Humanity has long wondered how the stars, galaxies, and life itself began? For stars to create atoms needs stable galaxies, that would fly apart without the dark matter that just happens to prevent that. Stars create energy by the nuclear fusion of Hydrogen into Helium, based on neutrons that the weak force just happens to allow. And this fusion only managed to create the carbon atoms needed for life thanks to a just right energy resonance:
“The energy at which the carbon resonance occurs is determined by the interplay between the strong nuclear force and the electromagnetic force. If the strong force were slightly stronger or slightly weaker … the universe might very well be devoid of life and go unobserved.” (Davies, 2006).
The Goldilocks effect is that our universe has an unreasonable number of factors set just right for life, without which we wouldn’t exist. For example:
“Take, for instance, the neutron. It is 1.00137841870 times heavier than the proton, which is what allows it to decay into a proton, electron and neutrino—a process that determined the relative abundances of hydrogen and helium after the big bang and gave us a universe dominated by hydrogen. If the neutron-to-proton mass ratio were even slightly different, we would be living in a very different universe: one, perhaps, with far too much helium, in which stars would have burned out too quickly for life to evolve, or one in which protons decayed into neutrons rather than the other way around, leaving the universe without atoms. So, in fact, we wouldn’t be living here at all—we wouldn’t exist.” Ananthaswamy (2012).
Were these values set just so by a kind creator, or did a vast system spawn many universes and we just happen to be on the life-supporting one? The Goldilocks effect isn’t that our universe is designed for life as if so, it is a poor design, since most of the universe is inhospitable to life. It is that the nature of our universe is balanced on a knife edge, between the lushness of life and barren desolation:
“The great mystery is not why there is dark energy. The great mystery is why there is so little of it [10−122]… The fact that we are just on the knife edge of existence, [that] if dark energy were very much bigger we wouldn’t be here, that’s the mystery.” (Susskind, 2007).
The list of cosmic coincidences that allow life is long (Barnes, 2012), including:
1. Strong force. If the strong force was stronger or weaker by just 1% there would be no carbon or heavier elements anywhere in the universe.
2. Weak force. If the weak force was any weaker the hydrogen in the universe would be greatly decreased, starving stars of nuclear fuel and leaving the universe a cold and lifeless place.
3. Neutrons. If neutrons were slightly less massive the universe would be entirely protons and if lower by 1%, then all protons would decay into neutrons so no atoms other than hydrogen, helium, lithium and beryllium could form.
4. Cosmic microwave background. This radiation has a slight anisotropy, roughly one part in 100,000, just enough to allow stars and galaxies to form. Any smaller and the early universe would have been too smooth for stars and galaxies to form and any larger and stable stars with planetary systems would be extremely rare.
5. Cosmological constant. The positive and negative contributions to the vacuum energy density cancel to 120-digit accuracy, but the 121st digit makes our universe possible.
What then explains the good fortune that lets us exist? We can’t call it a lucky accident given a sample of one, unless there are many universes, so multiverse theory is popular because it supports the view that our universe is an accident. Yet while the Goldilocks effect is based on evidence, the multiverse is based on no evidence at all:
“The multiverse has only ever existed, so far as we know, in the mind of man. Its most promising research programs, string theory and early rapid cosmic inflation theory, have bounced along on enthusiasm alone, prompting ever more arcane speculations for which there may never be any possibility of evidence.” (O’Leary, 2017).
For example, Smolin’s speculation that black holes spawn universes is based on no evidence at all, nor does it suggest why a mathematical infinity might create a universe.
However if our universe came from a primal quantum network, properties like its refresh rate, connectivity, topology, and bandwidth could explain the speed of light, Planck’s constant, the cosmological constant, and the electron’s mass and charge, respectively. Essentially, our universe has the properties it does based on the nature of quantum reality.
It also follows that if other universes began as bubbles in the quantum bulk, as ours did, they would have the same laws of physics, except they might break the anti-matter way. Our universe is then as it is neither by accident nor design but by inheritance, just as a seed inherits from its progenitor.
Was the universe then made for us, as a table is laid before a guest? Like Goldilocks, we sit before a meal just right for us but why? Crocodiles seem to live in rivers finely-tuned for them, but to see that as by design is to reverse causality. Rivers existed before crocodiles, who then evolved to live as they allowed. Likewise, our universe existed before we did, so we evolved to fit it. It wasn’t fine-tuned to us any more than crocodiles are fine-tuned to rivers. The Goldilocks effect is then like the cutlery at a table wondering why it fits the food, when it is no surprise. The universe wasn’t made to fit us, as we evolved to fit it, whether we realize it or not.