Quite a fascinating discussion, Shunya, although I'm afraid I can't add much. This is all a bit deeper than I tend to go. However, it did remind me of a similar anecdote, a sort of parallel tangent, so to speak. I've touched on it before, but, well...
About six months ago a friend lent me the CD set of Steven Hawking narrating his
'Theory of Everything', first published in 1996. Hawking devoted a chapter to the Big Bang, the theories that led up to it, competing theories and the current consensus. Among them was the fairly accepted idea that the Universe is expanding, but that at some point gravity will cause it to stop expanding and eventually to collapse back on itself, leading to... who knows... maybe another Big Bang.
What was significant about this to Hawking was the mathematics. In order for the Universe to reach a point at which a life-bearing planet Earth was possible required a window of opportunity so incredibly small as to begger probability. A micro-fraction of a second earlier and the Universe would have already collapsed back upon itself. A micro-fraction of a second later and the Universe would have expanded beyond the point where galaxies and solar systems could survive. With a mathematicians mind, Hawking could only reach one conclusion. The probability was so incredibly small that it could only have happened by design.
There was, however, one option that reduced the probability down to a very acceptable range, but it was a theory that no one was offering because it simply did not fit within the astrophysics as understood in 1996.... that the Universe was not only expanding, but
accelerating.
Well guess what.