Cosmic Cooling as Admissibility Pathway: Expansion, Durable Structure, and the Selective Power of Computational Terminal States
Author
Ian Staley
Abstract
Standard cosmology treats the hot-to-cold thermal evolution of the universe as a thermodynamic consequence of metric expansion, and standard quantum mechanics treats indeterminacy as ontologically primitive. A prior framework by the present author proposed that a final boundary condition can constrain the admissible-history ensemble of quantum cosmology, with a tiering of terminal states (trivial, structured and computational) in which computational terminal states exert the strongest selective pruning. That work left open how thermal history relates to endpoint-conditioned history selection. The present paper advances the thesis that cosmic cooling is not itself selective, but that it establishes the intermediate regime within which a computationally organized terminal condition can exert non-trivial pruning on the admissible-history ensemble. Under this reading, quantum indeterminacy functions not as the ultimate explanatory terminus of physical theory, but as the permissive admissibility substrate through which endpoint-conditioned selection operates. This is an interpretive claim about explanatory role, not a revision of the quantum formalism. The paper formalizes cooling as an intermediate-regime condition, distinguishes forced from selectable features of thermal history, addresses the trivialization, teleology, anthropic, Boltzmann brain, underdetermination and fundamentality objections, and offers three candidate differential predictions.
Keywords
final-state constraint; cosmic cooling; admissibility pathway; computational terminal state; endpoint-conditioned selection.
Full Text:
References
- Adams, F. C. (2019). The degree of fine-tuning in our universe and others. Physics Reports, 807, 1-111. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physrep.2019.02.001
- Aharonov, Y., Albert, D. Z., & Vaidman, L. (1988). How the result of a measurement of a component of the spin of a spin-1/2 particle can turn out to be 100. Physical Review Letters, 60(14), 1351-1354. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.60.1351
- Aharonov, Y., Bergmann, P. G., & Lebowitz, J. L. (1964). Time symmetry in the quantum process of measurement. Physical Review, 134(6B), B1410-B1416. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRev.134.B1410
- Aharonov, Y., & Gruss, E. Y. (2005). Two-time interpretation of quantum mechanics. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.quant-ph/0507269
- Aharonov, Y., & Vaidman, L. (2008). The two-state vector formalism: An updated review. In J. G. Muga, R. Sala Mayato, & I. L. Egusquiza (Eds.), Time in quantum mechanics(Lecture Notes in Physics, Vol. 734, pp. 399-447). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-73473-4_13
- Albantakis, L., Hintze, A., Koch, C., Adami, C., & Tononi, G. (2014). Evolution of integrated causal structures in animats exposed to environments of increasing complexity. PLOS Computational Biology, 10(12), e1003966. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1003966
- Barrow, J. D., & Tipler, F. J. (1986). The anthropic cosmological principle.Oxford University Press.
- Bell, J. S. (1964). On the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paradox. Physics Physique Fizika, 1(3), 195-200. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysicsPhysiqueFizika.1.195
- Bennett, C. H. (2003). Notes on Landauer's principle, reversible computation, and Maxwell's demon. Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics, 34(3), 501-510. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1355-2198(03)00039-X
- Bérut, A., Arakelyan, A., Petrosyan, A., Ciliberto, S., Dillenschneider, R., & Lutz, E. (2012). Experimental verification of Landauer's principle linking information and thermodynamics. Nature, 483(7388), 187-189. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature10872
- Bostrom, N. (2002). Anthropic bias: Observation selection effects in science and philosophy.
- Carter, B. (1974). Large number coincidences and the anthropic principle in cosmology. In M. S. Longair (Ed.), Confrontation of cosmological theories with observational data(pp. 291-298). D. Reidel. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-2220-0_25
- Chaitin, G. J. (1966). On the length of programs for computing finite binary sequences. Journal of the ACM, 13(4), 547-569. https://doi.org/10.1145/321356.321363
- Cramer, J. G. (1986). The transactional interpretation of quantum mechanics. Reviews of Modern Physics, 58(3), 647-687. https://doi.org/10.1103/RevModPhys.58.647
- Damour, T., & Donoghue, J. F. (2008). Constraints on the variability of quark masses from nuclear binding. Physical Review D, 78(1), 014014. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.78.014014
- Edlund, J. A., Chaumont, N., Hintze, A., Koch, C., Tononi, G., & Adami, C. (2011). Integrated information increases with fitness in the evolution of animats. PLOS Computational Biology, 7(10), e1002236. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1002236
- Eigen, M., & Schuster, P. (1979). The hypercycle: A principle of natural self-organization.Springer-Verlag. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-67247-7
- England, J. L. (2013). Statistical physics of self-replication. Journal of Chemical Physics, 139(12), 121923. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4818538
- Epelbaum, E., Krebs, H., Lähde, T. A., Lee, D., & Meißner, U.-G. (2013). Viability of carbon-based life as a function of the light quark mass. Physical Review Letters, 110(11), 112502. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.110.112502
- Friston, K. (2010). The free-energy principle: A unified brain theory? Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 11(2), 127-138. https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn2787
- Friston, K. (2013). Life as we know it. Journal of the Royal Society Interface, 10(86), 20130475. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsif.2013.0475
- Gell-Mann, M., & Hartle, J. B. (1993). Classical equations for quantum systems. Physical Review D, 47(8), 3345-3382. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.47.3345
- Griffiths, R. B. (1984). Consistent histories and the interpretation of quantum mechanics. Journal of Statistical Physics, 36(1-2), 219-272. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01015734
- Grünwald, P. D., & Vitányi, P. M. B. (2008). Algorithmic information theory. In P. Adriaans & J. van Benthem (Eds.), Handbook of the philosophy of science: Vol. 8. Philosophy of information(pp. 281-317). Elsevier. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.0809.2754
- Halliwell, J. J. (1995). A review of the decoherent histories approach to quantum mechanics. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 755(1), 726-740. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1749-6632.1995.tb39014.x
- Hu, B.-L. (2021). Weyl curvature hypothesis in light of quantum backreaction at cosmological singularities or bounces. Universe, 7(11), 424. https://doi.org/10.3390/universe7110424
- Hu, W., & Dodelson, S. (2002). Cosmic microwave background anisotropies. Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics, 40, 171-216. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.astro.40.060401.093926
- Kastner, R. E. (2012a). The possibilist transactional interpretation and relativity. Foundations of Physics, 42(8), 1094-1113. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10701-012-9658-4
- Kastner, R. E. (2012b). The transactional interpretation of quantum mechanics: The reality of possibility.Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511675768
- Kauffman, S. A. (1993). The origins of order: Self-organization and selection in evolution.Oxford University Press.
- Kolb, E. W., & Turner, M. S. (1990). The early universe.Addison-Wesley.
- Kolmogorov, A. N. (1965). Three approaches to the quantitative definition of information. Problems of Information Transmission, 1(1), 1-7.
- Landauer, R. (1961). Irreversibility and heat generation in the computing process. IBM Journal of Research and Development, 5(3), 183-191. https://doi.org/10.1147/rd.53.0183
- Leifer, M. S. (2014). Is the quantum state real? An extended review of psi-ontology theorems. Quanta, 3(1), 67-155. https://doi.org/10.12743/quanta.v3i1.22
- Leifer, M. S., & Pusey, M. F. (2017). Is a time symmetric interpretation of quantum theory possible without retrocausality? Proceedings of the Royal Society A, 473(2202), 20160607. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspa.2016.0607
- Lloyd, S. (2000). Ultimate physical limits to computation. Nature, 406(6799), 1047-1054. https://doi.org/10.1038/35023282
- Lloyd, S. (2002). Computational capacity of the universe. Physical Review Letters, 88(23), 237901. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.88.237901
- Maturana, H., & Varela, F. (1980). Autopoiesis and cognition: The realization of the living. Reidel.
- Moreno, A., & Mossio, M. (2015). Biological autonomy: A philosophical and theoretical enquiry. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9837-2
- Oberhummer, H., Csótó, A., & Schlattl, H. (2000). Stellar production rates of carbon and its abundance in the universe. Science, 289(5476), 88-90. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.289.5476.88
- Penrose, R. (1979). Singularities and time-asymmetry. In S. W. Hawking & W. Israel (Eds.), General relativity: An Einstein centenary survey(pp. 581-638). Cambridge University Press.
- Price, H. (1995). Cosmology, time's arrow, and that old double standard. In S. F. Savitt (Ed.), Time's arrows today: Recent physical and philosophical work on the direction of time(pp. 66-94). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511622861.005
- Price, H. (1996). Time's arrow and Archimedes' point: New directions for the physics of time.Oxford University Press.
- Price, H. (2012). Does time-symmetry imply retrocausality? How the quantum world says maybe. Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics, 43(2), 75-83. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.shpsb.2011.12.003
- Pusey, M. F., Barrett, J., & Rudolph, T. (2012). On the reality of the quantum state. Nature Physics, 8(6), 475-478. https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys2309
- Rees, M. J. (2000). Just six numbers: The deep forces that shape the universe.Basic Books.
- Smolin, L. (1997). The life of the cosmos.Oxford University Press.
- Smolin, L. (2006). The status of cosmological natural selection. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.hep-th/0612185
- Staley, I. (2026). Final-state constraints and informational pruning in quantum histories. International Journal of Quantum Foundations, 12(2), 719-737. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19512844
- Tegmark, M. (2008). The mathematical universe. Foundations of Physics, 38(2), 101-150. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10701-007-9186-9
- Tegmark, M. (2014). Our mathematical universe: My quest for the ultimate nature of reality.
- Tononi, G. (2008). Consciousness as integrated information: A provisional manifesto. Biological Bulletin, 215(3), 216-242. https://doi.org/10.2307/25470707
- Tononi, G., Boly, M., Massimini, M., & Koch, C. (2016). Integrated information theory: From consciousness to its physical substrate. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 17(7), 450-461. https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn.2016.44
- Weinberg, S. (1987). Anthropic bound on the cosmological constant. Physical Review Letters, 59(22), 2607-2610. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.59.2607
- Weinberg, S. (1989). Testing quantum mechanics. Annals of Physics, 194(2), 336-386. https://doi.org/10.1016/0003-4916(89)90276-5
- Weinberg, S. (2008). Oxford University Press.
- Wheeler, J. A. (1983). Law without law. In J. A. Wheeler & W. H. Zurek (Eds.), Quantum theory and measurement(pp. 182-213). Princeton University Press.
- Wheeler, J. A. (1989). Information, physics, quantum: The search for links. In Proceedings of the 3rd International Symposium on Foundations of Quantum Mechanics(pp. 354-368).