Anthropic Principle

[otseng]

This topic is an offshoot from Does God exist or not? Since this topic is a huge area of debate, I'm making this have it's own thread.

So, the question of debate is...
Does the Anthropic Principle point to the existence of God?

First, let's give some definitions of the Anthropic Principle (AP).

Wikipedia:
"Any valid theory of the universe must be consistent with our existence as carbon-based human beings at this particular time and place in the universe."

Philosophy Pages:
"Belief that the existence of human life entails certain features of the physical world. In a minimal form, this view merely points out that we would not be here to observe natural phenomena were they not compatible with our existence. Stronger versions of the anthropic principle, however, seem to rely upon the idealistic notion that the universe could not exist without intelligent observers."

Augustine Fellowship:
"The observation that the universe has all the necessary and narrowly-defined characteristics to make man and his sustained existence possible. The view that the universe is conspicuously 'fine-tuned' for human existence. "

[otseng]

This is the same incorrect position that you've been placing yourself into. Out of all those solar systems, I've shown that the probability of there being one lucky survivor could be 100%.

I'm not sure what you are referring to by all of the solar systems. The example that I gave was the critical density for a flat universe. This would only apply at the universe level.

That is the whole point of my analogy! I'm not saying that there is any proof in the existence of these other universes -- but the potential for their existence is not something that can be dismissed for the purposes of estimating probabilities regarding fine-tuning.

Why should the potential for the existence of other universes be readily considered while the potential for an intelligent cause be readily dismissed?

For the math to be correct you need to ensure every variable is included - for the eventual number to be meaningful.

I'm not saying that I know the exact odds of having a flat universe. But, when I see that there is only one number that can generate a flat universe, and it is such a large number, it would appear that the odds of this randomly happening is quite small.

But, evidence for fine-tuning is not only seen in the critical density, but to many other observations about our universe, such as the 26 dimensionless fundamental physical constants. As more observations are found of fine-tuning, it would make random chance successively less probable.

If one dropped thousands of iron marbles in a chamber and adjusted the magnetic field in that chamber just so, that the marbles formed a teapot, we would perceive a teapot, but we know that it is just an arrangement of spherical marbles subject to the electromagnetic demands of the chamber.

By adjusting the magnetic field, you are the intelligent cause. If the marbles were to randomly form a teapot, would you simply attribute it to random chance and it was luck? Or would you suspect someone had fiddled with the magnetic field?

[Furrowed Brow]

I'm not saying that I know the exact odds of having a flat universe.

Exactly? Not at all - we don’t know what is written on the tickets left inside the tom bola. Just because we have drawn a ticket with a critical number on, gives us no valid means for inferring what is written on the losing tickets.

But, when I see that there is only one number that can generate a flat universe, and it is such a large number, it would appear that the odds of this randomly happening is quite small.

You need to be careful here Otseng. You are in danger of conflating two different probabilities. The first tom bola analogy I gave supports the very big number that you are falling back on. Fine. Analysed from that perspective the odds look huge. But that is only part of the picture, and you cannot use that number to inform how you analyse the situation from the perspective of the second tom bola analogy. At some point you are really going to have to let go of that number in support of fine tuning.

But, evidence for fine-tuning is not only seen in the critical density, but to many other observations about our universe, such as the 26 dimensionless fundamental physical constants. As more observations are found of fine-tuning, it would make random chance successively less probable.

No. There is still a fundamental problem

Back to the tom bola analogy. Lets say there are multiple critical numbers that define this universe. When we draw the winning ticket from the tom bola all those number are written on the ticket. However, we still do not know what is written on the losing tickets.

We can’t say - well there appear to be a lot of number on this ticket, I don’t think that can be likely - because we don’t know the likelihood of a ticket having multiple critical numbers left inside the tom bola. True if our ticket is the only ticket (or one of a vry few) with mutiple numbers then you are right, but as we have only pulled the one ticket, we cannot say it is the only one, and we have no means for deducing what’s left inside the tom bola, until we look, or someone comes up with a means for a systematic analysis that allows us to quantify what might be inside the tom bola.

What you’ve got Otseng is a gut feeling that the winning ticket has more critical numbers on it than the losing tickets. But gut feelings don’t make for mathematical arguments. there are no mathematical argument from improbability that in any way support fine tuning. And one day I'm going to convince you of that.

[QED]

This is the same incorrect position that you've been placing yourself into. Out of all those solar systems, I've shown that the probability of there being one lucky survivor could be 100%.

I'm not sure what you are referring to by all of the solar systems. The example that I gave was the critical density for a flat universe. This would only apply at the universe level.

I'm sorry to have to tell you that you've rather "lost the thread" here. The other solar systems we were considering were those in the universe in which you constructed your execution analogy -- the one with 1000 marksmen. Your victim was astounded that they all missed and couldn't bring himself to consider that this was just pure luck. We, here in the real world, would be inclined to agree with him because we know that in reality executions by firing squad are rather rare, so the one in a billion outcome wouldn't be expected to pop-up and save us.

We would, however, have to reconsider our reaction if we knew that despite the tiny odds of this outcome, there were in fact zillions of similar executions going on all the time (I introduced 500 billion solar systems to create a space for all this imaginary blood-letting). Thus the victim in the modified analogy, just like the national lottery winner in the real world, could sigh a deep sigh of relief knowing that the odds were on that one individual on some planet (somewhere in the nation) was likely to get a "lucky" break with so much shooting (lottery participation) going on all around them.

Now, I could have left out all those other planets and crammed all the carnage onto our own Earth for the sake of the analogy. But by introducing the greater space of possibility in the form of "other worlds" you should now see that the way we view our luck may depend on factors that are unknown to us.

That is the whole point of my analogy! I'm not saying that there is any proof in the existence of these other universes -- but the potential for their existence is not something that can be dismissed for the purposes of estimating probabilities regarding fine-tuning.

Why should the potential for the existence of other universes be readily considered while the potential for an intelligent cause be readily dismissed?

I would have hoped by now that you had spotted that I don't necessarily dismiss an intelligent cause; I have never completely ruled out God or, even more likely a possibility, a natural intelligence of some advanced kind that tinkers with universe making. What I am determined to make you understand is that some of these other possibilities cannot be dismissed so easily -- especially if we consider that "more of the same" is often the way things go. We know a universe can exist, we can't give a reason why others couldn't. I've said before that a multiverse can be functionally equivalent to God and I think you should concede this point just as I concede that the ambiguity is still open. unfortunately, as you would seem to depend on faith for your belief, your concession is unlikely.

[otseng]

Exactly? Not at all - we don’t know what is written on the tickets left inside the tom bola. Just because we have drawn a ticket with a critical number on, gives us no valid means for inferring what is written on the losing tickets.

Well, the other tickets would be losing tickets for sure.

You need to be careful here Otseng. You are in danger of conflating two different probabilities. The first tom bola analogy I gave supports the very big number that you are falling back on. Fine. Analysed from that perspective the odds look huge. But that is only part of the picture, and you cannot use that number to inform how you analyse the situation from the perspective of the second tom bola analogy. At some point you are really going to have to let go of that number in support of fine tuning.

Let me be clear on your second analogy.

You stated: "So yes that “critical density 447,225,917,218,507,401,284,016 gm/cc) = only flat universe.” is highly improbable, but we lack knowledge of how many other critical universes there could have been."

So, are you saying that since we don't know how many other universes could have tikered around with the critical density then we cannot make any deductions from our observations?

What you’ve got Otseng is a gut feeling that the winning ticket has more critical numbers on it than the losing tickets. But gut feelings don’t make for mathematical arguments. there are no mathematical argument from improbability that in any way support fine tuning. And one day I'm going to convince you of that.

My gut feeling is that the critical density seems too precise to attribute it to extreme luck.

I'm sorry to have to tell you that you've rather "lost the thread" here. The other solar systems we were considering were those in the universe in which you constructed your execution analogy -- the one with 1000 marksmen. Your victim was astounded that they all missed and couldn't bring himself to consider that this was just pure luck. We, here in the real world, would be inclined to agree with him because we know that in reality executions by firing squad are rather rare, so the one in a billion outcome wouldn't be expected to pop-up and save us.

If we look at it beforehand and analyze firing squad executions in all of the universe, then of course that the odds of one of them surviving would be higher. But, if we look at a specific instance, and that specific instance lived, then we can suspect that he could not have simply defied the odds.

I would have hoped by now that you had spotted that I don't necessarily dismiss an intelligent cause; I have never completely ruled out God or, even more likely a possibility, a natural intelligence of some advanced kind that tinkers with universe making. What I am determined to make you understand is that some of these other possibilities cannot be dismissed so easily -- especially if we consider that "more of the same" is often the way things go.

Sorry, I hadn't spotted that.

What would make the multiverse more convincing to me if there existed a set of evidence for their existence. If these can be produced, I would not dismiss it easily.

[Furrowed Brow]

You stated: "So yes that “critical density 447,225,917,218,507,401,284,016 gm/cc) = only flat universe.” is highly improbable, but we lack knowledge of how many other critical universes there could have been."

So, are you saying that since we don't know how many other universes could have tikered around with the critical density then we cannot make any deductions from our observations?

The critical number written on a losing ticket can be a number for any feature. Not necessarily density. And it can be some feature that does not exist in this universe.

Now I'm not saying there are any other critical numbers, all the losing tickets could be blank, in which case the winning ticket really is special. but they also all could have a critical number or a list of critical numbers, or just some proportion of losing tickets could have critical numbers.

You have consistently taken the line that we can only observe this universe. Well that is like saying don't look in the tombola. In which case the winning numbers, though on the winning ticket, are themselves meaningless. This is QED's point. You have no context within which to evaluate the probability of there being a critical number. To work out the probability of a ticket being pulled with a critical number written on it you need to know what's inside the tombola.

So to be clear: i'm not saying the mystery contents of the tombola contradicts fine tuning. what i'm saying is that your math does not take it into consideration, and as such is inadequate to draw any fine tuning conclusion.

[Cathar1950]

I wonder what the odds are for us making it in the present universe?
I can't help but think it is so obvious that we fit the universe because it is the universe that has created us or where we evolved. We seem to fit in the universe naturally but not perfectly, depending on your values of course.
That we find things pleasant or unpleasant goes back millions of years where it seems to be shared my many other living creatures.

The Anthropic Principle does seem rather egotistical but maybe something that can't be helped as are interests are meaningful to us.

Mostly this has been a pretty good thread and I have probably learned something that hasn't even dawned on me yet.

[QED]

I'm sorry to have to tell you that you've rather "lost the thread" here. The other solar systems we were considering were those in the universe in which you constructed your execution analogy -- the one with 1000 marksmen. Your victim was astounded that they all missed and couldn't bring himself to consider that this was just pure luck. We, here in the real world, would be inclined to agree with him because we know that in reality executions by firing squad are rather rare, so the one in a billion outcome wouldn't be expected to pop-up and save us.

If we look at it beforehand and analyze firing squad executions in all of the universe, then of course that the odds of one of them surviving would be higher.

Right, and we know this because we have a "birds-eye view" of the full context within which some individual, somewhere, could get lucky.

But, if we look at a specific instance, and that specific instance lived, then we can suspect that he could not have simply defied the odds.

That's what it would seem like, once we lose our "birds-eye view" and limit ourselves to thinking that this particular execution was the only one taking place.

So now you've got the picuture... watching the execution taking place on the home planet of the lucky prisoner, and being oblivious of all the other planets conducting daily executions, it would indeed seem remarkable that all the bullets missed. But this judgment is based on a lack of context as we know that with sufficient numbers of executions, one is bound to beat the odds somewhere.

What would make the multiverse more convincing to me if there existed a set of evidence for their existence. If these can be produced, I would not dismiss it easily.

I still don't think you've quite got the message here. It's not about having a convincing argument to support the existence of a multiverse. It's about not being at liberty to dismiss it AND then going on to talk about unbelievable amounts of luck in having Goldilocks values for the constants. This is, after all, what leads you to conclude that they've been "put in by hand", and we've shown that this judgment can only be made with the benefit of a "birds-eye view" -- one that would either show our universe as a solitary Island of existence amidst an infinite void, or a bubble amidst an effectively infinite foam of other bubbles.

[QED]

Today I would like to add that I don't like the multiverse (in any of it's instantiations) any more than God as an explanation (so long as they're both untestable). It's because of the ambiguity inherent in their functional equivalence that I don't go around professing a belief in either. If the faithful have other reasons for their belief in the existence of God then the multiverse, while it remains unproved, does nothing other than prevent from them pointing to apparent fine-tuning as unequivocal evidence for their beliefs.