• Welcome to ZD Forums! You must create an account and log in to see and participate in the Shoutbox chat on this main index page.

Anthropic Principle

GrooseIsLoose

Slickest pompadour in town
ZD Legend
Joined
Aug 16, 2019
Location
Skyloft
I like many of you had thought that we're adapted to "be" in the universe.
But if I were to say the laws of physics are the way they are to support our existence would it surprise you?
 

TheGreatCthulhu

Composer of the Night.
Joined
Jan 22, 2016
Location
United States of America
Gender
Very much a dude.
The Anthropic Principle is often misunderstood. Especially if it's used as an argument for the unscientific idea of intelligent design.

In the scientific journal Nature, Carr and Rees proposed this argument:

The use of the anthropic principle to explain the values of physical constants is discussed. It is shown that the mass and length scales of objects from the universe down to the atom, are determined by the electromagnetic fine structure constant, the gravitational fine structure constant and the electron to proton mass ratio. The anthropic explanation has been found to be unsatisfactory, however, in explaining physical phenomena, due to the fact that it is unable to predict features of the universe, the narrowness of its assumptions for the existence of life, and the fact that it does not determine exact values of physical constants. The concept does, however, serve to explain many remarkable coincidences in nature, such as the relation of the electron to proton mass ratio to the electromagnetic fine structure constant, which have not yet been explained in any other manner.
-Nature, vol. 278, Apr. 12, 1979, p. 605-612. Research supported by the Lindemann Trust and NSF.

In other words, the anthropic principle cannot explain physical phenomena, primarily because of the fact it can't predict features of the universe accurately.

However, it does explain coincidences in nature.

One of the reasons it's asinine to say that the universe is fine tuned for life, is because the vast majority of the cosmos is completely uninhabitable.

Even on Earth, a lot of the Earth is completely uninhabitable to us, on the order of 99.54% uninhabitable. If that sounds crazy, remember, we humans can only live on the surface of the Earth. We can't live in the oceans, we can't live and thrive in places where micro-organisms can, etc.

So when it comes to the anthropic principle, remember, it cannot explain physical phenomena nor predict features of the universe accurately. It can explain coincidences, but nothing more.

Remember, it's a principle to keep in mind, not a hard argument that the universe requires sapient species to observe its physical constants.
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Top Bottom