Cosmic Evolution and Earth

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The distribution of the galaxies in space agrees remarkably well with the theoretical predictions.

And now we have a situation where 70 percent of the universe is Dark Energy, 25 percent or so is Dark Matter, and only about 5 percent is the sort of stuff that atoms are made of. What is Dark Energy? Ha—we wish we knew!

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Effectively, dark energy makes space repel space. If you are on an expanding racetrack—if you look farther and farther away—things will be moving away from you faster and faster just because they are farther along the expanding racetrack. At a certain distance, galaxies will be moving away from you faster than the speed of light.

So this explains how the most distant objects in the visible universe are about 47 billion light years away even though the universe is less than 14 billion years old. I proposed back in , with the late Heinz Pagels, that the modern theory of supersymmetry gives us a natural candidate for the dark matter. Supersymmetry is probably the best idea we have to go beyond our standard model of particle physics, and supersymmetry is the basis of string theory.

The superpartner particles must be much heavier. And they have funny names:. Yes, the dark matter has nothing to do with protons, neutrons, or electrons—the stuff that atoms are made of. A good example is neutrinos. Pauli was very diffident about this proposal because he thought he was proposing something that could not be tested.

But now we have measured many properties of neutrinos. We understand a great deal about neutrinos. Well neutrinos are weird. They only have weak interactions.

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Their masses are so small that their gravitational interactions are essentially negligible. Yes, except that dark matter has a great deal of mass. If dark matter is the lightest superpartner, it is a weakly interacting massive particle, a WIMP. Then it would interact with ordinary matter like neutrinos. But since it would be very massive—in fact, it would be most of the mass of the universe—it would have a great deal of gravity. And about 5 percent is atomic matter. Yes, mostly hydrogen and helium that came out of the Big Bang. The heavier elements—which we and the earth are mostly made of—are only about 0.

No, waves can be localized, with greater or less precision. The better you know their location the worse you can know their momentum.

Cosmic Evolution Q & A: Current Understanding of the Universe | The Chopra Center

If you want to localize it in time, then you know less about its energy. Quantum mechanics is the best-tested theory in all of science.

But do we really understand quantum mechanics? There are so many interpretations! It works, but what does it mean? Newton is supposed to have said that to himself he was like a young child at the seashore, every so often picking up a particularly beautiful stone or shell, while he looked out at the great ocean of ignorance before him. We live in an island of scientific understanding.

As we learn more the island grows, but so does the size of the shoreline where ignorance meets knowledge. The more we learn, the more questions we ask. The questions we can ask now are very different questions. Now we know, and of course we want to know what they are. We have a very elaborate program to try to answer those questions.

For example, experiments deep underground to protect from cosmic rays may detect the dark matter particles. But it may discover WIMPs. There is also evidence from the Fermi Gamma Ray satellite that may indicate that dark matter is annihilating itself in the center of our Milky Way galaxy. A lot of other data may materialize in the next few years.

No one knows yet! I want to bring up the element of consciousness. In your book you say that we need sentience to know this. I was in a debate with our friend Richard Dawkins, and I quoted Dyson. He screamed at me that Dyson never said that. I wrote to Dyson, and he responded that there are three riddles that have confounded him all his life: They seem to have some connection to each other.

Cosmic Evolution Q & A: Current Understanding of the Universe

Any comment on that? Dyson also wrote the first article that discussed in detail the distant future of a universe that goes on forever. These are great mysteries, and I think they are going to keep us busy for a very long time—both scientifically and philosophically. And the connection between mind and brain is a fascinating mystery. My father-in-law had a stroke, which drastically changed his consciousness—so there is clearly a connection. You are an expert on these things from your medical education and practice.

You smile, and I have a warm feeling. We know that the brain has these tight connections to the heart, stomach, and so on. If we are non-dualists, we have to ask if the fundamental reality of the universe is physical or non-physical. We can now see individual atoms. Calling something physical—if it invokes this common-sense meaning—is very misleading.

As far as we know, quantum mechanics is pretty fundamental. But at some level there is a conflict between quantum theory—which describes how things work on the level of the very small—and general relativity—our theory of space, time, and gravity. The current pages are also more philosophical and speculative than the more specific coverage of Palaeontology and Earth History that is Palaeos' main focus. They represent an exceedingly incomplete overview of some of humanity's attempts to understand the history and the evolution of the life, the Earth, and the universe as a whole, not so much or just or even as science, but as a narrative account, a story of where we are, where we come from, and where we are going; the big picture, in other words.

Incorporating human history, the evolution of life and the Earth, and cosmic evolution is what is sometimes referred to as Big History. There are basically two orientations that can be taken here. One is to follow the sequence of Time , the other Evolution. The word " evolution " is here used in two different contexts.

One, systems theory , explains the natural world in terms of the emergence of progressively more complex structures. This is Evolution in the sense of the big picture , aka Cosmic Evolution.

The other is biological darwinian evolution , which involves the process of natural selection acting in in populations of species, as well as ecosystems and communities. Biological evolution is only one subset of systems theory understanding of evolution. There is also cosmic, galactic, stellar, planetary, mineral, geological, socio-cultural, technological, and other forms of evolution. To keep things simple, evolution in the cosmic context, is divided into five emergent and perhaps arbitrary stages: The Big Picture of Evolution is all about, well, the big picture.

It terms of an evolutionary cosmos, this means the emergence of complexity and development and evolution of successive modes of matter, life, consciousness, culture, technology, and more, from the Big Bang till now, and speculation on the future, as illustrated in the above diagram. Obviously, the account of the evolution of life and intelligence is limited here to the Earth, but there is no reason why this things should not have appeared on other worlds and solar systems.

If you find it all too irrelevant, eccentric, or speculative, feel free to skip ahead to the Geological timescale page or the story of the meaning of life or minimal version of said story. Cosmological evolution establishes the parameters of space and time , the large scale structures of galactic clusters, great walls and so on, as well as stars and galaxies , and the atomic elements and quantum particles , and thus sets the stage for the rest of evolution.

By the rest of evolution is here meant increasing complexity and information structures through self-emergent local reversals of entropy throughout the universe. Abiotic evolution includes the building up of atoms and simple molecules in chemical or energetic reactions, or brought together into planetesimals through gravity, to form nebula, asteroids, moons, and planets, and various inorganic compounds, including increasingly more complex molecules resulting both in mineral evolution and the development of the Earth and other planets , and also in the origin of life, both on Earth and elsewhere in the universe , which takes us to the next stage:

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