[neutralino]

Laurence Krauss appears to think so, according to this article in NewScientist. Now, for anyone who doesn't know, NS, which used to be a good, scientific publication, has degenerated somewhat and will now publish more or less anything. Even it agree that this idea is contraversial, so these links should be read with that warning in mind! Still, here's a quote:

...by making this observation in 1998 we may have caused the universe to revert to a state similar to early in its history, when it was more likely to end. "Incredible as it seems, our detection of the dark energy may have reduced the life-expectancy of the universe," says Krauss.

The full article can be found here, and another related news article here.

[neutralino]

Here is another link in case anyone interested cannot view the newscientist article:
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releas...-hws112107.php

[Graybeard]

Thanks for that Neutralino. good article ... although for my money why would the observation need to be made by an organic body ... surely the universe witness's itself. I am siding with Max Tegmark in the last para.

I think a distinction between conscious and unconsciousness is simply a division placed there by ourselves.

cool bananas ... greg

[Lloyd Gillespie]

The fundamental universe observes nothing of itself. It needs not to. It just is___until foolish thinking human beings came along, in the bio-era, to confuse the issues about the fundamental logical universe, of its self-contained matter and motions, without idiot/intelligent observers... We, the foolish observers, can think anything, logical or illogical, yet the universe remains logical, from first eternal motions of matter, to final eternal motions of matter... It that seems confusing, it's the linguistics. That's why I usually separate the matter motions into, pre-first star/stars/black-hole/holes, and post first star/stars/black-hole/holes, etc, or infiniteness/finiteness... Observers, of any kind, exist only in bio-era finiteness... The self-awareness of the observer universe, only happens in the bio-era's, logic extension era... All other self-awareness is logical non-sense...i.e., there's no sense-organ existing, before the bio-era... If otherwise so___where is it...? And please use a formalism/methodology to explain, not meta-methodologies, or meta-formalisms...

Regards,
Lloyd