NPR's report on the cosmology conference
Don Mikulecky (mikuleck@HSC.VCU.EDU)
Thu, 3 Jun 1999 09:54:23 -0400
Yesterday (June 2, 1999) NPR gave a short report on the cosmology
conference being held at the Univ. of Chicago. A highlight was
Stephen Hawking's talk and some further discussion on the "Anthropic
princiole". This discussion, I thought, embodied much of the same
content as I've encountered about Rosen's work and, in fact, I see
the two as closely related. The antropic principle bothers many
physicists because it "explains" this particular universe in terms
of the life forms in it, particularly the humans contemplating the
hole issue. Words like "circular" were used and pleas were made to
"keep the faith" and keep trying to make the laws of physics do it
all.
Rosen reminded us of Rashevsky's observation that the laws of
physics are obeyed by all living organisms yet none can be predicted
from those laws. He went further to assert that biology was far
more "general" than physics.
I thought I'd mention this as various people discuss these ideas in
the context of cybernetics and systems theory. There is much more
to be said, but we also need to see the context for the discussion.
Respectfully,
Don Mikulecky