Clutch

faustaz, you seem to be using "Anthropic Principle" not to denote any principle, but rather some alleged fact about (as it's sometimes put) the degree to which the universe appears "fine-tuned" for life. This vagueness and confusion is not rare in the literature on the AP. But could I ask you to explain just what principle the AP is?

For my part, I take it that there's more than one AP, with variations by strength of interpretation. The basic idea when expressed as an actual principle, is that we explain the universe in some respect by appealing to our existence in it. Presumably in its weakest form the AP just says that, from what we know about our existence in the universe, we can infer at least some other things about the universe. This is surely true, inference being a pretty promiscuous thing. In its strongest form, the AP would say that the most basic and general properties of the universe are explicable in terms of our existence in it -- viz, that our dependence on those properties explains why the universe has them, rather than vice-versa. This is utterly without warrant.

Are you sure it's anything called the Anthropic Principle that you find plausible, and not just some specific (and deeply fraught) claim about probability?

faustuz

Ugh, you caught me here, especially since I said exactly that in the earlier post. The fact that it is suited at all, however, is sufficient to surmise either extreme coincidence or purposefulness.

faustuz

True. However, despite the amazing variety of conditions under which life is found on Earth, so far that doesn’t seem to be the case observed in our (admittedly limited) explorations beyond Earth. I’ve heard said that the conditions under which life can exist may be broad, but the conditions under which it can originate may be very narrow. All this remains highly theoretical. Until we explore beyond our solar system, or even more completely the solar system beyond our planet, we will not know the true parameters of life. In any case, I should point out that what matters for the Anthropic Principle is not the parameters for life in general but for conscious life specifically. I should have been more careful about this in my earlier posts.

Biff the unclean

What I fine unbelievable is the number of different ways Xians can say "I don't know the answer to something so it must be God." It seems that a variation of this silliness is the bases of every OP in this section.

If you don't know the answer to something then you don't know it. No big deal, no one expects you to know everything.
But the answer is never God. Never. There isn't any God, he's a character in a book. He's the product of imagination.

If you can't produce a non-fiction God then you can't say that he does anything. He's like Harry Potter. Harry can do all sorts of magic things in his books but if you found something that you couldn't explain it would be ridiculous to say that Harry did it. It's just as ridiculous to think that God does anything.

Why is there life in the universe? Harry Potter waved his magic wand and there it was.

HappyFunBall

i always find it interesting xians who say this universe is "perfect" for us or that the odds of it being this way for us are just so improbable. how can you make any judgements about the condition of the universe if you have nothing to compare it to?

Shadowy Man

I wouldn't. If one person played the lotto, he would have a well-defined non-zero probability of winning.

Somebody winning the lottery without playing - that I would call a miracle.

faustuz

Astronomically improbable events don’t happen. Any statistician will tell you that.

faustuz

I’m a little confused about what all that has to do with the Anthropic Principle, but that’s OK. I agree with most of what you say here, but it’s way off topic.

faustuz

Whoa! Where id all this come from? Who said the universe is “perfect” for us? And who in this thread is a “xian”? And let’s remember that the only judgment about the universe I have made is that the conditions within it are such that conscious life can develop. Are you disputing that?

Not that I think your message was directed at me, so I’m not sure why I’m answering.

Biff the unclean

Gee the odds that the universe is fit for life seem so great that I don't know how it exists=God did it.

The same as every other 'IDONTKNOW=God' argument.

Ascribing a natural event to a supernatural cause without first even having a non fictional supernatural cause to ascribe it to.

The actual answer is, of course, that the universe didn't arrange its conditions to accomodate life. Life, through natural slection, accomodated itself to its surroundings. In places, like the vacuum of space or the surface of the moon, conditions were too harsh for it to do even that. As far as we know only this one planet has life.
But this planet isn't the universe. There are slightly less than one hundred billion stars, and it appears most have planets, in this galaxy and well over one hundred million galaxies. So to say that the odds are against it because there is only one universe is to not take into consideration what you are talking about when you say "universe"