The Anthropic Principle.

[spiney]

This was “extremely trendy” just a few years ago, provoking much controversy (with many accusations of it being pseudoscience, or just plain gibberish), but seems to have almost vanished now. Why?

The weak anthropic principle (WAP) is just a truisim, it says that for human beings to exist then physical conditions must permit this, which fixes the values of various physical constants in the universe. etc. OK, yeah, but so what?

The strong anthropic principle (SAP) says the universe was designed (!) so that life would “have to” emerge. An updated version – perhaps – of Paley’s Watch. A more recent version appears in Carl Sagan’s novel Contact. This strongly appeals to number mystics, who feel that maths is “much too unreasonably effective in explaining things” (eg, Plato, Wigner), so must somehow exist independently “out there” - outside our minds - so therefore has been “created”.

The final anthropic principle (FAP) says that intelligent life is the teleological end of the universe, a thought first philosophically voiced by Aristotle, more recently by Teilhard De Chardin (the “Omega Point”). The most recent version of this involves quantum theory’s “collapse of the wave function” (we all accept that happens, right???), with observers “selecting” the universe they live in, out of infinite other possibilities.

Lots of people have thought this was all just complete balls. Famous skeptic and debunker Martin Gardner proposed the completely ridiculous anthropic principle.

As Auberon Waugh used to say: “I don’t know, what do other people think?”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle .

www.anthropic-principle.com/ .

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omega_point .

http://www.math.tulane.edu/~tipler/summary.html .

((( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wavefunction_collapse ))).

 

[spiney]

(Right Brain: Look, Spiney, will you never learn? People just aren't interested in this highly abstract stuff! What you should really do is say something like: "Women? Huh, aren't they unpredicatable!". That will get lots of replies ....).

(Left Brain: That's very pessimistic, Spiney! Let's see if things might be expressed rather better ...).

Ah, no response so far, so putting things a bit differently .......

Are things really there when nobody is looking at them?

(No, Spiney, that's even worse ....).

(Spiney, let's just see what happens .....).

 

[BGonaSTICK]

There's enough real science to be getting on with, without creating pretend science.

You could spend your whole life just catching up with what everyone else has already proven as indisputable fact, so who's got time to play mental silly bu99ers?

;)

 

[Lancelot]

Are things really there when nobody is looking at them?

Don't get me started on Schrodingers cat


L.

 

[spiney]

Well, there's some debate about whether or not the Anthropic Principle is gibberish, but it's certainly "real science" (ie, not pseudoscience).

"the world is not only stranger than we imagine, it's stranger than we can possibly imagine" (or something like!), JBS Haldane.

(er, oops, that quote was Eddington - thanks to my poor memory - so here's the Haldane version:
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/J._B._S._Haldane ).

 

[Channel Hopper]

I'll stick with the 'complete balls' idea.

 

[Sir Bronking]

(Right Brain: Look, Spiney, will you never learn? People just aren't interested in this highly abstract stuff!

just found .... my 2 peneth

1. many years ago people came up with simple theories to explain all sorts of things eg eclipses....goes dark.....the gods aint happy, the sun revolves around the earth, or the earth is the centre of the universe....whatever?

2. in todays modern science we now over analise things whereby by results come from complicated theories.

3. so therefor these complicated theories give rise to selective ingrediants

4. the anthropic priciple = cooking the books

to think that we must be the end of the chain of events and are therfor the most evoluted(is that a word?) presence in this universe is wishfull thinking on a grand scale, at the end of the day darwin's take on evolution is correct but whose to say other lifeforms haven't had millions of years head start?

hopefully my take makes sense agreed or not

or as CH would say....

 

[spiney]

This situation is now getting "quite interesting".

Previously, I've complained about other people introducing pseudo science, eg Cavorite, perpetual motion, etc, and now I'm accused ot it!

Quantum mechanics is pretty damn strange! Einstein hated it ("the Old One does not play dice" (ie, Spinoza's God)), and Richard Feynman said that if you think you understand it, you don't!

So, the wave function really does collapse (at some point!), and after the Aspect Experiment, we know for a fact that reality is non local (ie, "something" propogates instantly, although there's no way you can use it to send a signal!).

The same experimentally derived sceince which gives such results also gives us Bloch Functions, electron waves in a crystal lattice, which makes transistors possible. Very real stuff indeed, so hardly pseudosceince.

One objection to the Anthropic Principle is it's probably a truism, hence a tautology, hence meaningless.

 

[spiney]

I've just - literally - tripped up over my copy of Barrow and Tipler's The Anthropic Cosmological Principle, which I haven't looked at for years. How about that for a coincidence?

But, the message is clear, nobody is interested in this!

Thread closed ...... ???

 

[Channel Hopper]

But, the message is clear, nobody is interested in this!
Thread closed ...... ???

Not at all, who is to say the rock under your feet , or the woodlouse under the floorboards isn't imagining up some philosophical argument as to their own existence, just that their own experiences dont recognise homo sapien as being an advance life form over their own.

The woodlouse is almost unchanged in form for eons (and therefore virtually perfect as a first draft creation), the rock doesn't even need to be on the planet to survive, and has probably seen a few alternative places in the universe before stopping on Earth.

Its a human thing to counjour up ideas that they can write down and argue over until the pub closes, to be quietly forgotten when another thesis knocks them into the 'complete balls' hat.

 

[spiney]

Pardon me, but for the strong anthropic principle to work, there has to be an observer And, I don't think a rock observes very much!

Mind you, at this time of night, there's not much difference t'wixt me and a rock ....

 

[Channel Hopper]

And, I don't think a rock observes very much!

The case rests.;)

 

[spiney]

There is a very fine line between "hobby" and "mental illness"

Yes, quite true!

To properly engage with any academic subject, especially physical science, you need devotion, years of learning and experience, discipline, etc ....

Take that just a bit further, and you become obsessional ......

Tak it further still, and you become eccentric and cranky ......

(upon which, also see greatest inventors thread).

Well, nobody wants to discuss The Anthropic Principle, fair enough! But, "the case rests", what case?

 

[BGonaSTICK]

LOL, I guess many of us would like to remain on the fringes of "eccentric and cranky..."

 

[Channel Hopper]

Well, nobody wants to discuss The Anthropic Principle, fair enough! But, "the case rests", what case?

You have just confirmed that a human will happily assume something to enable them to maintain their own importance, falsly believing that they are at the top of the evolution / intelligence or even the sentient tree.

Humans cannot detect or in any way sense that a rock has conscience, empathy or a desire to travel round the universe. But given the vastness of space, and the long periods of extreme low temperatures (where many materials will experience superconductivity), there is a good chance that over eons, individual fragments of the rock are able to communicate with others.
Once it reaches a spot inhabited by life forms such as ours, the rise in temperature will close those connections, and a period of inactivity will result, but once the world that the rock has landed (and become a part of) is disrupted by the next cataclysmic event and blown blown out of reach of the sun, the activty will start again.

 

[BGonaSTICK]

... but maybe it's already too late for CH!

Enjoy chatting to your rocks gentlemen. You are all bonkers.

 

[Topper]

...
Enjoy chatting to your rocks gentlemen. You are all bonkers.

Have just ordered the straight jackets for you lot but I am now wondering if it would be safer for me to grab one

 

[spiney]

As Ken Campbell says: "I'm not mad, I just read different books".

http://www.leaderu.com/offices/billcraig/docs/barrow.html .
http://www.reasons.org/resources/apologetics/design.shtml.
http://quasar.as.utexas.edu/anthropic.html

...... and so on.

It might be wrong, but it isn't rubbish.

 

[BGonaSTICK]

It might be wrong, but it isn't rubbish.

ROFLMAO!

 

[Channel Hopper]

It might be wrong, but it isn't rubbish.

Er, you haven't disupted my last post either

Maybe we are on the same wavelength, but in different universes.