Looked at another way, the whole history of the universe leads to my birth. If the big bang, 13.77 billion years ago, had been slightly different, I wouldn’t be here. If the earth hadn’t been formed four and half billion years ago, I wouldn’t be here. If life on earth hadn’t sprung up; if multicellular organisms hadn’t evolved; if mammals hadn’t evolved and supplanted dinosaurs after a giant meteor hit the earth. The whole history of the universe and of the earth and of life on earth leads to me, to my existence. What is the point of the universe, of the earth, of life, of the evolution of humans? It’s me, my existence.
There is a theory about the fundamental constants of the universe that resembles my theory of me. It’s called the anthropic principle. According to the anthropic principle, human beings can only exist if the laws of the universe allow for humans to exist. It follows that since humans exist, the laws of the universe must have a certain form. If, for example gravity was weaker, stars and planets would never have formed and there would be no humans. The fact that we exist implies that gravity has to be strong enough for stars and planets to form. Physicists maintain a whole bunch of physical constants have to be exactly what they are for planets to exist. For us to exist, planets have to exist. Hence, since we do exist these constants have to have the values they have. The details are too complicated for me. I once heard a lecture by Stephen Hawking in which he explained the anthropic principle in detail. I understood the first five minutes and slept through the rest. The basic point was clear. Since humans exist, certain laws of physics are necessary. There could be other universes with other laws, but there would be no one to discover them, or, at least, no one remotely like us. I can extend the argument to this blog Unless I existed, it couldn’t be written. So this blog proves that the whole 13.77 billion year universe is designed to produce me. History and cosmology can be replaced by Mestory. The answer to life, the universe and everything is not 42, as Douglas Adams taught; it’s me. Or, since you are reading this, the purpose of the universe can just as well be you.
