The so-called anthropic principle points out how finely tuned the
universe is to support life. However, is there any reason to believe
this is the only universe that exists or ever existed? Or is it likely
or possible that there could be an infinite number of other (less
anthropic) universes that co-exist woth this one or have existed
throughout eternity?

abracad wrote:

The so-called anthropic principle points out how finely tuned the
universe is to support life. However, is there any reason to believe
this is the only universe that exists or ever existed? Or is it likely
or possible that there could be an infinite number of other (less
anthropic) universes that co-exist woth this one or have existed
throughout eternity?

Life is finely tuned to exist in the universe. There is no anthropic
principle. Sentience exists because the universe cannot be bothered
with doing the fine stuff... and enjoys a little critical feedback to
guide its hand. Reality also has a foul sense of humor - the
misanthropic principle.

--
Uncle Al
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/
(Toxic URL! Unsafe for children and most mammals)
"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" The Net!

abracad wrote:

The so-called anthropic principle points out how finely tuned the
universe is to support life. However, is there any reason to believe
this is the only universe that exists or ever existed? Or is it likely
or possible that there could be an infinite number of other (less
anthropic) universes that co-exist woth this one or have existed
throughout eternity?

Remove the parts about other universes co-existing simultaneously and
the answers become yes, and yes, "there could be other anthropic
universes that have existed"... (and will exsist).

It is probable that the constants which require intelligent human life
were and will-be carried forth to a higher order in an evolutionary
universe. Like Al says though, there ain't no tellin what that reality
might be at the next level, so there's no guarantee that intelligent
life will be the order of the day to fulfill the same need in the next
universe.

It may however be significant that the evolution of the universe defines
the same process which allows humans to evolve in an entropic universe.

Call it, the "Ratchet Theory" entropy results in greater order on a
universal scale, where high-energy photons convert negative mass, (ghost
particles/virtual particles) into real massive particles at the expense
of increased tension between the vacuum and ordinary matter. This leads
to an evolutionary leap as the universe evolves into a higher order of
entropic efficiency, where a leap results in another big bang which
carries constants that derive the so called, "Anthropic Principle"
perpetually forward through time.

The process of which is speak is proven he

The -1th law
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=is...al.net&rnum=33

Uncle Al wrote:


Life is finely tuned to exist in the universe. There is no anthropic
principle. Sentience exists because the universe cannot be bothered
with doing the fine stuff..

The Weak Anthropic principle has validity. It the universe were not a
certain way physically then we would not have evolved. The nature of the
universe must be such that life like ours can evolve in conditions that
existed and exist on Earth. If the universe did not have stars that
exploded and produced the elements of which we are composed we would not
be here. As Carl Sagan used to say " We are all made of sturrr stuffff,
the stuffff of bilyuns and bilyuns of sturrrs"

Bob Kolker

Robert J. Kolker wrote:

Uncle Al wrote:

Life is finely tuned to exist in the universe. There is no anthropic
principle. Sentience exists because the universe cannot be bothered
with doing the fine stuff..

The Weak Anthropic principle has validity. It the universe were not a
certain way physically then we would not have evolved. The nature of the
universe must be such that life like ours can evolve in conditions that
existed and exist on Earth. If the universe did not have stars that
exploded and produced the elements of which we are composed we would not
be here. As Carl Sagan used to say " We are all made of sturrr stuffff,
the stuffff of bilyuns and bilyuns of sturrrs"

Bob Kolker


Al isn't denying it's existence, only its relevance.

I hope that it interests you that this was my argument for the relative
strength of the weak argument per my take on it. In terms of strength,
I'd say bout a hundred proof...

~

http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=e...%40sundial.net

Kevin A. Scaldeferri wrote:

In article abergman-841B1F.01014824112003@localhost,
Aaron Bergman wrote:

Nobody likes the anthropic principle. Not even Lenny.

But that doesn't mean it's wrong.

It would suck if it were correct

I would have replaced "correct" with "necessary" and "wrong" with
"unnecessary".

At least in it's weak form, as I usually think of it, the anthropic
principle is tautologous. All it says it that there exists a data
point, which is that we exist, and that nature must be consistent with
this.

There are various stronger formulations, but they are all philosophy
or religion.


I disagree only if given that the underlying direction of all action in
a big bang induced expanding universe is ultimately entropic. Any
occurrence within the system is, therfore, a result of the tuning of the
constants that were set at t=10^-43 . This includes humans in all their
glory, and the weak argument would support this via the fact that it is
observationally proven that the human is one of nature's more preferred
methods for satisfying the second law of thermodynamics.

Humans represent a very efficient path of entropic action, and so the
need for human efficiency has pre-existed since the big bang occurred,
and there is nothing philosophical about that. In fact, it would
require an unfounded faith-like philosophical assumption to conclude
anything else."

In article ,
island island_in_the_stream@earthlink wrote:
Robert J. Kolker wrote:

Uncle Al wrote:

Life is finely tuned to exist in the universe. There is no anthropic
principle. Sentience exists because the universe cannot be bothered
with doing the fine stuff..

The Weak Anthropic principle has validity. It the universe were not a
certain way physically then we would not have evolved. The nature of the
universe must be such that life like ours can evolve in conditions that
existed and exist on Earth. If the universe did not have stars that
exploded and produced the elements of which we are composed we would not
be here. As Carl Sagan used to say " We are all made of sturrr stuffff,
the stuffff of bilyuns and bilyuns of sturrrs"

Bob Kolker


Al isn't denying it's existence, only its relevance.

I thought he was making a joke. "Misanthropic principle". It got a
little giggle from me, at least.
--
"When the fool walks through the street, in his lack of understanding he
calls everything foolish." -- Ecclesiastes 10:3, New American Bible

Gregory L. Hansen wrote:

I thought he was making a joke. "Misanthropic principle". It got a
little giggle from me, at least.


Well, it does include the right amount of Al's necessarily painful
irony, so I'd guess that you're probably right!... )))

Uncle Al wrote in message ...
abracad wrote:

The so-called anthropic principle points out how finely tuned the
universe is to support life.


Life is finely tuned to exist in the universe. There is no anthropic
principle.

Uncle Al's got it. What universe is this anthropic principle looking
at? The one which is 80-something percent composed of "dark matter"
and "dark energy" which is finely tuned to be completely
ununderstandable and imperceptible to us (except as necessary to
balance our ambitious equations -- more of a 'precise throwing up the
hands in defeat' than an intellect-friendly universe), plus being
99.astronomicalnumbersofnines percent unsupportable of our living
bodies? We're hiding in a 'corner', a sweet tit of a gravity well
which is by nature temporary and by the relative scales under
discussion UNBELEIVABLY BRIEF! I think this anthropic principle is
more of a vague 'final cause' thing to suppose that because we exist,
there must be some special place for us in the heart of the universe,
it must have planned to 'have' us all along. Just so happens I agree
with that........ doesn't mean, however, that part of our 'special
place' isn't to be wiped out suddenly with no chance to compose our
swan song and beam it into space to be inevitably received by some
intelligence who can appreciate it. We can't imagine an end or
beginning to our collective existence so it has to stretch to the
beginning and end of the universe to keep us from screaming. Fine,
build that, but keep in mind that it's a will-to-power...... that's an
IDEAL we'd like to CREATE...... and we CAN create it, but not by
pretending that's the way it....... IS, without us........ MAKING it.
The Stark Fist of Removal is ready at any time to cancel our show, and
if we don't have an exit strategy we can kiss our
eventually-'always-already'-anthropic-universe dreams goodbye.

"Ad Absurdum" wrote in message
m...
Uncle Al wrote in message
...
abracad wrote:

The so-called anthropic principle points out how finely tuned the
universe is to support life.


Life is finely tuned to exist in the universe. There is no anthropic
principle.

Uncle Al's got it. What universe is this anthropic principle looking
at? The one which is 80-something percent composed of "dark matter"
and "dark energy" which is finely tuned to be completely
ununderstandable and imperceptible to us (except as necessary to
balance our ambitious equations -- more of a 'precise throwing up the
hands in defeat' than an intellect-friendly universe), plus being
99.astronomicalnumbersofnines percent unsupportable of our living
bodies? We're hiding in a 'corner', a sweet tit of a gravity well
which is by nature temporary and by the relative scales under
discussion UNBELEIVABLY BRIEF! I think this anthropic principle is
more of a vague 'final cause' thing to suppose that because we exist,
there must be some special place for us in the heart of the universe,
it must have planned to 'have' us all along. Just so happens I agree
with that........ doesn't mean, however, that part of our 'special
place' isn't to be wiped out suddenly with no chance to compose our
swan song and beam it into space to be inevitably received by some
intelligence who can appreciate it. We can't imagine an end or
beginning to our collective existence so it has to stretch to the
beginning and end of the universe to keep us from screaming. Fine,
build that, but keep in mind that it's a will-to-power...... that's an
IDEAL we'd like to CREATE...... and we CAN create it, but not by
pretending that's the way it....... IS, without us........ MAKING it.
The Stark Fist of Removal is ready at any time to cancel our show, and
if we don't have an exit strategy we can kiss our
eventually-'always-already'-anthropic-universe dreams goodbye.


As I see it there is a detailed record that tells anyone
that wishes to take a look that from time to time
fecies occurs on this little ball.. Volcanoes erupt,
rocks fall from the sky, sun burps yada yada yada ....
And a new environ is created and if conditions allow
new form of life develop.. From a human perspective
there is only one way to maintain human evolution,
however modified, forever. Find a way to get off
this ball..... Sooner or later what has happened before
will happen again and there is only so much technology
can do to mediate the inevitable...

This place we call home is a tiny fraction of one
tick of the cosmological clock... We are a little
mold covering a chemical soup on a non-descript
ball spinning about a un-impressive star on
the far edge of a common place galaxy....

But the mind of man wishes for grandiose vistas,
To find reason in why he's here at this place and
time.. Well I'm here to answer that .....

Fecies Occurs..... And it could occur in
a billion places and life in variations we would
not recognize as life can form in a blink of a cosmic
eye and be over and gone in the same flash... Only
when any life finds a way to spread their genetic
signature across vast distances will it survive longer
than a cosmic second.....


Paul R. Mays
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
Some where within the Quantum State
Http://Paul.Mays.Com/story.html
http://paul.mays.com/mayday.html
http://paul.mays.com/rainy.html

"Science commits suicide when it adopts a creed."
- Thomas Henry Huxley

"abracad" wrote in message
om...
The so-called anthropic principle points out how finely tuned the
universe is to support life.

The anthropic principle doesn't do any such thing. Apparent fine tuning
leads some to resort to the anthropic principle.

However, is there any reason to believe
this is the only universe that exists or ever existed? Or is it likely
or possible that there could be an infinite number of other (less
anthropic) universes that co-exist woth this one or have existed
throughout eternity?

For the anthropic principle to apply to the fine tuning of physics to allow
our existence, it basically has to be the case that there were lots of
trials, either elsewhere or elsewhen. Sort of like having a multitude of
uninhabited planets for each one with intelligent life.

Mark Folsom