Daily Archives: 09/11/2011

My last-but-one post reminded me of Eugene Koonin’s invocation of the multiverse to explain unlikely events such as the development of DNA replication. In my first post on this I hinted at some absurdities inherent in this idea, in that one ought to expect far more instances of unlikely events than we see if all things are possible in an infinite many-worlds multiverse. Blow the irreducibly complex biology – where are the unicorns and spontaneous transmutation of lead to gold? Nevertheless, one might conclude that a more mainstream view of the multiverse (if “mainstream” has any meaning in gauging pure speculation) could still help explain highly contingent events. After all, … Continue reading →