Continuing down the list of six possible explanations for the "anthropic" coincidences in nature which allow intelligent life to evolve…largely inspired and derived from George F.R. Ellis' brilliant brief book, BEFORE THE BEGINNING. He is NOT responsible, though, for the liberties I've taken with his logic or how I've chosen to illustrate it. There are MANY things I like about Smolin's proposal. It makes specific results that can be falsified, which so far haven't been. He proposed the theory to a general audience in THE LIFE OF THE COSMOS, and a 2008 paper, "The Status of Cosmological Natural Selection" by Smolin, follows up on this. Still…even if you accept that black holes can make "universes" (still unproven, and currently unprovable) the two objections remain. Lee Susskind refers to both in this fascinating back-and-forth between Susskind and Smolin on the "Landcape" idea and "Cosmological Natural Selection" here at "Smolin vs. Susskind: The Anthropic Principle". I actually think both made points in refuting the other's theories, but were not as successful defending their own. Susskind won a bet with Hawking about information surviving black holes and I think his answer is quite good. The idea of any information carrying over to the new universe, even the very constants themselves, after such information has been sliced, diced, and shredded in a black hole's heart is…pretty hard to believe. It's like telling me you were able to make an almost complete copy of Shakespeare's HAMLET after burning, dicing, and putting in a blender your only print version of HAMLET. Also see "Is there a Darwinian Evolution of the Cosmos?" for a better summation. Smolin points out that Darwin couldn't tell how mutation and genetic inheritance or traits really happened when he proposed the theory of evolution, since DNA hadn't been discovered yet. But no one doubted the passing down of traits from one generation to another–it had been used for centuries in the breeding of dogs and other pets, and cattle and other livestock for centuries. Nor was it unknown for the occasional "sport" (read: mutation) to occur–a child who in some respect was different from both its parents. If Darwin couldn't tell exactly how it happened, it nevertheless was an observed fact for thousands of years. So the analogy to Darwin is overblown, since we can't observe these theoretical universes formed by black holes, and cannot observe how they might differ from their "parent" universe…IF they exist at all. Fascinating try at explaining the "anthropic" coincidences, though. I wish I could believe it.
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