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Anthropic Cosmological Principle?

[a`la Scrut] Moving to the Andromeda galaxy? a new universe perhaps?

Is it a book? I know what it is as a principle of the philosophy of science; I wouldn't really recommend it as, say, evidence of intelligent design because of the mud puddle argument.
 
Elizabeth I said:
It is a book, by John D. Barrow, Frank J. Tipler, and John A. Wheeler.

Just wondering whether it's worth the time or not.
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If my memory serves me correctly, I wouldn't take some of Wheelers ideas too seriously. Wasn't he the "perception creates reality" guy? maybe not................
 
The main issue with the anthropic principle is the fast and loose way 'fine tuning' gets defined.

And from reading the chapter on the Big Bang and cosmology they seem to use the same sort of arguments.

I did not do more than skim it, and that is not really a good way to critique it, it looks very good and detailed until they get to the actual fine tuning part, then suddenly they veer into lack of precision and use of the word co-incidence.

There are a number of issues that come with the fine tuning argument in general, without GUT or string thery we can not really say what the free parameters are on the constants, so the amazing coincidences may be that or they may be part of the way that the constants have to be. Without GUT you can not say what level fo freedom theer actualy is in the constants. So the amazing coincidences, they may be or they may be not.

Then as is pointed out with other arguments, there is some variability in changing parameters, if you change one, then it leads to a collapse but if you change them together, then it does not. By collapse I mean some parameter that causes the universe to be drastically incompatable to life.

Then there is an argument about how much change could be possible, say that someone say "1% is the total amount this parameter could change", well that does not sound like much, but what if the possible incriments of change are .1%, then we have ten possible universes, .01% 100, .001% 1000... and so on. So again there are just as many speculative universes that don't collapse as the one that do.
 
Gawdzilla said:
Riggggghhhhhttttt. "If I wasn't here, the Universe wouldn't exist."
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I don't think I've heard the anthropic principle stated like that. I'm also not used to hearing (reading) 'anthropic cosmological principle' instead of just 'anthropic principle.' The statement 'the existence of intelligent observers determines the fundamental structure of the Universe' is prima facie ridiculous. Because we evolved. The universe had to exist long before intelligent life evolved. It's also obviously an ego-centric philosophy, which places us at the center and assumes that the universe was created for our benefit.

The anthropic principle I've heard and accept is almost tautological: If the universe were not hospitable to our existence, we wouldn't exist. Well, duh.
 
It's very old. I would get something more up to date.

One of the authors is.. off the rails... and 1988 was a long time ago.
 
Note that the entire idea is considerably deflated if, as numbers of cosmologists posit, there is more than one universe.
 
I understand the anthropic principle to simply say, "Given that we exist, the universe could not be such that it would be impossible for us to exist, so it doesn't make sense for us, who could not exist otherwise, to wonder why the universe doesn't have those particular qualities - if it did we wouldn't be around to ask the question."

Its sort of a variation on, "Given that I know X, I know not-Y, where Y is anything that would make the existence of X impossible." The problem that i have with it is that while that's all well, that's not an explanation of X, and should not be taken as one. There may be a deeper understanding available of how the conditions that allow X came to be.
 
Roboramma said:
I understand the anthropic principle to simply say, "Given that we exist, the universe could not be such that it would be impossible for us to exist, so it doesn't make sense for us, who could not exist otherwise, to wonder why the universe doesn't have those particular qualities - if it did we wouldn't be around to ask the question."

Its sort of a variation on, "Given that I know X, I know not-Y, where Y is anything that would make the existence of X impossible." The problem that i have with it is that while that's all well, that's not an explanation of X, and should not be taken as one. There may be a deeper understanding available of how the conditions that allow X came to be.
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I consider it an argument from ignorance on the largest possible scale. "If the universe wasn't meant for life, why is it here?"
 
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