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]

It's about time we resurrected this topic.

It is?

On the other hand, if an all-intelligent designer had selected the values, we might expect them to be positioned exactly in the "sweet spot".

Are you saying that the "sweet spot" should be exactly midway between the limits?

Ok I know Otseng will say that we can only observe this universe. True. So we should discount unobserved universe like x. True again. But that leaves fine tuning arguments mathematically meaningless. And certainly no argument for God.

Since you insist ... we can only observe this universe.

How does only observing this universe make fine tuning arguments meaningless?

[Furrowed Brow]

How does only observing this universe make fine tuning arguments meaningless?

Because the math is left incomplete. Worse still, we don't know how incomplete. To then pick out life as a property /aspect of this universe as improbable is mathematically meaningless.

[QED]

It's about time we resurrected this topic.

It is?

I think so, because for many (whether consciously aware of it or not) the apparent providence that supports us leads to the fundamental belief that we are meant to be here. Such a belief prematurely closes-off several other possibilities.

On the other hand, if an all-intelligent designer had selected the values, we might expect them to be positioned exactly in the "sweet spot".

Are you saying that the "sweet spot" should be exactly midway between the limits?

Just to be clear, for "life as we know it captain" we're already in a "sweet spot". But the spot isn't a point. The precise numerical value for any given constant is a point and it could deviate anywhere within the spot. Observer self-selection would be expected to draw numbers away from the exact centre of the spot as "There are likely to be many more universes (or cosmic domains) in which the circumstances for life are only just met than those in which the necessary conditions are met with a large margin to spare. In other words, there should be many more universes in which life is a close call than ones in which the degree of bio-friendliness is unnecessarily precise." (Davies 2006, p198)

Ok I know Otseng will say that we can only observe this universe. True. So we should discount unobserved universe like x. True again. But that leaves fine tuning arguments mathematically meaningless. And certainly no argument for God.

Since you insist ... we can only observe this universe.

How does only observing this universe make fine tuning arguments meaningless?

We could answer this in many ways, and I'm sure we've already covered it many times over. But here's the most succinct way I can think of putting it: Because meaning is always dependent on context. If we don't know the context of our universe, we can't ascribe meaning to it in the way you would like to do so.

[otseng]

The puddle argument then kicks in with full force. We are part of the puddle that fits its surroundings because if our surroundings were different then the puddle would be different. And we could not observe the puddle as it is, because we would not be here as observers.

I've never really understood the puddle argument.

The analogy that I see more apropos is the firing squad execution. A person is blindfolded and lined up to be shot. He hears "fire!" Then to his surprise, he did not get shot. He reasons, "I did not get shot because I'm here." If we stopped here, it would simply be a truism. But, suppose he finds out that there is a 0.0001% chance of each gunman to miss. And that 1000 gunmen shot at him. Then he can conclude either he got extremely lucky or that some sort of intervention happened. This is the main thrust of the AP argument. Either we got very lucky (which is highly improbable) or that some intelligent intervention happened.

[otseng]

Just to be clear, for "life as we know it captain" we're already in a "sweet spot". But the spot isn't a point. The precise numerical value for any given constant is a point and it could deviate anywhere within the spot.

Just because Maria Sharapova does not hit all balls in the exact center of her racquet does not mean that she is not a good player. If she hits all balls in the sweet spot, it would indicate that she is.

[otseng]

How does only observing this universe make fine tuning arguments meaningless?

Because the math is left incomplete. Worse still, we don't know how incomplete. To then pick out life as a property /aspect of this universe as improbable is mathematically meaningless.

Somehow I don't find that very compelling. If all we can observe is our own universe, we should be able to make deductions that apply to our own universe. We don't need to know about other universes to make meaningful statements about our own universe.

Here is one clear example of fine-tuning in our own universe:

The figure above shows a(t) for three models with three different densities at a time 1 nanosecond after the Big Bang. The black curve shows the critical density case with density = 447,225,917,218,507,401,284,016 gm/cc. Adding only 1 gm/cc to this 447 sextillion gm/cc causes the Big Crunch to be right now! Taking away 1 gm/cc gives a model with Ω that is too low for our observations. Thus the density 1 ns after the Big Bang was set to an accuracy of better than 1 part in 447 sextillion. Even earlier it was set to an accuracy better than 1 part in 10E59! Since if the density is slightly high, the Universe will die in an early Big Crunch, this is called the "oldness" problem in cosmology. And since the critical density Universe has flat spatial geometry, it is also called the "flatness" problem -- or the "flatness-oldness" problem. Whatever the mechanism for setting the density to equal the critical density, it works extremely well, and it would be a remarkable coincidence if Ωo were close to 1 but not exactly 1.

http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/cosmo_03.htm

[QED]

[quote=""otseng"]If all we can observe is our own universe, we should be able to make deductions that apply to our own universe.[/quote]
Not if they rely on knowledge of context. If all you can see is a lone Indian, you cannot insist that all Indians walk in single file. In your firing squad analogy you are using an example that we're reasonably familiar with. We know that there are (realtively) very few people being lined-up against the wall to be shot. Having 1000 marksmen doing the shooting distracts us from the poverty of the analogy: you say it's extremely lucky that they all missed, but what if 500 billion executions happen like this every day? (one for every solar system in our galaxy). Before the invention of telescopes, who would have thought that such a number of stars made up a galaxy? If you don't know this kind of detail and your estimate of luck relies on it then it's a totally worthless estimate.

[quote=""otseng"]
We don't need to know about other universes to make meaningful statements about our own universe.[/quote]
Well swap the universe for a lone indian and then try to make a meaningful statement based on the numericy of Indians and you should begin to see the problem with your idea.

[QED]

[quote=""otseng"]If all we can observe is our own universe, we should be able to make deductions that apply to our own universe.[/quote]
Not if they rely on knowledge of context. If all you can see is a lone Indian, you cannot insist that all Indians walk in single file. In your firing squad analogy you are using an example that we're reasonably familiar with. We know that there are (relatively) very few people being lined-up against the wall to be shot. Having 1000 marksmen doing the shooting distracts us from the poverty of the analogy: you say it's extremely lucky that they all missed, but what if something in the order of 500 billion executions happen like this every day? (one for every solar system in our galaxy). Before the invention of telescopes, who would have thought that such a number of stars made up a galaxy? If you don't know this kind of detail and your estimate of luck relies on it then it's a totally worthless estimate.
[quote=""otseng"]
We don't need to know about other universes to make meaningful statements about our own universe.[/quote]
Well swap the universe for a lone Indian and then try to make a meaningful statement based on the numeracy of Indians and you should begin to see the problem with your concept.

[Goat]

The puddle argument then kicks in with full force. We are part of the puddle that fits its surroundings because if our surroundings were different then the puddle would be different. And we could not observe the puddle as it is, because we would not be here as observers.

I've never really understood the puddle argument.

The analogy that I see more apropos is the firing squad execution. A person is blindfolded and lined up to be shot. He hears "fire!" Then to his surprise, he did not get shot. He reasons, "I did not get shot because I'm here." If we stopped here, it would simply be a truism. But, suppose he finds out that there is a 0.0001% chance of each gunman to miss. And that 1000 gunmen shot at him. Then he can conclude either he got extremely lucky or that some sort of intervention happened. This is the main thrust of the AP argument. Either we got very lucky (which is highly improbable) or that some intelligent intervention happened.

I think that is a bad analogy.

I look at more along the lines of a lottery. There are millions of winning combinations.. yet only one actually wins. SOMEONE wins, and thinks therefore they are special.

[QED]

Just because Maria Sharapova does not hit all balls in the exact center of her racquet does not mean that she is not a good player. If she hits all balls in the sweet spot, it would indicate that she is.

Well it would mean that God wasn't the mathematical perfectionist that many would imagine he was. But you're missing the value of this: if the limits for each constant were determined and the actual values were in the exact middle, then we would know that this is too lucky to be true --