Fumfer Physics 31: Life-Permitting Universes

Scott Douglas Jacobsen contends that subjectivity emerges only in life-permitting universes and is inherently limited: finite minds cannot fully model the larger systems that birth them. Mental maps can improve but need not, as delusion, injury, disease, and aging illustrate. Rick Rosner pushes back on multiverse looseness, arguing that in sufficiently large, natural-order universes, life is likely; only tiny universes preclude it. He asks how knowable any universe is, echoing Feynman on science’s limits. Rosner expects near-term unifying principles but enduring ignorance of particulars given cosmic scale, distances, and timescales. Both land on rigorous curiosity coupled with epistemic humility, ultimately.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Let me lay this out. We’ve had several conversations over the past few weeks, maybe months, and a few ideas are circling in my head. I see a kind of symmetry between life-permitting universes—those where subjective selves emerge during evolution—and the sectionalized counter-entropic emergence of life appearing in pockets of some some life-permitting universes, like we see with certain satellites called Earth. My general principle is that subjectivity, once it arises in a universe supportive of life, is inherently limited within the larger objective universe. The maps that conscious beings make of themselves and the world will always be incomplete, because there isn’t enough information inside their system to represent the whole. So, there’s room for improvement in the fidelity and accuracy of those mental maps, but not an inevitability. Think of cases like delusions, head trauma, infection, or the gradual disintegration of the mind over a lifespan.

Rick Rosner: You mentioned life-permitting universes. I think there’s a framework—maybe not something working scientists dwell on, but it comes up among popular science communicators—suggesting there could be many different sets of physical laws that generate viable universes. Some would allow life, others wouldn’t. I’d argue otherwise. Whether life exists in a given universe depends largely on natural conditions. You can simulate odd universes with contrived physics, but in universes governed by natural order, the fundamental physics is generally similar.

Physical constants may vary with size, local conditions, or other factors, but overall, the structure is consistent. In universes of sufficient scale, I think it’s unlikely that life wouldn’t arise. The laws of physics are rarely strict enough to completely prevent life from emerging in a large universe. A tiny universe—say, one with only 100,000 particles—couldn’t sustain life. But a universe like ours, with roughly 10⁸⁵ particles and billions of years of history, almost inevitably gives rise to it. Now, are you suggesting that life in any universe is inherently incomplete in its understanding of the cosmos simply because of limits of scale and perception? Is that what you mean?

Jacobsen: I mean, if something comes from a larger system, it remains part of that system—just as we are part of nature. The cognitive aspect of that system, the part that constructs mental maps, can’t ever be equivalent to the system itself. In modeling, you can use shorthand—as we do with mathematics—but that’s not what I mean by full-spectrum modeling. The principle I’m trying to pose is that subjectivity, by definition, arises in a life-permitting universe. If it emerges within that universe, which could be vast but still finite, then the smaller finite cognitive system that arises from it can only reconstruct parts of it—with varying degrees of quality and accuracy.

Rosner: Okay, so whether what you’re saying is accurate depends on how knowable the universe is—how knowable any universe is. We’ve only had an inkling of the universe’s overall structure for about a century. A hundred fifty years ago, we didn’t even know there were other galaxies. Maybe some people speculated, but no one had serious evidence. We thought the universe was just one cluster of stars. So it’s still early to know whether we can ever understand the deep, necessary characteristics of any universe.

It’s like that Richard Feynman question I keep bringing up—probably because I read one of his books fifty-five years ago and it stuck with me. He asked: what happens with science? Do we keep discovering new things forever? Do we eventually learn everything? Or do we hit a limit where the universe is simply too complex to fully comprehend?

I think, in general terms, that within the near future we’ll have a broad theory of physics—maybe metaphysics too—that explains almost everything in principle. But when it comes to the specific details of our universe, we obviously can’t know everything. We’ve only been a civilization for a few thousand years, and we’ve barely traveled anywhere in the cosmos.

I suspect a lot of advanced civilizational activity happens near the centers of galaxies, though that’s just speculation. We won’t have a way to confirm it for hundreds, maybe thousands of years. Traveling to the center of our galaxy to check our hunches might take tens or even hundreds of thousands of years.

That’s just within the Milky Way. So yes, we can probably figure out a lot through reasoning and inference, but in terms of concrete knowledge—we’re very far away. I suspect that sufficiently old civilizations might be able to operate across significant distances, perhaps more than one percent of the observable universe’s diameter. That’s about 140 million light-years or more—actually, probably several hundred million light-years in effective scale.

Trying to do anything across those distances would take billions of years, but civilizations might still attempt it, especially if parts of the universe begin collapsing and that threatens their existence. The sheer scale of what would be required to achieve even an incomplete understanding of the universe is staggering. We won’t reach that level unless we’re lucky—or persistent—enough to become a multi-million-year civilization.

Rick Rosner is an accomplished television writer with credits on shows like Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Crank Yankers, and The Man Show. Over his career, he has earned multiple Writers Guild Award nominations—winning one—and an Emmy nomination. Rosner holds a broad academic background, graduating with the equivalent of eight majors. Based in Los Angeles, he continues to write and develop ideas while spending time with his wife, daughter, and two dogs.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen is the publisher of In-Sight Publishing (ISBN: 978-1-0692343) and Editor-in-Chief of In-Sight: Interviews (ISSN: 2369-6885). He writes for The Good Men Project, International Policy Digest (ISSN: 2332–9416), The Humanist (Print: ISSN 0018-7399; Online: ISSN 2163-3576), Basic Income Earth Network (UK Registered Charity 1177066), A Further Inquiry, and other media. He is a member in good standing of numerous media organizations.