4 ms·

No one knows. That's part of the great mystery. But also in some sense "it has to be that way," since without charge balance atoms wouldn't exist as we know th

No one knows. That's part of the great mystery. But also in some sense "it has to be that way," since without charge balance atoms wouldn't exist as we know them, and thus neither would all the chemistry that creates the macroscopic world we inhabit.

retrac 3y ago
That's a variation on the anthropic principle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle Maybe a kind of observer bias. If the universe weren't seemingly-perfectly balanced to allow emergent complexity in matter, we wouldn't be here to point out how seemingly-perfect it seems. (If you subscribe to a multiverse interpretation, perhaps most of the infinitely many other possible universes are dead and void.)
- buildbot 3y ago
  This made me think - is a concept like most even defined for infinity?
  - kjeetgill 3y ago
    Probably a cheeky response but certainly! We can say most positive integers are greater than 5. Or most real numbers are irrational. Half of all integers are even — even though there's just as many of both!
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
  - wruza 3y ago
    Not a mathematician, but if there's a computable limit, then why not? E.g. most integers aren't powers of 2, cause lim(n to inf: n / 2^n) = 0
- ccozan 3y ago
  An interesting point. How about the universe kept starting and collapsing/crashing in an infinite loop until by chance the electron and the proton had the exact charge and the universe as it is now could go beyong the initial stage and could continue? ( Ok this feels like a trial an error of somebody playing universe ).
  - p1mrx 3y ago
    I could see why a charge imbalance prevents life from forming, but why would it also collapse the entire universe?
  - wruza 3y ago
    How about the universe that quantum-emerges in a truly random sequence of quasistates which disintegrate immediately, and once in a while it happens to be the state that includes "your" "memory" of the previous ones. I mean chronologically from your perspective, they don't even have to appear in order. By an amazing coincidence, this particular "frameset" is logically consistent and pretty boring, so you have no intergalactic empires, no magic, and no job.
    - ryukafalz 3y ago
      Essentially dust theory from Permutation City. I've thought about this a lot.
    - p1mrx 3y ago
      If perception emerged directly from chaos like that, wouldn't you expect to perceive chaos, rather than a rich world built upon billions of years of evolutionary history?
      - wruza 3y ago
        I don't think there's "rather than" in this idea. You surely will perceive every state that is perceivable at all, but time and continuity have no meaning here. Specific history is just an image that always exists only for an instant. Eventually that universe might enumerate all states, so they'd form all sorts of sequences, but that's coincidental.
- XorNot 3y ago
  It is however, not an unreasonable one. The main problem with the anthropic principle is if you use it to justify adding free parameters to models which don't otherwise have any physical meaning, and then tune them so they correct out the problems, wave your hands and say "it must be this way because if cannot be any other".
- knightoffaith 3y ago
  I'm not very sympathetic to the view that we're very lucky to be in this universe. That said, there is an interesting response to the anthropic principle response, which I'll mention here just because I think it's interesting to think about what's wrong with this objection: Suppose you and I were living in a totalitarian state. The state decides that you and I are to be put to death. They drag us into a field, and a shooting squad of several marksmen surrounds us. They all fire - but miraculously, every single one of them misses us. I then turn to you and say, "Wow, the odds that all of those bullets missed us by sheer chance are so incredibly low. Clearly, it wasn't by chance - they must have coordinated to ensure they missed us, intentionally." You then turn to me and say, "No, that's silly. It's simply that if any of the bullets had hit us, we wouldn't be around to talk about it." Your line of reasoning here doesn't seem to be very compelling. Why?
  - lagadu 3y ago
    A small note: the anthropic principle doesn't make us "lucky" to exist in a universe that supports life, quite the opposite. The probability of life coming to existence in a place (universe, celestial body, whatever) that doesn't support it is zero. The fact that we exist in a place that supports life is simply due to the probability of it happening here is >0, therefore we're here only because statistics determines that we can't be anywhere else. It's not luck, it's simply a statistic outcome.
    - knightoffaith 3y ago
      Yes, right. Maybe you misread me, I meant to say that I'm skeptical that we're lucky because I'm sympathetic to the anthropic principle response. I then go on to play devil's advocate.
      - lagadu 3y ago
        Ah, I misinterpreted that.
colordrops 3y ago
Yes, could be the anthropic principal.
DonHopkins 3y ago
On the topic of the ‘Most Complicated Thing You Could Possibly Imagine’: Imagine that physics is like Microsoft COM (or C++ pure virtual function tables), so there's a base IUnknown interface, hiding innumerably different possible concrete implementation classes, that can expose arbitrarily many other abstract interfaces, so you can call iUnknown->QueryInterface(uuid, &otherInterface) to ask for other interfaces like IAtom, IElectron, IProton, IQuark, IParticle, and IWave, and there are also many other obscure higher level dynamic and reflective interfaces like IDispatch, ITypeInfo, and IPersist, just waiting to be discovered and exploited, if only we knew the right uuid to ask for. And then physics research boils down to QueryInterfacing objects with random uuids, and when that succeeds in finding new interfaces, calling their random functions with random arguments to see what happens. That's probably what the black hole supercomputer at the center of the galaxy is doing. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12975257 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12975257 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20266627 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20266627 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29593432 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29593432

retrac 3y ago

That's a variation on the anthropic principle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle Maybe a kind of observer bias. If the universe weren't seemingly-perfectly balanced to allow emergent complexity in matter, we wouldn't be here to point out how seemingly-perfect it seems. (If you subscribe to a multiverse interpretation, perhaps most of the infinitely many other possible universes are dead and void.)

buildbot 3y ago
This made me think - is a concept like most even defined for infinity?
- kjeetgill 3y ago
  Probably a cheeky response but certainly! We can say most positive integers are greater than 5. Or most real numbers are irrational. Half of all integers are even — even though there's just as many of both!
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- wruza 3y ago
  Not a mathematician, but if there's a computable limit, then why not? E.g. most integers aren't powers of 2, cause lim(n to inf: n / 2^n) = 0
ccozan 3y ago
An interesting point. How about the universe kept starting and collapsing/crashing in an infinite loop until by chance the electron and the proton had the exact charge and the universe as it is now could go beyong the initial stage and could continue? ( Ok this feels like a trial an error of somebody playing universe ).
- p1mrx 3y ago
  I could see why a charge imbalance prevents life from forming, but why would it also collapse the entire universe?
- wruza 3y ago
  How about the universe that quantum-emerges in a truly random sequence of quasistates which disintegrate immediately, and once in a while it happens to be the state that includes "your" "memory" of the previous ones. I mean chronologically from your perspective, they don't even have to appear in order. By an amazing coincidence, this particular "frameset" is logically consistent and pretty boring, so you have no intergalactic empires, no magic, and no job.
  - ryukafalz 3y ago
    Essentially dust theory from Permutation City. I've thought about this a lot.
  - p1mrx 3y ago
    If perception emerged directly from chaos like that, wouldn't you expect to perceive chaos, rather than a rich world built upon billions of years of evolutionary history?
    - wruza 3y ago
      I don't think there's "rather than" in this idea. You surely will perceive every state that is perceivable at all, but time and continuity have no meaning here. Specific history is just an image that always exists only for an instant. Eventually that universe might enumerate all states, so they'd form all sorts of sequences, but that's coincidental.
XorNot 3y ago
It is however, not an unreasonable one. The main problem with the anthropic principle is if you use it to justify adding free parameters to models which don't otherwise have any physical meaning, and then tune them so they correct out the problems, wave your hands and say "it must be this way because if cannot be any other".
knightoffaith 3y ago
I'm not very sympathetic to the view that we're very lucky to be in this universe. That said, there is an interesting response to the anthropic principle response, which I'll mention here just because I think it's interesting to think about what's wrong with this objection: Suppose you and I were living in a totalitarian state. The state decides that you and I are to be put to death. They drag us into a field, and a shooting squad of several marksmen surrounds us. They all fire - but miraculously, every single one of them misses us. I then turn to you and say, "Wow, the odds that all of those bullets missed us by sheer chance are so incredibly low. Clearly, it wasn't by chance - they must have coordinated to ensure they missed us, intentionally." You then turn to me and say, "No, that's silly. It's simply that if any of the bullets had hit us, we wouldn't be around to talk about it." Your line of reasoning here doesn't seem to be very compelling. Why?
- lagadu 3y ago
  A small note: the anthropic principle doesn't make us "lucky" to exist in a universe that supports life, quite the opposite. The probability of life coming to existence in a place (universe, celestial body, whatever) that doesn't support it is zero. The fact that we exist in a place that supports life is simply due to the probability of it happening here is >0, therefore we're here only because statistics determines that we can't be anywhere else. It's not luck, it's simply a statistic outcome.
  - knightoffaith 3y ago
    Yes, right. Maybe you misread me, I meant to say that I'm skeptical that we're lucky because I'm sympathetic to the anthropic principle response. I then go on to play devil's advocate.
    - lagadu 3y ago
      Ah, I misinterpreted that.

colordrops 3y ago

Yes, could be the anthropic principal.

DonHopkins 3y ago

On the topic of the ‘Most Complicated Thing You Could Possibly Imagine’: Imagine that physics is like Microsoft COM (or C++ pure virtual function tables), so there's a base IUnknown interface, hiding innumerably different possible concrete implementation classes, that can expose arbitrarily many other abstract interfaces, so you can call iUnknown->QueryInterface(uuid, &otherInterface) to ask for other interfaces like IAtom, IElectron, IProton, IQuark, IParticle, and IWave, and there are also many other obscure higher level dynamic and reflective interfaces like IDispatch, ITypeInfo, and IPersist, just waiting to be discovered and exploited, if only we knew the right uuid to ask for. And then physics research boils down to QueryInterfacing objects with random uuids, and when that succeeds in finding new interfaces, calling their random functions with random arguments to see what happens. That's probably what the black hole supercomputer at the center of the galaxy is doing. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12975257 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12975257 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20266627 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20266627 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29593432 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29593432