2004 : WHAT'S YOUR LAW?
Former President, The Royal Society; Emeritus Professor of Cosmology & Astrophysics, University of Cambridge; Fellow, Trinity College; Author, From Here to Infinity
Rees's Law
As cosmological theories advance, they will draw more concepts from biology.
The part of the universe astronomers can observe is probably only a tiny part of the aftermath of 'our' big bang, which in turn may be one of an infinity of 'bangs' in which the physics may be very different from in ours. To analyze how our own cosmic habitat relates to this ensemble, we'll need to draw on concepts from ecology and evolutionary biology ('fitness landscapes', etc).
So we'll need biological ideas to understand the beginning. But biology may control the far future too. In some 'universes' (ours perhaps among them) life can eventually become pervasive and powerful enough to renders the dynamics of the cosmic future as unpredictable as that of an organism or mind.
