The Extinction of Physical Law

The Extinction of Physical Law

In the universe, the structure of the physical laws, and the values of certain fundamental physical constants, appear to be “tuned.” That is, they appear to have values within a range that permit certain types of phenomena, including the existence of life. This could simply be happenstance. However, it is also possible that there is some process that has caused the selection of these particular physical laws and these particular fundamental constants.

If such an apparently “tuned” feature were to arise in a biological system, we would immediately hypothesize that it must be the result of the process of evolution. That is, some process of variation has caused the emergence of such a feature, and permitted its survival by the elimination of alternative features. This suggests the possibility that physical laws themselves might have evolved, and that this evolution of physical law is the cause of the observed features. This would further suggest that, in the original universe, there might have been a multiplicity of physical laws, but that only a certain few of these laws persisted. Moreover, the laws that persisted did so in such a way as to produce the observed values of fundamental constants.

Here’s one possible mechanism for the extinction of a physical law. Consider a force modeled on the Coulomb force of static electricity, namely, opposite charges attract and like charges repel. Particles that are subject to this hypothetical force would have some positive and negative property. Then, particles with like properties would repel each other while particles with opposite properties would attract each other.

Suppose further that it was possible to cancel out the positive and negative property, possibly by the particles coming into contact with each other. Suppose that all the particles in the universe possessing this property did cancel out their property, as far as was possible. There would then be two cases: either the number of particles with the positive property exactly equaled the number of particles with the negative property, or the numbers were different.

In the first case, this property of particles would cease to exist. There would be no particles to feel this hypothetical force any longer. The force would still exist, in a sense, but it would have no practical effect in the universe. Particles that formerly possessed this property would now only interact with each other, and with other matter, by other forces, such as gravitation. The hypothetical force would become extinct.

In the second case, after as much cancellation of the property was possible, a number of uncancelled particles would remain, all with the same sign. All of these particles would repel each other, and distribute themselves as far apart as possible throughout the universe.

In this way, this hypothetical force would become effectively extinct. In the first case, it would play no role at all in the universe. In the second case, it would serve only to distribute the remaining uncancelled particles at random, far from each other, throughout the universe. All the cancelled particles would then only interact with each other, and with ordinary matter, by other forces, such as gravitation.

There are indications that some such process of extinction of forces might already have occurred.

As one example, scientists have recently discovered the existence of so-called “dark matter”. Dark matter is called “dark” because it apparently doesn’t participate in any of the electromagnetic forces that produce radiation such as heat or light. We can’t see dark matter, because it’s dark in this way. We can only infer its existence because of the gravitational effects that it has on matter that we can see.

It could be that dark matter once experienced some type of force with other dark matter. In some way, that force might have become extinct, perhaps as hypothesized above. Now, all dark matter can do is interact with ordinary matter through a force that both types of matter feel: gravitation.

As another example, the theory of cosmological inflation postulates that the early universe went through an extremely rapid exponential expansion, to achieve the smoothness of distribution of matter that we now observe. However, there is no currently known force that could have caused this inflation.

It could be that there once was such a force, sufficient to cause the hypothesized cosmological inflation. But, since that inflation occurred – indeed, possibly as a result of that inflation – this force might have become extinct. It no longer operates in any meaningful way in the universe.

Thus, the extinction of physical law could be one way by which the nature of the universe changes, and features become "tuned".