation.
If black holes contain universes (idk, maybe dimensionally reduced ones), this strikes me as more likely than bullshit. Not likely. But real enough to be worth toying with.
Where is the replicator? Evolution doesn’t happen just because. Copies are made, not all identical, some get to the next iteration, and if what makes them different gives them better chances to get to the next stage, then that difference may remain.
Where that plays with universes?
I get that if they are infinite amounts of universes, the ones with conditions of evolving intelligence hace more chances to be observed from within, but more or less that’s it.
Evolution is the only universal principle. Governs everything that happens in our reality and all realities. Gets really trippy when you consider the ways in which evolution itself evolves - that largely explains the biodiversity we see on earth
I am a total layman. But I believe that MUH (Max Tegmark) is the real thing.
I was once looking at fractal animations on youtube. At one point, I thought I saw things move in it in a way that resembles physical movement. That caused me to ask if there could be a fractal where things moved or behaved in accordance with the physical laws of our universe (As I pursued this idea, I came across MUH from Tegmark [1]). And if such a fractal (or a mathematical structure) exhaustively implements all our physical laws, it follows that we will observe eventual emergence of consciousness life.
Of course, random events should also occur to support emergence of life. The randomness that one observe in such a world would also be a deterministic property of the structure it inhabits. So slightly different structures could only differ in a single random event. Thus it follows that there are variant structures where any random events (apart from the deterministic physical laws) manifest.
Thus it follows that if live in our universe is the result of the physical laws of this universe, and some set of random events, there will be a mathematical structure as I described above, where this manifests.
> Some futurist philosophers had extended the idea to explain the emergence of complex life from hot gas and stars. Humans exploit increasingly powerful energy sources, a progression they argued could culminate in artificial black holes. If those black holes spawned new universes, then a cosmos capable of producing technologically advanced life might produce more offspring. The progression from hot gas to stars, life and technology could, they proposed, be a product of cosmic natural selection.
So the meaning of life is to make as many black holes as possible?
In a crude way, you could say so. Certainly, looked at through a purely evolutionary lens, the meaning of life for universes is (in one respect) to make as many black holes as possible. That maximises reproductive success for the unit of selection that is the universe. But of course, once consciousness enters the picture, things get more complicated. If conscious beings are generating most of the black holes in a universe for energy production (that are, as a side effect, generating child universes elsewhere, outside that parent universe), then the intelligent lifeforms making those black holes are going to feel some moral obligation to the child universes they're generating at the other side of those black holes. And if they have any control over the basic parameters of matter in the child universes, then perhaps they optimise for universes of a particular kind. They might not go for sheer numbers of offspring in the child universes. They might instead try to minimise unnecessary suffering in the child universe. They might not want the universes to generate life at all, because that's quite a moral weight to bear. Or they might want them to be maximally life producing, because life is intrinsically a good thing, from their point of view. It could go a number of ways. But it would certainly be true that a blind evolutionary search of the possibility space, in order to maximise black hole production, is no longer the case.
Should this be reassuring from a "great filter" perspective? It would seem to raise the odds that our species will survive long enough to create black holes
> “He’s correct. … Why wouldn’t it [evolution] apply to universes when it applies to everything else?”
I kind of wish the article touched on "everything" a bit more. Biological evolution is not the only process characterized by variation, selection, and retention repeated over time. Language is another system that displays these properties, something known before Darwin wrote "On the Origin of Species". Darwin himself noted this in terms of morality in "The Descent of Man" whereby certain morals could help some tribes to outcompete other tribes allowing those morals to become more prevalent. Friedrich Carl von Savigny noted this in relation to the law. Carl Menger noted this in relation to money, markets, division of labor, the law, and the like. I think one of the most profoundly insightful books I've ever read was F.A. Hayek's "The Fatal Conceit" where he ties a lot of these threads together.
So while the "birth" and "death" of universes may be a bit too analogous to biological evolution specifically, I think it is entirely plausible that the order we call the universe could arise from some process of variation, selection, and retention repeated over time.
I watched a talk by Lee Smolin and he seems to have a great take on how physics relates to life. That moment to moment the universe supports and runs on spontaneity and free will. I'd love to find a really good summation of his ideas.
You claim an increasingly high proportion of universes must be adapted to black hole creation.
You also claim it might explain the fine tuning problem.
I’d argue it does neither. As to the first claim; First the variations are random, secondly black holes radiate away. You don’t have an infinite chain of black hole production here.
As for the second one, again the variation is random and each is isolated from another. This is just falling back to the anthropic principle.
Also I fail to see how this is falsifiable (or provable) and therefore even a scientific hypothesis at all.
36 comments
[ 438 ms ] story [ 418 ms ] threadIn the early universe, those planetary bodies must have been moving in different ways and colliding into one another, and the rate of collisions must have been very high.
Ultimately, the constant collisions led to eventual clearing off of bodies that did not move in circular motion, and that's what we see today. A natural selection of objects of the cosmos.
I might be misremembering Carl Sagan's description. But I'm almost certain I read this in Pale Blue Dot. I keep meaning to re-read that book.
Yes, I'm familiar with the multiverse idea, and I think I was first introduced to it in The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins.
I think the idea is plausible because if we have multitudes of planets, and multitudes of stars and galaxies, it might be reasonable to expect multiple universes as well.
Another idea which I've read about, and I think still in the God Delusion (but it might have been a Carl Sagan book, I don't quite remember), is that perhaps there aren't multiple universes currently existing. That is, there is no multiverse, but the universe, following the Big Bang, expands up to a point and then eventually collapses in a Big Crunch, and then explodes again in yet another Big Bang with different variations in its laws of physics.
In some of these new iterations of the universe, life as we know it cannot emerge; but in certain configurations, just as we have in this current universe, life has the necessary physical constants and environment to emerge and eventually be able to contemplate the universe that gave rise to it.
The strong Anthropic Principle is an interesting concept, but it's unfortunate that we have insufficient or even no evidence for any of these postulations.
I don't know if you were already familiar with the idea of an infinite series of Big Bangs and Big Crunches instead of the existence of parallel universes (a.k.a. multiverse), but if you weren't, it's the reason you sometimes see the Big Bang defined as something as -
"the cosmic explosion that marked the beginning of the universe or its current iteration."
The "current iteration" stated in those definitions refer to the idea just exponded.
Thanks again for sharing, I love reading about the universe, even though I'm not a physicist.
Does this mean variations in laws of physics, or just the configuration of matter? Is there any evidence that physics might vary between black holes? Is that necessary for cosmic evolution?
A "big crunch" sounds awfully like all the matter in the universe ends up in one gigantic black hole. And maybe when all the matter in the universe is inside one black hole, then gravity gets weird because there is no "outside" matter to maintain the integrity of the black hole. So the black hole then can just "explode" in a "big bang" from the pressure inside. Just a random theory from a non physics person.
It's strangely tautological to me but I only have my lifetime to consider, not the age of the solar system.
In three, angular momentum in one axis is maintained. Everything else cancels out. More, and you get clouds.
The Blowtorch Theory: A new model for structure formation in the universe - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44115973 - May 2025 (170 comments)
So what we are seeing here is a strong, simple, robust, self-stabilising system that should automatically build out large numbers of potentially habitable worlds in every solar system. Order automatically emerges from randomness, and is automatically maintained. There’s no delicate single-point-of-failure to worry about. No precise, narrow Goldilocks zone you have to stay in. But of course, the question then is WHY are the basic parameters of matter, and the laws of physics, tuned so that this is the natural result! What tuned them? I would argue, evolution is the answer.
For those interested, I've written further about this here: https://theeggandtherock.com/p/life-without-stars-stanets-an...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titius%E2%80%93Bode_law
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musica_universalis
Where that plays with universes?
I get that if they are infinite amounts of universes, the ones with conditions of evolving intelligence hace more chances to be observed from within, but more or less that’s it.
Check out The Case Against Reality for more color
I was once looking at fractal animations on youtube. At one point, I thought I saw things move in it in a way that resembles physical movement. That caused me to ask if there could be a fractal where things moved or behaved in accordance with the physical laws of our universe (As I pursued this idea, I came across MUH from Tegmark [1]). And if such a fractal (or a mathematical structure) exhaustively implements all our physical laws, it follows that we will observe eventual emergence of consciousness life.
Of course, random events should also occur to support emergence of life. The randomness that one observe in such a world would also be a deterministic property of the structure it inhabits. So slightly different structures could only differ in a single random event. Thus it follows that there are variant structures where any random events (apart from the deterministic physical laws) manifest.
Thus it follows that if live in our universe is the result of the physical laws of this universe, and some set of random events, there will be a mathematical structure as I described above, where this manifests.
[1] https://arxiv.org/pdf/0704.0646
So the meaning of life is to make as many black holes as possible?
All life as we know does seem to reproduce but maybe a better definition is that it increases something similar to chaos or entropy.
I kind of wish the article touched on "everything" a bit more. Biological evolution is not the only process characterized by variation, selection, and retention repeated over time. Language is another system that displays these properties, something known before Darwin wrote "On the Origin of Species". Darwin himself noted this in terms of morality in "The Descent of Man" whereby certain morals could help some tribes to outcompete other tribes allowing those morals to become more prevalent. Friedrich Carl von Savigny noted this in relation to the law. Carl Menger noted this in relation to money, markets, division of labor, the law, and the like. I think one of the most profoundly insightful books I've ever read was F.A. Hayek's "The Fatal Conceit" where he ties a lot of these threads together.
So while the "birth" and "death" of universes may be a bit too analogous to biological evolution specifically, I think it is entirely plausible that the order we call the universe could arise from some process of variation, selection, and retention repeated over time.
You also claim it might explain the fine tuning problem.
I’d argue it does neither. As to the first claim; First the variations are random, secondly black holes radiate away. You don’t have an infinite chain of black hole production here.
As for the second one, again the variation is random and each is isolated from another. This is just falling back to the anthropic principle.
Also I fail to see how this is falsifiable (or provable) and therefore even a scientific hypothesis at all.