Another approach, which has the virtue of requiring such a shift of perspective, is to accept that the Standard Model’s arbitrary assumptions are actually arbitrary realities. Physicists are reluctant to do this because even small changes in the numbers would cause the whole thing to break down. The result would be either a radically different universe or no universe at all. It beggars belief, the argument goes, that things could be so finely tuned as to produce this particular universe, the one humans live in, by accident.
The way out of this, for those unwilling to invoke an intelligent creator, is to allow that the observable universe is just one of an indefinite number of universes, each with its own laws of physics. In that case, only universes governed by the Standard Model, or something similar to it, could have the conditions needed for the emergence of physicists capable of observing it.
Such arguments shade into philosophy, for even if multiple universes do exist it may be impossible to observe them. But then, in Isaac Newton’s day, physics was known as “natural philosophy”. Perhaps it is time to revive the term.
