• Question: What are your opinions on Cosmic Natural Selection? Do you think it’s a possibility and if not, why?

    Asked by rhooper821 to Ben, Dave, Ed, Sam, Susana on 19 Jun 2013.
    • Photo: David Briggs

      David Briggs answered on 19 Jun 2013:

      Ok – I had to google this to find out what it was. I had never heard of this theory called “Cosmic natural selection” before, although I had heard of the ideas about black holes leading to new, slightly different universes.

      It’s an interesting idea, but I am not a cosmologist, so I’m not really qualified to comment on this.

      However, since you’ve asked, I’m not sure how a black hole would lead to a big bang – our universe was formed from a big bang, does this mean that in our universe’s parent universe there was a black hole that gave rise you our universe? Or is our universe special?

      The theory suggests that each new universe had slightly different physical laws – what if the physical laws were so different that the new universe couldn’t make black holes (perhaps gravity wasn’t strong enough) – does this mean that this universe is “infertile?”

      I guess it’s feasible, but it doesn’t sound quite right to me.

    • Photo: Sam Horrell

      Sam Horrell answered on 19 Jun 2013:

      While reading this answer its very important you realise I have no idea what I’m talking about but am going to give it a go anyway.

      So I had a quick read and cosmic natural selection appears to be the theory that black holes may actually be other universes but with different physics, making our universer a multiverse. So our universe started with a big bang and I guess a good way for matther to get condensed before the big bang happened would be for a black hold to condense it. I like the idea of their being universes within universes within universes (ever seen Inception as that’s all I can think about now?).

      A multiverse definitely appeals to the sci-fi nerd in me. Maybe in one of these universies I’m Batman and in another you might be Batman! That would be awesome.

    • Photo: Susana Teixeira

      Susana Teixeira answered on 26 Jun 2013:

      I think you just came up with a question that highlights the reason for “I’m a Scientist, get me out of here”!

      We are all here, answering or questioning, because we want to understand Science better: what it is, what it is for. And there is a lot we do not, because of poor communication. If even scientists cannot explain this CNS theory, then someone has not explained it well yet! So lets keep talking 😉

      Like Dave and Sam, I tried hard to understand what Cosmic Natural Selection is, but could not. The basic idea is that you can apply the laws of natural selection we know in Biology, to Physics. Or maybe it is the other way around (chicken and egg, here we go!).

      So black hole can generate another universe that keeps similar properties to the previous. So only properties from universes that have black holes can be carried through, or selected by evolution. I think that unless we will become able to develop a technology that generates black holes, this theory turns human life, and life on our planet, into a rather insignificant detail on the large scale of the universe! Or maybe I just do not understand it well…. we need a cosmic evolution Zone!

      Thanks for the question, you must be a future scientist 🙂

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