The nature of the natural laws

Although both the existence and the nature of physical laws usually are taken for granted, it is worth examining these ideas’ origin, since it can influence even the approach of today’s science.
Aristotle developed a rather complicated idea about the causes (ending with a kind of “Formal Cause” – which “causes” the form). His “Final Cause” became the modern laws of nature and his “Efficient Cause” is close to modern cause (Barrow: World within World, p. 53). So following Aristotle’s logic we make a distinction between the laws and those phenomena they affect. But it is not surely a necessary distinction between causes and their subjects. The fundamental question is whether the laws exist in a certain sense or they are only practical descriptions of reality. According to Lee Smolin, supposing a kind of cosmic evolution and the existence of baby universes that are born with slightly modified natural laws than of their parent universe's, this “evolving laws seems to be a breakdown of the distinction between the state of a system and the law that evolves it.”
This hypothesis makes possible to imagine some different scenarios between the laws and those subjects that are affected by them.
1. Obviously, we can accept the traditional laws vs systems differentiation.
2. But it is more exciting to suppose that the formation of a baby universe means the formation (slightly) different laws. It can be happened three different ways.

• The first one means that the law formation is restricted to the moment of creation (whatever it means). After the Big Bang we have a certain amount of matter, energy etc. and it won’t change. Similarly, the laws are “finished” as well and they won’t change. On the other hand, Smolin supposes that different universes can be determined by different laws.
• But why to restrict the changes of natural laws for a very short period of time? A second solution proposes a longer, even continuous evolutionary process where the forming laws and the physical environment are in continuous interaction in the course of the universe’s history. According to this model, not only the initial laws of a new universe are different from its parent’s laws, but the changes can be influenced by some events in the history of the universe and slightly different initial conditions would result very different laws later.
• To make the story even stranger, there is the problem of the saltation hypothesis. In evolutionary theory not accepted to suppose that biological evolution produces its effects via large and sudden changes, but cosmology isn’t about earthly ecosystems’ biology. The laws of our Universe seems to be fixed today, but it is imaginable that this idle period when our physical laws are static is only a transitional state, and then a sudden saltation would happen in the future and the nature of the laws will radically change.

Biological Eschatology Now and Forever (2005)

The aim of the biological eschatology is to describe the possible futures of life in a long lasting Universe. It focuses on the effects which appear only on a very large time scale, and it is about only the description of a phase space of possibilities, but not a real future.

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Fine-tuning and evolutionary adaptation

Advocates of Anthropic Principle usually use two kinds of arguments to support their standpoint. They argue that life’s fine-tuned nature is a result either of chance/selection effect (Weak Anthropic Principle) or the explanation is our Universe “waited" for the emergence of a thinking being in a certain sense (Strong Anthropic Principle). But it is possibly that the nature of evolutionary mechanism is the answer for the“fine-tuning”.

Complexity science and biological adaptation
According to the complexity science, a hurricane is only complex, but an anthill both complex and adaptive system, since it can change itself and its operation to respond to the change of the environment. Biological evolution is a subcategory of complex adaptive systems, since it is a system which essential feature is the flexibility to adapt itself to a wild range of options. Life adapted successfully to the deep sea and the high atmosphere on our planet, and it seems to be a plausible hypothesis that it would be able to survive even on the surface of Mars. Notice that if this reasoning is true, then it is possible that the cause of other planets’ lifelessness in the Solar is not their hostile environment. Of course, they are lethal for Earthly life, since our life is adapted to our environment (inter alia, to a dangerous oxidant named oxygen). The problem is that life didn’t begin to evolve on those heavenly bodies, so it didn’t learn to adapt to those circumstances – perhaps because of the unfavorable initial conditions. All in all, it is useful to make a distinction between an environment hostile to the life, and an environment where life cannot able to begin to evolve.

Adaptation to our Universe’s physics
A complex adaptive system possibly can adapt to different circumstances. On the other hand, since this adaptation is a result of adaptive processes, the consequence will more or less strictly matches to the conditions and because of it, it is not a surprise that life seems to be “fine-tuned” for our Universe’s certain traits. Applying the complexity science’s approach to the problem of fine-tuning we can find a different solution than Anthropic Principle.
This logic raises further questions.

• First of all, it is a question whether different forms of life exist in our Universe which are either more or less fine-tuned our Universe’s conditions. It seems to me probable – but who knows.
• According to this interpretation, the rise of life seems to be possible in other universes which are characterized by other parameters (although it is not a necessity).