How We Came To Be
If you were to pick any atom in the universe at random as a starting point, note how many electrons, neutrons and positrons existed within it, and dutifully jotted it down with a location of 0, 0, 0, using any coordinate system or measuring metric you like, you would have a series of numbers.
If you were to take every other atom in the universe and note the same information as an offset from this chosen atom, you would have a very very large series of numbers. If you calculated every motion and temperature relative to your chosen origin point, and wrote them down, the set of numbers would grow larger and larger.
If you were to codify the laws of physics and note the level and measure of force, the strong, the weak, the electromagnetic and the force of gravity, you would have all of the information you need to determine how all of those atoms would interact. You would know which atoms fuse and which atoms cool due to the nature of entropy.
Of course, recording all of this information would be next to impossible — how would it be possible to encode all of this information, because encoding that information on anything other than a base model of reality, would in itself demand more mass to simply record the information to begin with. Indeed, the universe as we know it is the most efficient way to contain all of the information in the universe as is; and any attempt to overtly measure all of it is simply not possible, as you would sooner run out of pen and paper.
Strangely, this long series of numbers (both padded with zeros or rounded however you like), is seemingly endless. Yet, this exact series of numbers exists an infinite number of times within all non-repeating irrational numbers, like pi, e, or any other naturally existing numbers, as an expression of pure mathematics. If you were to scan the digits of pi, eventually, you would encounter the same series of digits that you managed to encode in your attempt to explain our universe, and more so, it happens an infinite number of times.
These irrational numbers could, by pure chance, describe every probable outcome for every permutation of every world that could ever exist. The fact that we have any laws of physics at all would seem to suggest that the rules that govern our world are, in a very real sense, may be explained by random fluctuations within the context of one of these irrational numbers. A sufficiently rich mathematical object, like pi, can contain descriptions of arbitrarily complex finite structures without physically instantiating any of them.
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Small variations in these underlying relationships between numbers that do not promote stars to form and combine hydrogen into higher order elements, don’t. It would seem that we exist in a world that is somehow suitable exactly for us seems to be a happy coincidence. This relationship between what is needed and what is experienced is pontificated on within Douglas Adams’ The Salmon of Doubt:
“This is rather as if you imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, ‘This is an interesting world I find myself in — an interesting hole I find myself in — fits me rather neatly, doesn’t it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!’ This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, frantically hanging on to the notion that everything’s going to be alright, because this world was meant to have him in it, was built to have him in it; so the moment he disappears catches him rather by surprise. I think this may be something we need to be on the watch out for.”
This is the basis for the Anthropic Principle. Said another way, we are only ever able to report and observe on these phenomenon in the context of being an observer, able to understand and to reflect upon this natural world.
All of this, is strange in a way. We are all born, being practically summoned into being by a set of events so incredibly improbable and incredibly unlikely, by a set of rules and laws beyond our wildest comprehension. We are often quick to forget that we are all comprised of bits of stars — elements that we know can only ever form in the hearts of stars over the course of billions and billions of years. We are positively ancient, no matter how it is you look upon it.
Even when you consider the required probability of why it is we are the way we are, you need to account for so many intermediate events that can’t quite be properly accepted. Mankind has had numerous run-ins with life ending events ranging from ice ages, dark ages, super massive volcanos, as well as the occasional asteroid impact. There exists several man made inflection points, where nuclear annihilation would have been almost certain — including the nuclear mission launch scare of 1983, where Stanislov Petrov denied his direct supervisor the ability to issue retalitory nuclear strikes against the US when weather balloons were mistakenly identified as a threat. In this case, cooler heads prevailed and we exist today, again as part of the anthropic principle, to be thankful for his discretion.
As we look up at the night sky, we devise increasingly clever ways to look out into the distant reaches of space. In the Milky Way galaxy alone, billions of stars exist and swirl, each with their own host of planets, some of which appear to have enough of the proper conditions required to support life. Our galaxy is simply one of these galaxies — and not even a particularly large galaxy. We have learned that if we zoom in on any of the deepest darkest corners of the night sky, we see clear pictures of very distant galaxies, all moving away from us, and finally reaching our retinas having emitted light billions of years ago. And one day, those very distant galaxies will move so far away from us that we will no longer be able to witness them.
This might make you feel incredibly small, in the grand scheme of things. On one hand, it would seem that we are so incredibly insignificant in comparison to the grand order of things, and maybe we are. However, it is also true, that our existence is also a certainty. You exist, in an infinite number of capacities nearly identical to your experience, right now, reading this. We are all, in our own ways, an eventuality. We are ineveitable. We are made from massive ancient processes set in motion by forces beyond our understanding, produced by an extraordinarily long sequence of contingent events, briefly conscious of the universe that produced us — and capable of wondering why there is anything here at all. We are both summoned by the universe itself through events beyond our intention, become an impression of the universe over the course of our life, and able to reflect back upon who it is we really are.
