I sometimes reflect on the fact that, were it possible to be an intelligent fly on the wall at the moment of the big bang, molecules were not a foregone conclusion. Certainly I'd accept they'd be a good prediction, but molecules evolved just like everything else. We think that molecules, and even more fundamental properties, are just that, intrinsic, but they have something of the serendipity of clockwise moving right from 12 noon.
I’m not quite sure what you mean, can you clarify?
Take Conway’s game of Life as a cut-down example. It might not be obvious right at the start that many (most?) initial setups will produce gliders. But gliders aren’t a lucky accident, they’re fundamental. Anyone who applies the same rules will quickly discover gliders.
Are you thinking that there could be initial conditions that don’t produce gliders/molecules? Or that the underlying rules/laws might have been different, and not conducive to gliders/molecules? Both of those seem extremely speculative to me. The rules are as they are, and gliders and molecules are inevitable.
Ah yes, good point. And Conway's Game Of Life is a better example because yes, indeed, gliders are fundamental (as are molecules). And Conway didn't make GoL for the gliders specifically, they may have surprised him just as much as us (although I'm sure he was searching for emergent phenomena).
So yes I think there are certain initial conditions and rules that don't produce gliders/molecules, but that is only obvious either through simulation or hindsight. In the beginning, as a pundit, or a fly on the wall, it feels like there's everything to play for. So a weird thought experiment is if we could somehow contain a randomly-seeded, massively slowed down Big Bang and have modern day scientists (without recourse to modern knowledge) observe it. I imagine there'd be all kinds of theories, conversations, schools of thought, etc on which direction the universe would take.
So I think the point is that, in fact, we are observing a Big Bang! Just at a later stage. We're trying to understand what's happened and what will happen. A very prescient example of that is Fermi's Great Filter[1], ie does intelligent life necessarily destroy itself?
So perhaps I can summarise my original comment with the thought experiment of those scientists observing the impossibly contained early universe asking themselves in the same way we ask ourselves about the Great Filter, "are protons, neutrons and electrons, capable of stabilising into complex but harmonious structures?"
Thank you! Yes, that’s definitely interesting to think about. The long-term fate of the universe is another open question -- does it accelerate forever, could it collapse somehow, or cycle somehow? Physics seems to suggest that space will eventually just atomize completely, with individual galaxies or perhaps even molecules expanding beyond each others’ observable horizons. Or could some interesting new unanticipated structures arise, maybe at massive distances or ultra-slow timescales? The general question, I guess, is are we witnessing the long decline of a mature universe, or is it still in its youth?
I love these questions too! I feel like the universe is still very much in its youth, but who knows. There's so many profoundly different evolutionary stages the universe could go through. Such a shame that I won't be around to see them :'(
Technically, the earth having life is an accident if you look at the rest of the cosmos. If life was brought to this rock by comets and asteroids crashing into the planet, then that's definitely an accident.
