Anthropic principle
Encyclopedia
In astrophysics
and cosmology
, the anthropic principle is the philosophical argument
that observations of the physical Universe
must be compatible with the conscious life
that observes it. Some proponents of the argument reason that it explains why the Universe has the age and the fundamental physical constants necessary to accommodate conscious life. As a result, they believe that the fact is unremarkable that the universe's fundamental constants happen to fall within the narrow range thought to allow life
.
The strong anthropic principle (SAP) as explained by Barrow
and Tipler (see variants) states that this is all the case because the Universe is compelled, in some sense, to have conscious life eventually emerge. On the other hand, in a sufficiently large universe, some worlds might evolve
conscious life regardless of adverse conditions. Douglas Adams
used the metaphor of a living puddle examining its own shape, since, to those living creatures, the universe may appear to fit them perfectly (while in fact, they simply fit the universe perfectly). Critics argue in favor of a weak anthropic principle (WAP) similar to the one defined by Brandon Carter
(see variants), which states that the universe's ostensible fine tuning
is the result of selection bias
, i.e. in the long term, only survivors can observe and report their location in time and space.
that the laws of nature and parameters of the Universe take on values that are consistent with conditions for life as we know it rather than a set of values that would not be consistent with life as observed on Earth
. The anthropic principle states that this phenomenon is a necessity because living observers wouldn't be able to exist, and hence, observe the Universe, were these laws and constants not constituted in this way.
The term anthropic in "anthropic principle" has been argued to be a misnomer
. While singling out our kind of carbon-based life, none of the finely tuned phenomena require human
life or some kind of carbon chauvinism
. Any form of intelligent life would do; so, specifying carbon-based life, per se, is irrelevant.
The anthropic principle has given rise to some confusion and controversy, partly because the phrase has been applied to several distinct ideas. All versions of the principle have been accused of discouraging the search for a deeper physical understanding of the universe. The anthropic principle is often criticized for lacking falsifiability
and therefore critics of the anthropic principle may point out that the anthropic principle is a non-scientific concept, even though the weak anthropic principle, "conditions that are observed in the universe must allow the observer to exist", is "easy" to support in mathematics and philosophy, i.e. it is a tautology
or truism
. However, building a substantive argument based on a tautological foundation is problematic. Stronger variants of the anthropic principle are not tautologies and thus make claims considered controversial by some and that are contingent upon empirical verification.
, as seen by living observers, cannot be random. Instead, biological factors constrain the universe to be more or less in a "golden age," neither too young nor too old. If the universe were one tenth as old as its present age, there would not have been sufficient time to build up appreciable levels of
metallicity
(levels of elements besides hydrogen
and helium
) especially carbon
, by nucleosynthesis
. Small rocky planets did not yet exist. If the universe were 10 times older than it actually is, most stars would be too old to remain on the main sequence
and would have turned into white dwarf
s, aside from the dimmest red dwarf
s, and stable planetary systems would have already come to an end. Thus Dicke explained away the rough coincidence between large dimensionless numbers constructed from the constants of physics and the age of the universe, a coincidence which had inspired Dirac's varying-G theory
.
Dicke later reasoned that the density of matter in the universe must be almost exactly the critical density needed to prevent the Big Crunch
(the "Dicke coincidences" argument
). The most recent measurements may suggest that the observed density of baryon
ic matter, and some theoretical predictions of the amount of dark matter
account for about 30% of this critical density, with the rest contributed by a cosmological constant
. Steven Weinberg
gave an anthropic explanation for this fact: he noted that the cosmological constant has a remarkably low value, some 120 orders of magnitude smaller than the value particle physics
predicts (this has been described as the "worst prediction in physics"). However, if the cosmological constant were more than about 10 times its observed value, the universe would suffer catastrophic inflation
, which would preclude the formation of stars, and hence life.
The observed values of the dimensionless physical constant
s (such as the fine-structure constant
) governing the four fundamental interaction
s are balanced as if fine-tuned
to permit the formation of commonly found matter and subsequently the emergence of life. A slight increase in the strong nuclear force would bind the dineutron
and the diproton
, and nuclear fusion
would have converted all hydrogen in the early universe to helium
. Water and the long-lived stable stars essential for the emergence of life would not exist. More generally, small changes in the relative strengths of the four fundamental interactions can greatly affect the universe's age, structure, and capacity for life.
's contribution to a 1973 Kraków
symposium
honouring Copernicus's
500th birthday. Carter, a theoretical astrophysicist, articulated the Anthropic Principle in reaction to the Copernican Principle
, which states that humans do not occupy a privileged position in the Universe
. As Carter said: "Although our situation is not necessarily central, it is inevitably privileged to some extent." Specifically, Carter disagreed with using the Copernican principle to justify the Perfect Cosmological Principle
, which states that all large regions and times in the universe must be statistically identical. The latter principle underlay the steady-state theory, which had recently been falsified by the 1965 discovery of the cosmic microwave background radiation
. This discovery was unequivocal evidence that the universe has changed radically over time (for example, via the Big Bang
).
Carter defined two forms of the Anthropic Principle, a "weak" one which referred only to anthropic selection of privileged spacetime
locations in the universe, and a more controversial "strong" form which addressed the values of the fundamental constants of physics.
Roger Penrose
explained the weak form as follows:
One reason this is plausible is that there are many other places and times in which we can imagine finding ourselves. But when applying the strong principle, we only have one Universe, with one set of fundamental parameters, so what exactly is the point being made? Carter offers two possibilities: First, we can use our own existence to make "predictions" about the parameters. But second, "as a last resort", we can convert these predictions into explanations by assuming that there is more than one Universe, in fact a large and possibly infinite collection of universes, something that is now called a multiverse
("world ensemble" was Carter's term), in which the parameters (and perhaps the laws of physics) vary across universes. The strong principle then becomes an example of a selection effect, exactly analogous to the weak principle. Postulating a multiverse is certainly a radical step, but taking it could provide at least a partial answer to a question which had seemed to be out of the reach of normal science: "why do the fundamental laws of physics take the particular form we observe and not another?"
Since Carter's 1973 paper, the term "Anthropic Principle" has been extended to cover a number of ideas which differ in important ways from those he espoused. Particular confusion was caused in 1986 by the book The Anthropic Cosmological Principle by John D. Barrow
and Frank Tipler, published that year which distinguished between "weak" and "strong" anthropic principle in a way very different from Carter's, as discussed in the next section.
Carter was not the first to invoke some form of the anthropic principle. In fact, the evolutionary biologist Alfred Russel Wallace
anticipated the anthropic principle as long ago as 1904: "Such a vast and complex universe as that which we know exists around us, may have been absolutely required ... in order to produce a world that should be precisely adapted in every detail for the orderly development of life culminating in man." In 1957, Robert Dicke wrote: "The age of the Universe 'now' is not random but conditioned by biological factors ... [changes in the values of the fundamental constants of physics] would preclude the existence of man to consider the problem."
): "we must be prepared to take account of the fact that our location in the universe is necessarily privileged to the extent of being compatible with our existence as observers." Note that for Carter, "location" refers to our location in time as well as space.
Strong anthropic principle (SAP) (Carter): "the Universe (and hence the fundamental parameters
on which it depends) must be such as to admit the creation of observers within it at some stage. To paraphrase Descartes, cogito ergo mundus talis est."The Latin tag ("I think, therefore the world is such [as it is]") makes it clear that "must" indicates a deduction
from the fact of our existence; the statement is thus a truism
.
In their 1986 book, The Anthropic Cosmological Principle, John Barrow
and Frank Tipler depart from Carter and define the WAP and SAP as follows:
Weak anthropic principle (WAP) (Barrow and Tipler): "The observed values of all physical and cosmological quantities are not equally probable but they take on values restricted by the requirement that there exist sites where carbon-based life
can evolve
and by the requirements that the Universe be old enough for it to have already done so."Unlike Carter they restrict the principle to carbon-based life, rather than just "observers." A more important difference is that they apply the WAP to the fundamental physical constants, such as the fine structure constant, the number of spacetime dimensions, and the cosmological constant
—, topics that fall under Carter's SAP.
Strong anthropic principle (SAP) (Barrow and Tipler): "The Universe must have those properties which allow life to develop within it at some stage in its history."This looks very similar to Carter's SAP, but unlike the case with Carter's SAP, the "must" is an imperative, as shown by the following three possible elaborations of the SAP, each proposed by Barrow and Tipler:
Modified anthropic principle (MAP) (Schmidhuber): The 'problem' of existence is only relevant to a species capable of formulating the question. Prior to Homo sapiens' intellectual evolution to the point where the nature of the observed universe - and humans' place within same - spawned deep inquiry into its origins, the 'problem' simply did not exist.
The philosophers John Leslie and Nick Bostrom
reject the Barrow and Tipler SAP as a fundamental misreading of Carter. For Bostrom, Carter's anthropic principle just warns us to make allowance for anthropic bias, that is, the bias created by anthropic selection effects (which Bostrom calls "observation" selection effects) — the necessity for observers to exist in order to get a result. He writes:
Strong self-sampling assumption (SSSA)
(Bostrom
): "Each observer-moment should reason as if it were randomly selected from the class of all observer-moments in its reference class." Analysing an observer's experience into a sequence of "observer-moments" helps avoid certain paradoxes; but the main ambiguity is the selection of the appropriate "reference class": for Carter's WAP this might correspond to all real or potential observer-moments in our universe; for the SAP, to all in the multiverse. Bostrom's mathematical development shows that choosing either too broad or too narrow a reference class leads to counter-intuitive results, but he is not able to prescribe an ideal choice.
According to Jürgen Schmidhuber
, the anthropic principle essentially just says that the conditional probability
of finding yourself in a universe compatible with your existence is always 1. It does not allow for any additional nontrivial predictions such as "gravity won't change tomorrow." To gain more predictive power, additional assumptions on the prior distribution of alternative universes
are necessary.
Playwright and novelist Michael Frayn
describes a form of the Strong Anthropic Principle in his 2006 book The Human Touch, which explores what he characterises as "the central oddity of the Universe":
and initial conditions for the Big Bang
. Carter and others have argued that life as we know it would not be possible in most such universes. In other words, the universe we are in is fine tuned
to permit life. Collins & Hawking (1973) characterized Carter's then-unpublished big idea as the postulate that "there is not one universe but a whole infinite ensemble of universes with all possible initial conditions". If this is granted, the anthropic principle provides a plausible explanation for the fine tuning of our universe: the "typical" universe is not fine-tuned, but given enough universes, a small fraction thereof will be capable of supporting intelligent life. Ours must be one of these, and so the observed fine tuning should be no cause for wonder.
But how seriously can we take the multiverse? And which specific multiverse should we assume? — this question must be answered before any quantitative anthropic predictions can be made. Although philosophers have discussed related concepts for centuries, in the early 1970s the only genuine physical theory yielding a multiverse of sorts was the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics
. This would allow variation in initial conditions, but not in the truly fundamental constants. Since that time a number of mechanisms for producing a multiverse have been suggested: see the review by Max Tegmark
. An important development in the 1980s was the combination of inflation theory with the hypothesis that some parameters are determined by symmetry breaking
in the early universe, which allows parameters previously thought of as "fundamental constants" to vary over very large distances, thus eroding the distinction between Carter's weak and strong principles. At the beginning of the 21st century, the string landscape emerged as a mechanism for varying essentially all the constants, including the number of spatial dimensions.
The anthropic idea that fundamental parameters are selected from a multitude of different possibilities (each actual in some universe or other) contrasts with the traditional hope of physicists for a theory of everything
having no free parameters: as Einstein said, "What really interests me is whether God had any choice in the creation of the world." Quite recently, proponents of the leading candidate for a "theory of everything", string theory
, proclaimed "the end of the anthropic principle" since there would be no free parameters to select. Ironically, string theory now seems to offer no hope of predicting fundamental parameters, and now some who advocate it invoke the anthropic principle as well (see below).
The modern form of a design argument is put forth by Intelligent design
. Proponents of intelligent design often cite the fine-tuning
observations that (in part) preceded the formulation of the anthropic principle by Carter as a proof of an intelligent designer. Opponents of intelligent design are not limited to those who hypothesize that other universes exist; they may also argue, anti-anthropically, that the universe is less fine-tuned than often claimed, or that accepting fine tuning as a brute fact is less astonishing than the idea of an intelligent creator. Furthermore, even accepting fine tuning, Sober
(2005) and Ikeda and Jefferys
, argue that the Anthropic Principle as conventionally stated actually undermines intelligent design; see fine-tuned universe
.
Paul Davies
's book The Goldilocks Enigma (2006) reviews the current state of the fine tuning debate in detail, and concludes by enumerating the following responses to that debate:
Omitted here is Lee Smolin
's model of cosmological natural selection, also known as "fecund universes," which proposes that universes have "offspring" which are more plentiful if they resemble our universe. Also see Gardner (2005).
Clearly each of these hypotheses resolve some aspects of the puzzle, while leaving others unanswered. Followers of Carter would admit only option 3 as an anthropic explanation, whereas 3 through 6 are covered by different versions of Barrow and Tipler's SAP (which would also include 7 if it is considered a variant of 4, as in Tipler 1994).
The anthropic principle, at least as Carter conceived it, can be applied on scales much smaller than the whole universe. For example, Carter (1983) inverted the usual line of reasoning and pointed out that when interpreting the evolutionary record, one must take into account cosmological and astrophysical considerations. With this in mind, Carter concluded that given the best estimates of the age of the universe
, the evolutionary chain culminating in Homo sapiens probably admits only one or two low probability links. Antonio Feoli and Salvatore Rampone
dispute this conclusion, arguing instead that the estimated size of our universe and the number of planets in it allows for a higher bound, so that there is no need to invoke intelligent design to explain evolution.
Philosopher John Leslie states that the Carter SAP (with multiverse
) predicts the following:
Hogan has emphasised that it would be very strange if all fundamental constants were strictly determined, since this would leave us with no ready explanation for apparent fine tuning. In fact we might have to resort to something akin to Barrow and Tipler's SAP: there would be no option for such a universe not to support life.
Probabilistic predictions of parameter values can be made given:
(i) a particular multiverse with a "measure", i.e. a well defined "density of universes" (so, for parameter X, one can calculate the prior probability
P(X0) dX that X is in the range X0 < X < X0 + dX), and
(ii) an estimate of the number of observers in each universe, N(X) (e.g., this might be taken as proportional to the number of stars in the universe).
The probability of observing value X is then proportional to N(X) P(X).
(A more sophisticated analysis is that of Nick Bostrom
.) A generic feature of an analysis of this nature is that the expected values of the fundamental physical constants should not be "over-tuned," i.e. if there is some perfectly tuned predicted value (e.g. zero), the observed value need be no closer to that predicted value than what is required to make life possible. The small but finite value of the cosmological constant
can be regarded as a successful prediction in this sense.
One thing that would not count as evidence for the Anthropic Principle is evidence that the Earth or the solar system
occupied a privileged position in the universe, in violation of the Copernican principle
(for possible counterevidence to this principle, see Copernican principle
), unless there was some reason to think that that position was a necessary condition for our existence as observers.
may have invoked anthropic reasoning to predict an astrophysical phenomenon. He is said to have reasoned from the prevalence on earth of life forms whose chemistry was based on carbon-12
atom
s, that there must be an undiscovered resonance
in the carbon-12 nucleus facilitating its synthesis in stellar interiors via the triple-alpha process
. He then calculated the energy of this undiscovered resonance to be 7.6 million electron-volts. Willie Fowler
's research group soon found this resonance, and its measured energy was close to Hoyle's prediction.
However, a recently released paper argues that Hoyle did not use anthropic reasoning to make this prediction.
criticized the entire theory of cosmic inflation
as follows. He emphasized that initial conditions which made possible a thermodynamic arrow of time
in a universe with a Big Bang
origin, must include the assumption that at the initial singularity, the entropy
of the universe was low and therefore extremely improbable. Paul Davies
rebutted this criticism by invoking an inflationary version of the anthropic principle. While Davies accepted the premise that the initial state of the visible Universe (which filled a microscopic amount of space before inflating) had to possess a very low entropy value — due to random quantum fluctuations — to account for the observed thermodynamic arrow of time, he deemed this fact an advantage for the theory. That the tiny patch of space from which our observable Universe grew had to be extremely orderly, to allow the post-inflation universe to have an arrow of time, makes it unnecessary to adopt any "ad hoc" hypotheses about the initial entropy state, hypotheses other Big Bang theories require.
predicts a large number of possible universes, called the "backgrounds" or "vacua." The set of these vacua is often called the "multiverse
" or "anthropic landscape
" or "string landscape." Leonard Susskind
has argued that the existence of a large number of vacua puts anthropic reasoning on firm ground: only universes whose properties are such as to allow observers to exist are observed, while a possibly much larger set of universes lacking such properties go unnoticed.
Steven Weinberg
believes the Anthropic Principle may be appropriated by cosmologists committed to nontheism
, and refers to that Principle as a "turning point" in modern science because applying it to the string landscape "...may explain how the constants of nature that we observe can take values suitable for life without being fine-tuned by a benevolent creator." Others, most notably David Gross
but also Lubos Motl
, Peter Woit
, and Lee Smolin
, argue that this is not predictive. Max Tegmark
, Mario Livio
, and Martin Rees argue that only some aspects of a physical theory need be observable and/or testable for the theory to be accepted, and that many well-accepted theories are far from completely testable at present.
Jürgen Schmidhuber
(2000–2002) points out that Ray Solomonoff
's theory of universal inductive inference
and its extensions already provide a framework for maximizing our confidence in any theory, given a limited sequence of physical observations, and some prior distribution on the set of possible explanations of the universe.
Ice is unusual in that it is approximately 9% less dense than liquid water. Water is the only known non-metallic
substance to expand when it freezes. The density
of ice is 0.9167 g/cm3 at 0°C, whereas water has a density of 0.9998 g/cm3 at the same temperature. Liquid water is densest, essentially 1.00 g/cm3, at 4°C and becomes less dense as the water molecules begin to form the hexagonal crystal
s of ice
as the freezing point is reached. This is due to hydrogen bond
ing dominating the intermolecular forces, which results in a packing of molecules less compact in the solid.
, a cosmologist, and Frank J. Tipler
, a theosophist and mathematical physicist. This book sets out in detail the many known anthropic coincidences and constraints, including many found by its authors. While the book is primarily a work of theoretical astrophysics
, it also touches on quantum physics, chemistry
, and earth science
. An entire chapter argues that Homo sapiens is, with high probability, the only intelligent species in the Milky Way
.
The book begins with an extensive review of many topics in the history of ideas
the authors deem relevant to the anthropic principle, because the authors believe that principle has important antecedents in the notions of teleology
and intelligent design
. They discuss the writings of Fichte, Hegel, Bergson, and Alfred North Whitehead
, and the Omega Point
cosmology of Teilhard de Chardin. Barrow and Tipler carefully distinguish teleological
reasoning from eutaxiological reasoning; the former asserts that order must have a consequent purpose; the latter asserts more modestly that order must have a planned cause. They attribute this important but nearly always overlooked distinction to an obscure 1883 book by L. E. Hicks.
Seeing little sense in a principle requiring intelligent life to emerge while remaining indifferent to the possibility of its eventual extinction, Barrow and Tipler propose the:
Barrow and Tipler submit that the FAP is both a valid physical statement and "closely connected with moral values." FAP places strong constraints on the structure of the universe
, constraints developed further in Tipler's The Physics of Immortality. One such constraint is that the universe must end in a big crunch
, which seems unlikely in view of the tentative conclusions drawn since 1998 about dark energy
, based on observations of very distant supernova
s.
In his review of Barrow and Tipler, Martin Gardner
ridiculed the FAP by quoting the last two sentences of their book as defining a Completely Ridiculous Anthropic Principle (CRAP):
A common criticism of Carter's SAP is that it is an easy deus ex machina
which discourages searches for physical explanations. To quote Penrose again: "it tends to be invoked by theorists whenever they do not have a good enough theory to explain the observed facts."
Carter's SAP and Barrow and Tipler's WAP have been dismissed as truism
s or tautologies, that is, statements true solely by virtue of their logical form
(the conclusion is identical to the premise) and not because a substantive claim is made and supported by observation of reality. As such, they are criticized as an elaborate way of saying "if things were different, they would be different," which is a valid statement, but does not make a claim of some factual alternative over another. The anthropic principles implicitly posit that our ability to ponder cosmology at all is contingent on one or more fundamental physical constants having numerical values falling within quite a narrow range, and this is not a tautology; nor is postulating a multiverse
. Moreover, working out the consequences of a change in the fundamental constants for the existence of our species is far from trivial, and, as we have seen, can lead to quite unexpected constraints on physical theory. This reasoning does, however, demonstrate that carbon-based life is impossible under these altered fundamental parameters.
Critics of the Barrow and Tipler SAP claim that it is neither testable nor falsifiable, and thus is not a scientific statement
but rather a philosophical one. The same criticism has been leveled against the hypothesis of a multiverse
, although some argue that it does make falsifiable predictions. A modified version of this criticism is that we understand so little about the emergence of life, especially intelligent life, that it is effectively impossible to calculate the number of observers in each universe. Also, the prior distribution of universes as a function of the fundamental constants is easily modified to get any desired result.
Many criticisms focus on versions of the Strong Anthropic Principle, such as Barrett and Tipler's anthropic cosmological principle, which are teleological
notions that tend to describe the existence of life as a necessary prerequisite for the observable constants of physics. In a lecture titled "The Confusion of Cause and Effect in Bad Science," the paleophysicist Caroline Miller said:
Similarly, Stephen Jay Gould
, Michael Shermer
and others claim that the stronger versions of the Anthropic Principle seem to reverse known causes and effects. Gould compared the claim that the universe is fine-tuned for the benefit of our kind of life to saying that sausages were made long and narrow so that they could fit into modern hotdog buns, or saying that ships had been invented to house barnacle
s. These critics cite the vast physical, fossil, genetic, and other biological evidence consistent with life having been fine-tuned
through natural selection
to adapt to the physical and geophysical environment in which life exists. Life appears to have adapted to physics, and not vice versa.
Some applications of the anthropic principle have been criticized as an argument by lack of imagination, for tacitly assuming that carbon compounds and water are the only possible chemistry of life (sometimes called "carbon chauvinism
", see also alternative biochemistry
). The range of fundamental physical constants consistent with the evolution of carbon-based life may also be wider than those who advocate a fine tuned universe have argued. For instance, Harnik et al. propose a weakless universe
in which the weak nuclear force is eliminated. They show that this has no significant effect on the other fundamental interaction
s, provided some adjustments are made in how those interactions work. However, if some of the fine-tuned details of our universe were violated, that would rule out complex structures of any kind — star
s, planet
s, galaxies, etc.
Lee Smolin
has offered a theory designed to improve on the lack of imagination that anthropic principles have been accused of. He puts forth his fecund universes theory, which assumes universes have "offspring" through the creation of black hole
s, and that these offspring universes have values of physical constants that depend on these of the mother universe. Some versions of the anthropic principle are only interesting if the range of physical constants that allow certain kinds of life are unlikely in a landscape of possible universes. But Lee Smolin assumes that conditions for carbon based life are similar to conditions for black hole creation, which would change the a priori distribution of universes such that universes containing life would be likely. In the string theorist Leonard Susskind
disagrees about some assumptions in Lee Smolin
's theory, while Smolin defends his theory.
The philosophers of cosmology John Earman
, Ernan McMullin
and Jesús Mosterín
contend that "in its weak version, the anthropic principle is a mere tautology, which does not allow us to explain anything or to predict anything that we did not already know. In its strong version, it is a gratuitous speculation". A further criticism by Mosterín concerns the flawed "anthropic" inference from the assumption of an infinity of worlds to the existence of one like ours:
Astrophysics
Astrophysics is the branch of astronomy that deals with the physics of the universe, including the physical properties of celestial objects, as well as their interactions and behavior...
and cosmology
Cosmology
Cosmology is the discipline that deals with the nature of the Universe as a whole. Cosmologists seek to understand the origin, evolution, structure, and ultimate fate of the Universe at large, as well as the natural laws that keep it in order...
, the anthropic principle is the philosophical argument
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
that observations of the physical Universe
Universe
The Universe is commonly defined as the totality of everything that exists, including all matter and energy, the planets, stars, galaxies, and the contents of intergalactic space. Definitions and usage vary and similar terms include the cosmos, the world and nature...
must be compatible with the conscious life
Life
Life is a characteristic that distinguishes objects that have signaling and self-sustaining processes from those that do not, either because such functions have ceased , or else because they lack such functions and are classified as inanimate...
that observes it. Some proponents of the argument reason that it explains why the Universe has the age and the fundamental physical constants necessary to accommodate conscious life. As a result, they believe that the fact is unremarkable that the universe's fundamental constants happen to fall within the narrow range thought to allow life
Fine-tuned universe
The fine-tuned universe is the proposition that the conditions that allow life in the Universe can only occur when certain universal fundamental physical constants lie within a very narrow range, so that if any of several fundamental constants were only slightly different the universe would be...
.
The strong anthropic principle (SAP) as explained by Barrow
John D. Barrow
-External links:****** The Forum-Publications available on the Internet:************...
and Tipler (see variants) states that this is all the case because the Universe is compelled, in some sense, to have conscious life eventually emerge. On the other hand, in a sufficiently large universe, some worlds might evolve
Evolution
Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...
conscious life regardless of adverse conditions. Douglas Adams
Douglas Adams
Douglas Noel Adams was an English writer and dramatist. He is best known as the author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which started life in 1978 as a BBC radio comedy before developing into a "trilogy" of five books that sold over 15 million copies in his lifetime, a television...
used the metaphor of a living puddle examining its own shape, since, to those living creatures, the universe may appear to fit them perfectly (while in fact, they simply fit the universe perfectly). Critics argue in favor of a weak anthropic principle (WAP) similar to the one defined by Brandon Carter
Brandon Carter
Brandon Carter, FRS is an Australian theoretical physicist, best known for his work on the properties of black holes and for being the first to name and employ the anthropic principle in its contemporary form. He is a researcher at the Meudon campus of the Laboratoire Univers et Théories, part of...
(see variants), which states that the universe's ostensible fine tuning
Fine-tuned universe
The fine-tuned universe is the proposition that the conditions that allow life in the Universe can only occur when certain universal fundamental physical constants lie within a very narrow range, so that if any of several fundamental constants were only slightly different the universe would be...
is the result of selection bias
Selection bias
Selection bias is a statistical bias in which there is an error in choosing the individuals or groups to take part in a scientific study. It is sometimes referred to as the selection effect. The term "selection bias" most often refers to the distortion of a statistical analysis, resulting from the...
, i.e. in the long term, only survivors can observe and report their location in time and space.
Definition and basis
The principle was formulated as a response to a series of observationsFine-tuned universe
The fine-tuned universe is the proposition that the conditions that allow life in the Universe can only occur when certain universal fundamental physical constants lie within a very narrow range, so that if any of several fundamental constants were only slightly different the universe would be...
that the laws of nature and parameters of the Universe take on values that are consistent with conditions for life as we know it rather than a set of values that would not be consistent with life as observed on Earth
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
. The anthropic principle states that this phenomenon is a necessity because living observers wouldn't be able to exist, and hence, observe the Universe, were these laws and constants not constituted in this way.
The term anthropic in "anthropic principle" has been argued to be a misnomer
Misnomer
A misnomer is a term which suggests an interpretation that is known to be untrue. Such incorrect terms sometimes derive their names because of the form, action, or origin of the subject becoming named popularly or widely referenced—long before their true natures were known.- Sources of misnomers...
. While singling out our kind of carbon-based life, none of the finely tuned phenomena require human
Human
Humans are the only living species in the Homo genus...
life or some kind of carbon chauvinism
Carbon chauvinism
Carbon chauvinism is a neologism meant to disparage the assumption that the chemical processes of hypothetical extraterrestrial life must be constructed primarily from carbon , as carbon's chemical and thermodynamic properties render it far superior to all other elements.-Concept:The term was used...
. Any form of intelligent life would do; so, specifying carbon-based life, per se, is irrelevant.
The anthropic principle has given rise to some confusion and controversy, partly because the phrase has been applied to several distinct ideas. All versions of the principle have been accused of discouraging the search for a deeper physical understanding of the universe. The anthropic principle is often criticized for lacking falsifiability
Falsifiability
Falsifiability or refutability of an assertion, hypothesis or theory is the logical possibility that it can be contradicted by an observation or the outcome of a physical experiment...
and therefore critics of the anthropic principle may point out that the anthropic principle is a non-scientific concept, even though the weak anthropic principle, "conditions that are observed in the universe must allow the observer to exist", is "easy" to support in mathematics and philosophy, i.e. it is a tautology
Tautology (logic)
In logic, a tautology is a formula which is true in every possible interpretation. Philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein first applied the term to redundancies of propositional logic in 1921; it had been used earlier to refer to rhetorical tautologies, and continues to be used in that alternate sense...
or truism
Truism
A truism is a claim that is so obvious or self-evident as to be hardly worth mentioning, except as a reminder or as a rhetorical or literary device and is the opposite of falsism....
. However, building a substantive argument based on a tautological foundation is problematic. Stronger variants of the anthropic principle are not tautologies and thus make claims considered controversial by some and that are contingent upon empirical verification.
Anthropic coincidences
In 1961, Robert Dicke noted that the age of the universeAge of the universe
The age of the universe is the time elapsed since the Big Bang posited by the most widely accepted scientific model of cosmology. The best current estimate of the age of the universe is 13.75 ± 0.13 billion years within the Lambda-CDM concordance model...
, as seen by living observers, cannot be random. Instead, biological factors constrain the universe to be more or less in a "golden age," neither too young nor too old. If the universe were one tenth as old as its present age, there would not have been sufficient time to build up appreciable levels of
metallicity
Metallicity
In astronomy and physical cosmology, the metallicity of an object is the proportion of its matter made up of chemical elements other than hydrogen and helium...
(levels of elements besides hydrogen
Hydrogen
Hydrogen is the chemical element with atomic number 1. It is represented by the symbol H. With an average atomic weight of , hydrogen is the lightest and most abundant chemical element, constituting roughly 75% of the Universe's chemical elemental mass. Stars in the main sequence are mainly...
and helium
Helium
Helium is the chemical element with atomic number 2 and an atomic weight of 4.002602, which is represented by the symbol He. It is a colorless, odorless, tasteless, non-toxic, inert, monatomic gas that heads the noble gas group in the periodic table...
) especially carbon
Carbon
Carbon is the chemical element with symbol C and atomic number 6. As a member of group 14 on the periodic table, it is nonmetallic and tetravalent—making four electrons available to form covalent chemical bonds...
, by nucleosynthesis
Nucleosynthesis
Nucleosynthesis is the process of creating new atomic nuclei from pre-existing nucleons . It is thought that the primordial nucleons themselves were formed from the quark–gluon plasma from the Big Bang as it cooled below two trillion degrees...
. Small rocky planets did not yet exist. If the universe were 10 times older than it actually is, most stars would be too old to remain on the main sequence
Main sequence
The main sequence is a continuous and distinctive band of stars that appears on plots of stellar color versus brightness. These color-magnitude plots are known as Hertzsprung–Russell diagrams after their co-developers, Ejnar Hertzsprung and Henry Norris Russell...
and would have turned into white dwarf
White dwarf
A white dwarf, also called a degenerate dwarf, is a small star composed mostly of electron-degenerate matter. They are very dense; a white dwarf's mass is comparable to that of the Sun and its volume is comparable to that of the Earth. Its faint luminosity comes from the emission of stored...
s, aside from the dimmest red dwarf
Red dwarf
According to the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram, a red dwarf star is a small and relatively cool star, of the main sequence, either late K or M spectral type....
s, and stable planetary systems would have already come to an end. Thus Dicke explained away the rough coincidence between large dimensionless numbers constructed from the constants of physics and the age of the universe, a coincidence which had inspired Dirac's varying-G theory
Dirac large numbers hypothesis
The Dirac large numbers hypothesis is an observation made by Paul Dirac in 1937 relating ratios of size scales in the Universe to that of force scales. The ratios constitute very large, dimensionless numbers: some 40 orders of magnitude in the present cosmological epoch...
.
Dicke later reasoned that the density of matter in the universe must be almost exactly the critical density needed to prevent the Big Crunch
Big Crunch
In physical cosmology, the Big Crunch is one possible scenario for the ultimate fate of the universe, in which the metric expansion of space eventually reverses and the universe recollapses, ultimately ending as a black hole singularity.- Overview :...
(the "Dicke coincidences" argument
Argument
In philosophy and logic, an argument is an attempt to persuade someone of something, or give evidence or reasons for accepting a particular conclusion.Argument may also refer to:-Mathematics and computer science:...
). The most recent measurements may suggest that the observed density of baryon
Baryon
A baryon is a composite particle made up of three quarks . Baryons and mesons belong to the hadron family, which are the quark-based particles...
ic matter, and some theoretical predictions of the amount of dark matter
Dark matter
In astronomy and cosmology, dark matter is matter that neither emits nor scatters light or other electromagnetic radiation, and so cannot be directly detected via optical or radio astronomy...
account for about 30% of this critical density, with the rest contributed by a cosmological constant
Cosmological constant
In physical cosmology, the cosmological constant was proposed by Albert Einstein as a modification of his original theory of general relativity to achieve a stationary universe...
. Steven Weinberg
Steven Weinberg
Steven Weinberg is an American theoretical physicist and Nobel laureate in Physics for his contributions with Abdus Salam and Sheldon Glashow to the unification of the weak force and electromagnetic interaction between elementary particles....
gave an anthropic explanation for this fact: he noted that the cosmological constant has a remarkably low value, some 120 orders of magnitude smaller than the value particle physics
Particle physics
Particle physics is a branch of physics that studies the existence and interactions of particles that are the constituents of what is usually referred to as matter or radiation. In current understanding, particles are excitations of quantum fields and interact following their dynamics...
predicts (this has been described as the "worst prediction in physics"). However, if the cosmological constant were more than about 10 times its observed value, the universe would suffer catastrophic inflation
Cosmic inflation
In physical cosmology, cosmic inflation, cosmological inflation or just inflation is the theorized extremely rapid exponential expansion of the early universe by a factor of at least 1078 in volume, driven by a negative-pressure vacuum energy density. The inflationary epoch comprises the first part...
, which would preclude the formation of stars, and hence life.
The observed values of the dimensionless physical constant
Dimensionless physical constant
In physics, a dimensionless physical constant is a universal physical constant that is dimensionless - having no unit attached, so its numerical value is the same under all possible systems of units...
s (such as the fine-structure constant
Fine-structure constant
In physics, the fine-structure constant is a fundamental physical constant, namely the coupling constant characterizing the strength of the electromagnetic interaction. Being a dimensionless quantity, it has constant numerical value in all systems of units...
) governing the four fundamental interaction
Fundamental interaction
In particle physics, fundamental interactions are the ways that elementary particles interact with one another...
s are balanced as if fine-tuned
Fine-tuned universe
The fine-tuned universe is the proposition that the conditions that allow life in the Universe can only occur when certain universal fundamental physical constants lie within a very narrow range, so that if any of several fundamental constants were only slightly different the universe would be...
to permit the formation of commonly found matter and subsequently the emergence of life. A slight increase in the strong nuclear force would bind the dineutron
Dineutron
A dineutron is a hypothetical particle consisting of two neutrons that was suggested to have a transitory existence in nuclear reactions produced by helions that result in the formation of a proton and a nucleus having the same atomic number as the target nucleus but a mass number two units greater...
and the diproton
Diproton
A diproton is a hypothetical isotope of helium nucleus consisting of two protons and no neutrons, and is predicted to be less stable than 5He...
, and nuclear fusion
Nuclear fusion
Nuclear fusion is the process by which two or more atomic nuclei join together, or "fuse", to form a single heavier nucleus. This is usually accompanied by the release or absorption of large quantities of energy...
would have converted all hydrogen in the early universe to helium
Helium
Helium is the chemical element with atomic number 2 and an atomic weight of 4.002602, which is represented by the symbol He. It is a colorless, odorless, tasteless, non-toxic, inert, monatomic gas that heads the noble gas group in the periodic table...
. Water and the long-lived stable stars essential for the emergence of life would not exist. More generally, small changes in the relative strengths of the four fundamental interactions can greatly affect the universe's age, structure, and capacity for life.
Origin
The phrase "anthropic principle" first appeared in Brandon CarterBrandon Carter
Brandon Carter, FRS is an Australian theoretical physicist, best known for his work on the properties of black holes and for being the first to name and employ the anthropic principle in its contemporary form. He is a researcher at the Meudon campus of the Laboratoire Univers et Théories, part of...
's contribution to a 1973 Kraków
Kraków
Kraków also Krakow, or Cracow , is the second largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in the Lesser Poland region, the city dates back to the 7th century. Kraków has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Polish academic, cultural, and artistic life...
symposium
Symposium
In ancient Greece, the symposium was a drinking party. Literary works that describe or take place at a symposium include two Socratic dialogues, Plato's Symposium and Xenophon's Symposium, as well as a number of Greek poems such as the elegies of Theognis of Megara...
honouring Copernicus's
Nicolaus Copernicus
Nicolaus Copernicus was a Renaissance astronomer and the first person to formulate a comprehensive heliocentric cosmology which displaced the Earth from the center of the universe....
500th birthday. Carter, a theoretical astrophysicist, articulated the Anthropic Principle in reaction to the Copernican Principle
Copernican principle
In physical cosmology, the Copernican principle, named after Nicolaus Copernicus, states that the Earth is not in a central, specially favored position. More recently, the principle has been generalized to the relativistic concept that humans are not privileged observers of the universe...
, which states that humans do not occupy a privileged position in the Universe
Universe
The Universe is commonly defined as the totality of everything that exists, including all matter and energy, the planets, stars, galaxies, and the contents of intergalactic space. Definitions and usage vary and similar terms include the cosmos, the world and nature...
. As Carter said: "Although our situation is not necessarily central, it is inevitably privileged to some extent." Specifically, Carter disagreed with using the Copernican principle to justify the Perfect Cosmological Principle
Perfect Cosmological Principle
The Perfect Cosmological Principle states that the Universe is homogenous and isotropic in space and time. In this view the universe looks the same everywhere , the same as it always has and always will...
, which states that all large regions and times in the universe must be statistically identical. The latter principle underlay the steady-state theory, which had recently been falsified by the 1965 discovery of the cosmic microwave background radiation
Cosmic microwave background radiation
In cosmology, cosmic microwave background radiation is thermal radiation filling the observable universe almost uniformly....
. This discovery was unequivocal evidence that the universe has changed radically over time (for example, via the Big Bang
Big Bang
The Big Bang theory is the prevailing cosmological model that explains the early development of the Universe. According to the Big Bang theory, the Universe was once in an extremely hot and dense state which expanded rapidly. This rapid expansion caused the young Universe to cool and resulted in...
).
Carter defined two forms of the Anthropic Principle, a "weak" one which referred only to anthropic selection of privileged spacetime
Spacetime
In physics, spacetime is any mathematical model that combines space and time into a single continuum. Spacetime is usually interpreted with space as being three-dimensional and time playing the role of a fourth dimension that is of a different sort from the spatial dimensions...
locations in the universe, and a more controversial "strong" form which addressed the values of the fundamental constants of physics.
Roger Penrose
Roger Penrose
Sir Roger Penrose OM FRS is an English mathematical physicist and Emeritus Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics at the Mathematical Institute, University of Oxford and Emeritus Fellow of Wadham College...
explained the weak form as follows:
One reason this is plausible is that there are many other places and times in which we can imagine finding ourselves. But when applying the strong principle, we only have one Universe, with one set of fundamental parameters, so what exactly is the point being made? Carter offers two possibilities: First, we can use our own existence to make "predictions" about the parameters. But second, "as a last resort", we can convert these predictions into explanations by assuming that there is more than one Universe, in fact a large and possibly infinite collection of universes, something that is now called a multiverse
Multiverse
The multiverse is the hypothetical set of multiple possible universes that together comprise all of reality.Multiverse may also refer to:-In fiction:* Multiverse , the fictional multiverse used by DC Comics...
("world ensemble" was Carter's term), in which the parameters (and perhaps the laws of physics) vary across universes. The strong principle then becomes an example of a selection effect, exactly analogous to the weak principle. Postulating a multiverse is certainly a radical step, but taking it could provide at least a partial answer to a question which had seemed to be out of the reach of normal science: "why do the fundamental laws of physics take the particular form we observe and not another?"
Since Carter's 1973 paper, the term "Anthropic Principle" has been extended to cover a number of ideas which differ in important ways from those he espoused. Particular confusion was caused in 1986 by the book The Anthropic Cosmological Principle by John D. Barrow
John D. Barrow
-External links:****** The Forum-Publications available on the Internet:************...
and Frank Tipler, published that year which distinguished between "weak" and "strong" anthropic principle in a way very different from Carter's, as discussed in the next section.
Carter was not the first to invoke some form of the anthropic principle. In fact, the evolutionary biologist Alfred Russel Wallace
Alfred Russel Wallace
Alfred Russel Wallace, OM, FRS was a British naturalist, explorer, geographer, anthropologist and biologist...
anticipated the anthropic principle as long ago as 1904: "Such a vast and complex universe as that which we know exists around us, may have been absolutely required ... in order to produce a world that should be precisely adapted in every detail for the orderly development of life culminating in man." In 1957, Robert Dicke wrote: "The age of the Universe 'now' is not random but conditioned by biological factors ... [changes in the values of the fundamental constants of physics] would preclude the existence of man to consider the problem."
Variants
Weak anthropic principle (WAP) (CarterBrandon Carter
Brandon Carter, FRS is an Australian theoretical physicist, best known for his work on the properties of black holes and for being the first to name and employ the anthropic principle in its contemporary form. He is a researcher at the Meudon campus of the Laboratoire Univers et Théories, part of...
): "we must be prepared to take account of the fact that our location in the universe is necessarily privileged to the extent of being compatible with our existence as observers." Note that for Carter, "location" refers to our location in time as well as space.
Strong anthropic principle (SAP) (Carter): "the Universe (and hence the fundamental parameters
Dimensionless physical constant
In physics, a dimensionless physical constant is a universal physical constant that is dimensionless - having no unit attached, so its numerical value is the same under all possible systems of units...
on which it depends) must be such as to admit the creation of observers within it at some stage. To paraphrase Descartes, cogito ergo mundus talis est."The Latin tag ("I think, therefore the world is such [as it is]") makes it clear that "must" indicates a deduction
Deductive reasoning
Deductive reasoning, also called deductive logic, is reasoning which constructs or evaluates deductive arguments. Deductive arguments are attempts to show that a conclusion necessarily follows from a set of premises or hypothesis...
from the fact of our existence; the statement is thus a truism
Truism
A truism is a claim that is so obvious or self-evident as to be hardly worth mentioning, except as a reminder or as a rhetorical or literary device and is the opposite of falsism....
.
In their 1986 book, The Anthropic Cosmological Principle, John Barrow
John D. Barrow
-External links:****** The Forum-Publications available on the Internet:************...
and Frank Tipler depart from Carter and define the WAP and SAP as follows:
Weak anthropic principle (WAP) (Barrow and Tipler): "The observed values of all physical and cosmological quantities are not equally probable but they take on values restricted by the requirement that there exist sites where carbon-based life
Carbon-based life
Carbon forms the backbone of biology for all of life on Earth. Complex molecules are made up of carbon bonded with other elements, especially oxygen, hydrogen and nitrogen, and carbon is able to bond with all of these because of its four valence electrons. Carbon is abundant on earth...
can evolve
Evolution
Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...
and by the requirements that the Universe be old enough for it to have already done so."Unlike Carter they restrict the principle to carbon-based life, rather than just "observers." A more important difference is that they apply the WAP to the fundamental physical constants, such as the fine structure constant, the number of spacetime dimensions, and the cosmological constant
Cosmological constant
In physical cosmology, the cosmological constant was proposed by Albert Einstein as a modification of his original theory of general relativity to achieve a stationary universe...
—, topics that fall under Carter's SAP.
Strong anthropic principle (SAP) (Barrow and Tipler): "The Universe must have those properties which allow life to develop within it at some stage in its history."This looks very similar to Carter's SAP, but unlike the case with Carter's SAP, the "must" is an imperative, as shown by the following three possible elaborations of the SAP, each proposed by Barrow and Tipler:
- "There exists one possible Universe 'designed' with the goal of generating and sustaining 'observers.'"This can be seen as simply the classic design argument restated in the garb of contemporary cosmologyCosmologyCosmology is the discipline that deals with the nature of the Universe as a whole. Cosmologists seek to understand the origin, evolution, structure, and ultimate fate of the Universe at large, as well as the natural laws that keep it in order...
. It implies that the purpose of the universe is to give rise to intelligent life, with the laws of naturePhysical lawA physical law or scientific law is "a theoretical principle deduced from particular facts, applicable to a defined group or class of phenomena, and expressible by the statement that a particular phenomenon always occurs if certain conditions be present." Physical laws are typically conclusions...
and their fundamental physical constants set to ensure that life as we know it will emerge and evolve. - "Observers are necessary to bring the Universe into being."Barrow and Tipler believe that this is a valid conclusion from quantum mechanicsQuantum mechanicsQuantum mechanics, also known as quantum physics or quantum theory, is a branch of physics providing a mathematical description of much of the dual particle-like and wave-like behavior and interactions of energy and matter. It departs from classical mechanics primarily at the atomic and subatomic...
, as John Archibald WheelerJohn Archibald WheelerJohn Archibald Wheeler was an American theoretical physicist who was largely responsible for reviving interest in general relativity in the United States after World War II. Wheeler also worked with Niels Bohr in explaining the basic principles behind nuclear fission...
has suggested, especially via his participatory universe and Participatory Anthropic Principle (PAP). - "An ensemble of other different universes is necessary for the existence of our Universe."By contrast, Carter merely says that an ensemble of universesMultiverseThe multiverse is the hypothetical set of multiple possible universes that together comprise all of reality.Multiverse may also refer to:-In fiction:* Multiverse , the fictional multiverse used by DC Comics...
is necessary for the SAP to count as an explanation.
Modified anthropic principle (MAP) (Schmidhuber): The 'problem' of existence is only relevant to a species capable of formulating the question. Prior to Homo sapiens' intellectual evolution to the point where the nature of the observed universe - and humans' place within same - spawned deep inquiry into its origins, the 'problem' simply did not exist.
The philosophers John Leslie and Nick Bostrom
Nick Bostrom
Nick Bostrom is a Swedish philosopher at the University of Oxford known for his work on existential risk and the anthropic principle. He holds a PhD from the London School of Economics...
reject the Barrow and Tipler SAP as a fundamental misreading of Carter. For Bostrom, Carter's anthropic principle just warns us to make allowance for anthropic bias, that is, the bias created by anthropic selection effects (which Bostrom calls "observation" selection effects) — the necessity for observers to exist in order to get a result. He writes:
Strong self-sampling assumption (SSSA)
Self-Sampling Assumption
The self-sampling assumption , one of the two major schools of anthropic probability , states that:...
(Bostrom
Nick Bostrom
Nick Bostrom is a Swedish philosopher at the University of Oxford known for his work on existential risk and the anthropic principle. He holds a PhD from the London School of Economics...
): "Each observer-moment should reason as if it were randomly selected from the class of all observer-moments in its reference class." Analysing an observer's experience into a sequence of "observer-moments" helps avoid certain paradoxes; but the main ambiguity is the selection of the appropriate "reference class": for Carter's WAP this might correspond to all real or potential observer-moments in our universe; for the SAP, to all in the multiverse. Bostrom's mathematical development shows that choosing either too broad or too narrow a reference class leads to counter-intuitive results, but he is not able to prescribe an ideal choice.
According to Jürgen Schmidhuber
Jürgen Schmidhuber
Jürgen Schmidhuber is a computer scientist and artist known for his work on machine learning, universal Artificial Intelligence , artificial neural networks, digital physics, and low-complexity art. His contributions also include generalizations of Kolmogorov complexity and the Speed Prior...
, the anthropic principle essentially just says that the conditional probability
Conditional probability
In probability theory, the "conditional probability of A given B" is the probability of A if B is known to occur. It is commonly notated P, and sometimes P_B. P can be visualised as the probability of event A when the sample space is restricted to event B...
of finding yourself in a universe compatible with your existence is always 1. It does not allow for any additional nontrivial predictions such as "gravity won't change tomorrow." To gain more predictive power, additional assumptions on the prior distribution of alternative universes
Multiverse
The multiverse is the hypothetical set of multiple possible universes that together comprise all of reality.Multiverse may also refer to:-In fiction:* Multiverse , the fictional multiverse used by DC Comics...
are necessary.
Playwright and novelist Michael Frayn
Michael Frayn
Michael J. Frayn is an English playwright and novelist. He is best known as the author of the farce Noises Off and the dramas Copenhagen and Democracy...
describes a form of the Strong Anthropic Principle in his 2006 book The Human Touch, which explores what he characterises as "the central oddity of the Universe":
Character of anthropic reasoning
Carter chose to focus on a tautological aspect of his ideas, which has resulted in much confusion. In fact, anthropic reasoning interests scientists because of something that is only implicit in the above formal definitions, namely that we should give serious consideration to there being other universes with different values of the "fundamental parameters" — that is, the dimensionless physical constantsDimensionless physical constant
In physics, a dimensionless physical constant is a universal physical constant that is dimensionless - having no unit attached, so its numerical value is the same under all possible systems of units...
and initial conditions for the Big Bang
Big Bang
The Big Bang theory is the prevailing cosmological model that explains the early development of the Universe. According to the Big Bang theory, the Universe was once in an extremely hot and dense state which expanded rapidly. This rapid expansion caused the young Universe to cool and resulted in...
. Carter and others have argued that life as we know it would not be possible in most such universes. In other words, the universe we are in is fine tuned
Fine-tuned universe
The fine-tuned universe is the proposition that the conditions that allow life in the Universe can only occur when certain universal fundamental physical constants lie within a very narrow range, so that if any of several fundamental constants were only slightly different the universe would be...
to permit life. Collins & Hawking (1973) characterized Carter's then-unpublished big idea as the postulate that "there is not one universe but a whole infinite ensemble of universes with all possible initial conditions". If this is granted, the anthropic principle provides a plausible explanation for the fine tuning of our universe: the "typical" universe is not fine-tuned, but given enough universes, a small fraction thereof will be capable of supporting intelligent life. Ours must be one of these, and so the observed fine tuning should be no cause for wonder.
But how seriously can we take the multiverse? And which specific multiverse should we assume? — this question must be answered before any quantitative anthropic predictions can be made. Although philosophers have discussed related concepts for centuries, in the early 1970s the only genuine physical theory yielding a multiverse of sorts was the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics
Quantum mechanics
Quantum mechanics, also known as quantum physics or quantum theory, is a branch of physics providing a mathematical description of much of the dual particle-like and wave-like behavior and interactions of energy and matter. It departs from classical mechanics primarily at the atomic and subatomic...
. This would allow variation in initial conditions, but not in the truly fundamental constants. Since that time a number of mechanisms for producing a multiverse have been suggested: see the review by Max Tegmark
Max Tegmark
Max Tegmark is a Swedish-American cosmologist. Tegmark is a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and belongs to the scientific directorate of the Foundational Questions Institute.-Early life:...
. An important development in the 1980s was the combination of inflation theory with the hypothesis that some parameters are determined by symmetry breaking
Symmetry breaking
Symmetry breaking in physics describes a phenomenon where small fluctuations acting on a system which is crossing a critical point decide the system's fate, by determining which branch of a bifurcation is taken. To an outside observer unaware of the fluctuations , the choice will appear arbitrary...
in the early universe, which allows parameters previously thought of as "fundamental constants" to vary over very large distances, thus eroding the distinction between Carter's weak and strong principles. At the beginning of the 21st century, the string landscape emerged as a mechanism for varying essentially all the constants, including the number of spatial dimensions.
The anthropic idea that fundamental parameters are selected from a multitude of different possibilities (each actual in some universe or other) contrasts with the traditional hope of physicists for a theory of everything
Theory of everything
A theory of everything is a putative theory of theoretical physics that fully explains and links together all known physical phenomena, and predicts the outcome of any experiment that could be carried out in principle....
having no free parameters: as Einstein said, "What really interests me is whether God had any choice in the creation of the world." Quite recently, proponents of the leading candidate for a "theory of everything", string theory
String theory
String theory is an active research framework in particle physics that attempts to reconcile quantum mechanics and general relativity. It is a contender for a theory of everything , a manner of describing the known fundamental forces and matter in a mathematically complete system...
, proclaimed "the end of the anthropic principle" since there would be no free parameters to select. Ironically, string theory now seems to offer no hope of predicting fundamental parameters, and now some who advocate it invoke the anthropic principle as well (see below).
The modern form of a design argument is put forth by Intelligent design
Intelligent design
Intelligent design is the proposition that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection." It is a form of creationism and a contemporary adaptation of the traditional teleological argument for...
. Proponents of intelligent design often cite the fine-tuning
Fine-tuned universe
The fine-tuned universe is the proposition that the conditions that allow life in the Universe can only occur when certain universal fundamental physical constants lie within a very narrow range, so that if any of several fundamental constants were only slightly different the universe would be...
observations that (in part) preceded the formulation of the anthropic principle by Carter as a proof of an intelligent designer. Opponents of intelligent design are not limited to those who hypothesize that other universes exist; they may also argue, anti-anthropically, that the universe is less fine-tuned than often claimed, or that accepting fine tuning as a brute fact is less astonishing than the idea of an intelligent creator. Furthermore, even accepting fine tuning, Sober
Elliott Sober
Elliott Sober is Hans Reichenbach Professor and William F. Vilas Research Professor in the Department of Philosophy at University of Wisconsin–Madison. Sober is noted for his work in philosophy of biology and general philosophy of science. Sober taught for one year at Stanford University and has...
(2005) and Ikeda and Jefferys
William H. Jefferys
William H. Jefferys is an American astronomer. He is a Harlan J. Smith Centennial Professor of Astronomy of astronomy at The University of Texas at Austin, and an adjunct professor of statistics at the University of Vermont....
, argue that the Anthropic Principle as conventionally stated actually undermines intelligent design; see fine-tuned universe
Fine-tuned universe
The fine-tuned universe is the proposition that the conditions that allow life in the Universe can only occur when certain universal fundamental physical constants lie within a very narrow range, so that if any of several fundamental constants were only slightly different the universe would be...
.
Paul Davies
Paul Davies
Paul Charles William Davies, AM is an English physicist, writer and broadcaster, currently a professor at Arizona State University as well as the Director of BEYOND: Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science...
's book The Goldilocks Enigma (2006) reviews the current state of the fine tuning debate in detail, and concludes by enumerating the following responses to that debate:
- The absurd universe
- Our universe just happens to be the way it is.
- The unique universe
- There is a deep underlying unity in physics which necessitates the universe being the way it is. Some Theory of EverythingTheory of everythingA theory of everything is a putative theory of theoretical physics that fully explains and links together all known physical phenomena, and predicts the outcome of any experiment that could be carried out in principle....
will explain why the various features of the Universe must have exactly the values that we see.
- There is a deep underlying unity in physics which necessitates the universe being the way it is. Some Theory of Everything
- The multiverse
- Multiple Universes exist, having all possible combinations of characteristics, and we inevitably find ourselves within a Universe that allows us to exist.
- Creationism
- A creator designed the Universe with the purpose of supporting complexity and the emergence of Intelligence.
- The life principle
- There is an underlying principle that constrains the universe to evolve towards life and mind.
- The self-explaining universe
- A closed explanatory or causal loop: "perhaps only universes with a capacity for consciousness can exist." This is Wheeler'sJohn Archibald WheelerJohn Archibald Wheeler was an American theoretical physicist who was largely responsible for reviving interest in general relativity in the United States after World War II. Wheeler also worked with Niels Bohr in explaining the basic principles behind nuclear fission...
Participatory Anthropic Principle (PAP).
- A closed explanatory or causal loop: "perhaps only universes with a capacity for consciousness can exist." This is Wheeler's
- The fake universe
- We live inside a virtual reality simulation.
Omitted here is Lee Smolin
Lee Smolin
Lee Smolin is an American theoretical physicist, a researcher at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, and an adjunct professor of physics at the University of Waterloo. He is married to Dina Graser, a communications lawyer in Toronto. His brother is David M...
's model of cosmological natural selection, also known as "fecund universes," which proposes that universes have "offspring" which are more plentiful if they resemble our universe. Also see Gardner (2005).
Clearly each of these hypotheses resolve some aspects of the puzzle, while leaving others unanswered. Followers of Carter would admit only option 3 as an anthropic explanation, whereas 3 through 6 are covered by different versions of Barrow and Tipler's SAP (which would also include 7 if it is considered a variant of 4, as in Tipler 1994).
The anthropic principle, at least as Carter conceived it, can be applied on scales much smaller than the whole universe. For example, Carter (1983) inverted the usual line of reasoning and pointed out that when interpreting the evolutionary record, one must take into account cosmological and astrophysical considerations. With this in mind, Carter concluded that given the best estimates of the age of the universe
Age of the universe
The age of the universe is the time elapsed since the Big Bang posited by the most widely accepted scientific model of cosmology. The best current estimate of the age of the universe is 13.75 ± 0.13 billion years within the Lambda-CDM concordance model...
, the evolutionary chain culminating in Homo sapiens probably admits only one or two low probability links. Antonio Feoli and Salvatore Rampone
Salvatore Rampone
Salvatore Rampone is an Italian scientist and bodybuilder. Professor of Computer Science at the University of Sannio - Italy, he possesses two Master of Arts degrees, in Computer Science and Informatics. Prior to becoming an academic, Rampone carried out research and teaching activity in several...
dispute this conclusion, arguing instead that the estimated size of our universe and the number of planets in it allows for a higher bound, so that there is no need to invoke intelligent design to explain evolution.
Observational evidence
No possible observational evidence bears on Carter's WAP, as it is merely advice to the scientist and asserts nothing debatable. The obvious test of Barrow's SAP, which says that the Universe is "required" to support life, is to find evidence of life in universes other than ours. However, as any other universe is, by definition, unobservable (otherwise it would be part of our universe), this test cannot be carried out, and Barrow's SAP is untestable.Philosopher John Leslie states that the Carter SAP (with multiverse
Multiverse
The multiverse is the hypothetical set of multiple possible universes that together comprise all of reality.Multiverse may also refer to:-In fiction:* Multiverse , the fictional multiverse used by DC Comics...
) predicts the following:
- Physical theory will evolve so as to strengthen the hypothesis that early phase transitionPhase transitionA phase transition is the transformation of a thermodynamic system from one phase or state of matter to another.A phase of a thermodynamic system and the states of matter have uniform physical properties....
s occur probabilistically rather than deterministically, in which case there will be no deep physical reason for the values of fundamental constants; - Various theories for generating multiple universesMultiverseThe multiverse is the hypothetical set of multiple possible universes that together comprise all of reality.Multiverse may also refer to:-In fiction:* Multiverse , the fictional multiverse used by DC Comics...
will prove robust; - Evidence that the universe is fine tuned will continue to accumulate;
- No life with a non-carbon chemistryAlternative biochemistryHypothetical types of biochemistry are forms of biochemistry speculated to be scientifically viable but not proven to exist at this time. While the kinds of living beings we know on earth commonly use carbon for basic structural and metabolic functions, water as a solvent and DNA or RNA to define...
will be discovered; - Mathematical studies of galaxy formation will confirm that it is sensitive to the rate of expansion of the universe.
Hogan has emphasised that it would be very strange if all fundamental constants were strictly determined, since this would leave us with no ready explanation for apparent fine tuning. In fact we might have to resort to something akin to Barrow and Tipler's SAP: there would be no option for such a universe not to support life.
Probabilistic predictions of parameter values can be made given:
(i) a particular multiverse with a "measure", i.e. a well defined "density of universes" (so, for parameter X, one can calculate the prior probability
Prior probability
In Bayesian statistical inference, a prior probability distribution, often called simply the prior, of an uncertain quantity p is the probability distribution that would express one's uncertainty about p before the "data"...
P(X0) dX that X is in the range X0 < X < X0 + dX), and
(ii) an estimate of the number of observers in each universe, N(X) (e.g., this might be taken as proportional to the number of stars in the universe).
The probability of observing value X is then proportional to N(X) P(X).
(A more sophisticated analysis is that of Nick Bostrom
Nick Bostrom
Nick Bostrom is a Swedish philosopher at the University of Oxford known for his work on existential risk and the anthropic principle. He holds a PhD from the London School of Economics...
.) A generic feature of an analysis of this nature is that the expected values of the fundamental physical constants should not be "over-tuned," i.e. if there is some perfectly tuned predicted value (e.g. zero), the observed value need be no closer to that predicted value than what is required to make life possible. The small but finite value of the cosmological constant
Cosmological constant
In physical cosmology, the cosmological constant was proposed by Albert Einstein as a modification of his original theory of general relativity to achieve a stationary universe...
can be regarded as a successful prediction in this sense.
One thing that would not count as evidence for the Anthropic Principle is evidence that the Earth or the solar system
Solar System
The Solar System consists of the Sun and the astronomical objects gravitationally bound in orbit around it, all of which formed from the collapse of a giant molecular cloud approximately 4.6 billion years ago. The vast majority of the system's mass is in the Sun...
occupied a privileged position in the universe, in violation of the Copernican principle
Copernican principle
In physical cosmology, the Copernican principle, named after Nicolaus Copernicus, states that the Earth is not in a central, specially favored position. More recently, the principle has been generalized to the relativistic concept that humans are not privileged observers of the universe...
(for possible counterevidence to this principle, see Copernican principle
Copernican principle
In physical cosmology, the Copernican principle, named after Nicolaus Copernicus, states that the Earth is not in a central, specially favored position. More recently, the principle has been generalized to the relativistic concept that humans are not privileged observers of the universe...
), unless there was some reason to think that that position was a necessary condition for our existence as observers.
The nucleosynthesis of carbon-12
Fred HoyleFred Hoyle
Sir Fred Hoyle FRS was an English astronomer and mathematician noted primarily for his contribution to the theory of stellar nucleosynthesis and his often controversial stance on other cosmological and scientific matters—in particular his rejection of the "Big Bang" theory, a term originally...
may have invoked anthropic reasoning to predict an astrophysical phenomenon. He is said to have reasoned from the prevalence on earth of life forms whose chemistry was based on carbon-12
Carbon-12
Carbon-12 is the more abundant of the two stable isotopes of the element carbon, accounting for 98.89% of carbon; it contains 6 protons, 6 neutrons, and 6 electrons....
atom
Atom
The atom is a basic unit of matter that consists of a dense central nucleus surrounded by a cloud of negatively charged electrons. The atomic nucleus contains a mix of positively charged protons and electrically neutral neutrons...
s, that there must be an undiscovered resonance
Resonance
In physics, resonance is the tendency of a system to oscillate at a greater amplitude at some frequencies than at others. These are known as the system's resonant frequencies...
in the carbon-12 nucleus facilitating its synthesis in stellar interiors via the triple-alpha process
Triple-alpha process
The triple alpha process is a set of nuclear fusion reactions by which three helium-4 nuclei are transformed into carbon.Older stars start to accumulate helium produced by the proton–proton chain reaction and the carbon–nitrogen–oxygen cycle in their cores...
. He then calculated the energy of this undiscovered resonance to be 7.6 million electron-volts. Willie Fowler
William Alfred Fowler
William Alfred "Willy" Fowler was an American astrophysicist and winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1983. He should not be confused with the British astronomer Alfred Fowler....
's research group soon found this resonance, and its measured energy was close to Hoyle's prediction.
However, a recently released paper argues that Hoyle did not use anthropic reasoning to make this prediction.
Cosmic inflation
Don PageDon Page (physicist)
Don N. Page is a Canadian theoretical physicist at the University of Alberta, Canada.His work focuses on quantum cosmology and black holes, and he is noted for being a doctoral student of the eminent Professor Stephen Hawking, in addition to publishing several journal articles with him...
criticized the entire theory of cosmic inflation
Cosmic inflation
In physical cosmology, cosmic inflation, cosmological inflation or just inflation is the theorized extremely rapid exponential expansion of the early universe by a factor of at least 1078 in volume, driven by a negative-pressure vacuum energy density. The inflationary epoch comprises the first part...
as follows. He emphasized that initial conditions which made possible a thermodynamic arrow of time
Arrow of time
The arrow of time, or time’s arrow, is a term coined in 1927 by the British astronomer Arthur Eddington to describe the "one-way direction" or "asymmetry" of time...
in a universe with a Big Bang
Big Bang
The Big Bang theory is the prevailing cosmological model that explains the early development of the Universe. According to the Big Bang theory, the Universe was once in an extremely hot and dense state which expanded rapidly. This rapid expansion caused the young Universe to cool and resulted in...
origin, must include the assumption that at the initial singularity, the entropy
Entropy
Entropy is a thermodynamic property that can be used to determine the energy available for useful work in a thermodynamic process, such as in energy conversion devices, engines, or machines. Such devices can only be driven by convertible energy, and have a theoretical maximum efficiency when...
of the universe was low and therefore extremely improbable. Paul Davies
Paul Davies
Paul Charles William Davies, AM is an English physicist, writer and broadcaster, currently a professor at Arizona State University as well as the Director of BEYOND: Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science...
rebutted this criticism by invoking an inflationary version of the anthropic principle. While Davies accepted the premise that the initial state of the visible Universe (which filled a microscopic amount of space before inflating) had to possess a very low entropy value — due to random quantum fluctuations — to account for the observed thermodynamic arrow of time, he deemed this fact an advantage for the theory. That the tiny patch of space from which our observable Universe grew had to be extremely orderly, to allow the post-inflation universe to have an arrow of time, makes it unnecessary to adopt any "ad hoc" hypotheses about the initial entropy state, hypotheses other Big Bang theories require.
String theory
String theoryString theory
String theory is an active research framework in particle physics that attempts to reconcile quantum mechanics and general relativity. It is a contender for a theory of everything , a manner of describing the known fundamental forces and matter in a mathematically complete system...
predicts a large number of possible universes, called the "backgrounds" or "vacua." The set of these vacua is often called the "multiverse
Multiverse (science)
The multiverse is the hypothetical set of multiple possible universes that together comprise everything that exists and can exist: the entirety of space, time, matter, and energy as well as the physical laws and constants that describe them...
" or "anthropic landscape
String theory landscape
The string theory landscape or anthropic landscape refers to the large number of possible false vacua in string theory. The "landscape" includes so many possible configurations that some physicists think that the known laws of physics, the standard model and general relativity with a positive...
" or "string landscape." Leonard Susskind
Leonard Susskind
Leonard Susskind is the Felix Bloch Professor of Theoretical Physics at Stanford University. His research interests include string theory, quantum field theory, quantum statistical mechanics and quantum cosmology...
has argued that the existence of a large number of vacua puts anthropic reasoning on firm ground: only universes whose properties are such as to allow observers to exist are observed, while a possibly much larger set of universes lacking such properties go unnoticed.
Steven Weinberg
Steven Weinberg
Steven Weinberg is an American theoretical physicist and Nobel laureate in Physics for his contributions with Abdus Salam and Sheldon Glashow to the unification of the weak force and electromagnetic interaction between elementary particles....
believes the Anthropic Principle may be appropriated by cosmologists committed to nontheism
Nontheism
Nontheism is a term that covers a range of both religious and nonreligious attitudes characterized by the absence of — or the rejection of — theism or any belief in a personal god or gods...
, and refers to that Principle as a "turning point" in modern science because applying it to the string landscape "...may explain how the constants of nature that we observe can take values suitable for life without being fine-tuned by a benevolent creator." Others, most notably David Gross
David Gross
David Jonathan Gross is an American particle physicist and string theorist. Along with Frank Wilczek and David Politzer, he was awarded the 2004 Nobel Prize in Physics for their discovery of asymptotic freedom. He is currently the director and holder of the Frederick W...
but also Lubos Motl
Luboš Motl
Luboš Motl is a Czech theoretical physicist who keeps a blog commenting on physics, global warming and politics. His scientific research concentrated on string theory, of which he has been a passionate defender. He proposed Matrix string theory in 1997.Motl was born in Plzeň, Czech Republic...
, Peter Woit
Peter Woit
Peter Woit is a Departmental Computer Administrator and Senior Lecturer in Discipline at Columbia University, known for his criticisms of string theory in his book Not Even Wrong, and his blog of the same name.-Career:...
, and Lee Smolin
Lee Smolin
Lee Smolin is an American theoretical physicist, a researcher at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, and an adjunct professor of physics at the University of Waterloo. He is married to Dina Graser, a communications lawyer in Toronto. His brother is David M...
, argue that this is not predictive. Max Tegmark
Max Tegmark
Max Tegmark is a Swedish-American cosmologist. Tegmark is a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and belongs to the scientific directorate of the Foundational Questions Institute.-Early life:...
, Mario Livio
Mario Livio
Mario Livio is an astrophysicist and an author of works that popularize science and mathematics. He is currently an astronomer and head of public outreach at the Space Telescope Science Institute, which operates the Hubble Space Telescope...
, and Martin Rees argue that only some aspects of a physical theory need be observable and/or testable for the theory to be accepted, and that many well-accepted theories are far from completely testable at present.
Jürgen Schmidhuber
Jürgen Schmidhuber
Jürgen Schmidhuber is a computer scientist and artist known for his work on machine learning, universal Artificial Intelligence , artificial neural networks, digital physics, and low-complexity art. His contributions also include generalizations of Kolmogorov complexity and the Speed Prior...
(2000–2002) points out that Ray Solomonoff
Ray Solomonoff
Ray Solomonoff was the inventor of algorithmic probability, and founder of algorithmic information theory, He was an originator of the branch of artificial intelligence based on machine learning, prediction and probability...
's theory of universal inductive inference
Inductive inference
Around 1960, Ray Solomonoff founded the theory of universal inductive inference, the theory of prediction based on observations; for example, predicting the next symbol based upon a given series of symbols...
and its extensions already provide a framework for maximizing our confidence in any theory, given a limited sequence of physical observations, and some prior distribution on the set of possible explanations of the universe.
Ice density
When water freezes into ice, the ice floats because ice is less dense than liquid water. This is one possible example of the anthropic principle, because if ice did not float, it might have been difficult or impossible for living organisms to have existed in water; without the insulating properties of a top ice layer, lakes and ponds would tend to freeze solid and thaw very little during warmer periods. This principle has been criticized as neglecting the existence of the tropical zone and other warmer climates.Ice is unusual in that it is approximately 9% less dense than liquid water. Water is the only known non-metallic
Nonmetal
Nonmetal, or non-metal, is a term used in chemistry when classifying the chemical elements. On the basis of their general physical and chemical properties, every element in the periodic table can be termed either a metal or a nonmetal...
substance to expand when it freezes. The density
Density
The mass density or density of a material is defined as its mass per unit volume. The symbol most often used for density is ρ . In some cases , density is also defined as its weight per unit volume; although, this quantity is more properly called specific weight...
of ice is 0.9167 g/cm3 at 0°C, whereas water has a density of 0.9998 g/cm3 at the same temperature. Liquid water is densest, essentially 1.00 g/cm3, at 4°C and becomes less dense as the water molecules begin to form the hexagonal crystal
Crystal
A crystal or crystalline solid is a solid material whose constituent atoms, molecules, or ions are arranged in an orderly repeating pattern extending in all three spatial dimensions. The scientific study of crystals and crystal formation is known as crystallography...
s of ice
Ice crystals
Ice crystals are a small crystalline form of ice including hexagonal columns, hexagonal plates, dendritic crystals, and diamond dust. The highly symmetric shapes are due to depositional growth, namely, direct deposition of water vapour onto the ice crystal...
as the freezing point is reached. This is due to hydrogen bond
Hydrogen bond
A hydrogen bond is the attractive interaction of a hydrogen atom with an electronegative atom, such as nitrogen, oxygen or fluorine, that comes from another molecule or chemical group. The hydrogen must be covalently bonded to another electronegative atom to create the bond...
ing dominating the intermolecular forces, which results in a packing of molecules less compact in the solid.
The Anthropic Cosmological Principle
A thorough extant study of the anthropic principle is the book The Anthropic Cosmological Principle by John D. BarrowJohn D. Barrow
-External links:****** The Forum-Publications available on the Internet:************...
, a cosmologist, and Frank J. Tipler
Frank J. Tipler
Frank Jennings Tipler is a mathematical physicist and cosmologist, holding a joint appointment in the Departments of Mathematics and Physics at Tulane University. Tipler has authored books and papers on the Omega Point, which he claims is a mechanism for the resurrection of the dead. It has been...
, a theosophist and mathematical physicist. This book sets out in detail the many known anthropic coincidences and constraints, including many found by its authors. While the book is primarily a work of theoretical astrophysics
Astrophysics
Astrophysics is the branch of astronomy that deals with the physics of the universe, including the physical properties of celestial objects, as well as their interactions and behavior...
, it also touches on quantum physics, chemistry
Chemistry
Chemistry is the science of matter, especially its chemical reactions, but also its composition, structure and properties. Chemistry is concerned with atoms and their interactions with other atoms, and particularly with the properties of chemical bonds....
, and earth science
Earth science
Earth science is an all-embracing term for the sciences related to the planet Earth. It is arguably a special case in planetary science, the Earth being the only known life-bearing planet. There are both reductionist and holistic approaches to Earth sciences...
. An entire chapter argues that Homo sapiens is, with high probability, the only intelligent species in the Milky Way
Milky Way
The Milky Way is the galaxy that contains the Solar System. This name derives from its appearance as a dim un-resolved "milky" glowing band arching across the night sky...
.
The book begins with an extensive review of many topics in the history of ideas
History of ideas
The history of ideas is a field of research in history that deals with the expression, preservation, and change of human ideas over time. The history of ideas is a sister-discipline to, or a particular approach within, intellectual history...
the authors deem relevant to the anthropic principle, because the authors believe that principle has important antecedents in the notions of teleology
Teleology
A teleology is any philosophical account which holds that final causes exist in nature, meaning that design and purpose analogous to that found in human actions are inherent also in the rest of nature. The word comes from the Greek τέλος, telos; root: τελε-, "end, purpose...
and intelligent design
Intelligent design
Intelligent design is the proposition that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection." It is a form of creationism and a contemporary adaptation of the traditional teleological argument for...
. They discuss the writings of Fichte, Hegel, Bergson, and Alfred North Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead, OM FRS was an English mathematician who became a philosopher. He wrote on algebra, logic, foundations of mathematics, philosophy of science, physics, metaphysics, and education...
, and the Omega Point
Omega point
Omega Point is a term coined by the French Jesuit Pierre Teilhard de Chardin to describe a maximum level of complexity and consciousness towards which he believed the universe was evolving....
cosmology of Teilhard de Chardin. Barrow and Tipler carefully distinguish teleological
Teleology
A teleology is any philosophical account which holds that final causes exist in nature, meaning that design and purpose analogous to that found in human actions are inherent also in the rest of nature. The word comes from the Greek τέλος, telos; root: τελε-, "end, purpose...
reasoning from eutaxiological reasoning; the former asserts that order must have a consequent purpose; the latter asserts more modestly that order must have a planned cause. They attribute this important but nearly always overlooked distinction to an obscure 1883 book by L. E. Hicks.
Seeing little sense in a principle requiring intelligent life to emerge while remaining indifferent to the possibility of its eventual extinction, Barrow and Tipler propose the:
Barrow and Tipler submit that the FAP is both a valid physical statement and "closely connected with moral values." FAP places strong constraints on the structure of the universe
Universe
The Universe is commonly defined as the totality of everything that exists, including all matter and energy, the planets, stars, galaxies, and the contents of intergalactic space. Definitions and usage vary and similar terms include the cosmos, the world and nature...
, constraints developed further in Tipler's The Physics of Immortality. One such constraint is that the universe must end in a big crunch
Big Crunch
In physical cosmology, the Big Crunch is one possible scenario for the ultimate fate of the universe, in which the metric expansion of space eventually reverses and the universe recollapses, ultimately ending as a black hole singularity.- Overview :...
, which seems unlikely in view of the tentative conclusions drawn since 1998 about dark energy
Dark energy
In physical cosmology, astronomy and celestial mechanics, dark energy is a hypothetical form of energy that permeates all of space and tends to accelerate the expansion of the universe. Dark energy is the most accepted theory to explain recent observations that the universe appears to be expanding...
, based on observations of very distant supernova
Supernova
A supernova is a stellar explosion that is more energetic than a nova. It is pronounced with the plural supernovae or supernovas. Supernovae are extremely luminous and cause a burst of radiation that often briefly outshines an entire galaxy, before fading from view over several weeks or months...
s.
In his review of Barrow and Tipler, Martin Gardner
Martin Gardner
Martin Gardner was an American mathematics and science writer specializing in recreational mathematics, but with interests encompassing micromagic, stage magic, literature , philosophy, scientific skepticism, and religion...
ridiculed the FAP by quoting the last two sentences of their book as defining a Completely Ridiculous Anthropic Principle (CRAP):
Criticism
Carter himself has frequently regretted his own choice of the word "anthropic," because it conveys the misleading impression that the principle involves humans specifically, rather than intelligent observers in general. Others have criticised the word "principle" as being too grandiose to describe straightforward applications of selection effects.A common criticism of Carter's SAP is that it is an easy deus ex machina
Deus ex machina
A deus ex machina is a plot device whereby a seemingly inextricable problem is suddenly and abruptly solved with the contrived and unexpected intervention of some new event, character, ability, or object.-Linguistic considerations:...
which discourages searches for physical explanations. To quote Penrose again: "it tends to be invoked by theorists whenever they do not have a good enough theory to explain the observed facts."
Carter's SAP and Barrow and Tipler's WAP have been dismissed as truism
Truism
A truism is a claim that is so obvious or self-evident as to be hardly worth mentioning, except as a reminder or as a rhetorical or literary device and is the opposite of falsism....
s or tautologies, that is, statements true solely by virtue of their logical form
Logical form
In logic, the logical form of a sentence or set of sentences is the form obtained by abstracting from the subject matter of its content terms or by regarding the content terms as mere placeholders or blanks on a form...
(the conclusion is identical to the premise) and not because a substantive claim is made and supported by observation of reality. As such, they are criticized as an elaborate way of saying "if things were different, they would be different," which is a valid statement, but does not make a claim of some factual alternative over another. The anthropic principles implicitly posit that our ability to ponder cosmology at all is contingent on one or more fundamental physical constants having numerical values falling within quite a narrow range, and this is not a tautology; nor is postulating a multiverse
Multiverse
The multiverse is the hypothetical set of multiple possible universes that together comprise all of reality.Multiverse may also refer to:-In fiction:* Multiverse , the fictional multiverse used by DC Comics...
. Moreover, working out the consequences of a change in the fundamental constants for the existence of our species is far from trivial, and, as we have seen, can lead to quite unexpected constraints on physical theory. This reasoning does, however, demonstrate that carbon-based life is impossible under these altered fundamental parameters.
Critics of the Barrow and Tipler SAP claim that it is neither testable nor falsifiable, and thus is not a scientific statement
Scientific method
Scientific method refers to a body of techniques for investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge. To be termed scientific, a method of inquiry must be based on gathering empirical and measurable evidence subject to specific principles of...
but rather a philosophical one. The same criticism has been leveled against the hypothesis of a multiverse
Multiverse
The multiverse is the hypothetical set of multiple possible universes that together comprise all of reality.Multiverse may also refer to:-In fiction:* Multiverse , the fictional multiverse used by DC Comics...
, although some argue that it does make falsifiable predictions. A modified version of this criticism is that we understand so little about the emergence of life, especially intelligent life, that it is effectively impossible to calculate the number of observers in each universe. Also, the prior distribution of universes as a function of the fundamental constants is easily modified to get any desired result.
Many criticisms focus on versions of the Strong Anthropic Principle, such as Barrett and Tipler's anthropic cosmological principle, which are teleological
Teleology
A teleology is any philosophical account which holds that final causes exist in nature, meaning that design and purpose analogous to that found in human actions are inherent also in the rest of nature. The word comes from the Greek τέλος, telos; root: τελε-, "end, purpose...
notions that tend to describe the existence of life as a necessary prerequisite for the observable constants of physics. In a lecture titled "The Confusion of Cause and Effect in Bad Science," the paleophysicist Caroline Miller said:
Similarly, Stephen Jay Gould
Stephen Jay Gould
Stephen Jay Gould was an American paleontologist, evolutionary biologist, and historian of science. He was also one of the most influential and widely read writers of popular science of his generation....
, Michael Shermer
Michael Shermer
Michael Brant Shermer is an American science writer, historian of science, founder of The Skeptics Society, and Editor in Chief of its magazine Skeptic, which is largely devoted to investigating pseudoscientific and supernatural claims. The Skeptics Society currently has over 55,000 members...
and others claim that the stronger versions of the Anthropic Principle seem to reverse known causes and effects. Gould compared the claim that the universe is fine-tuned for the benefit of our kind of life to saying that sausages were made long and narrow so that they could fit into modern hotdog buns, or saying that ships had been invented to house barnacle
Barnacle
A barnacle is a type of arthropod belonging to infraclass Cirripedia in the subphylum Crustacea, and is hence related to crabs and lobsters. Barnacles are exclusively marine, and tend to live in shallow and tidal waters, typically in erosive settings. They are sessile suspension feeders, and have...
s. These critics cite the vast physical, fossil, genetic, and other biological evidence consistent with life having been fine-tuned
Fine-tuned universe
The fine-tuned universe is the proposition that the conditions that allow life in the Universe can only occur when certain universal fundamental physical constants lie within a very narrow range, so that if any of several fundamental constants were only slightly different the universe would be...
through natural selection
Natural selection
Natural selection is the nonrandom process by which biologic traits become either more or less common in a population as a function of differential reproduction of their bearers. It is a key mechanism of evolution....
to adapt to the physical and geophysical environment in which life exists. Life appears to have adapted to physics, and not vice versa.
Some applications of the anthropic principle have been criticized as an argument by lack of imagination, for tacitly assuming that carbon compounds and water are the only possible chemistry of life (sometimes called "carbon chauvinism
Carbon chauvinism
Carbon chauvinism is a neologism meant to disparage the assumption that the chemical processes of hypothetical extraterrestrial life must be constructed primarily from carbon , as carbon's chemical and thermodynamic properties render it far superior to all other elements.-Concept:The term was used...
", see also alternative biochemistry
Alternative biochemistry
Hypothetical types of biochemistry are forms of biochemistry speculated to be scientifically viable but not proven to exist at this time. While the kinds of living beings we know on earth commonly use carbon for basic structural and metabolic functions, water as a solvent and DNA or RNA to define...
). The range of fundamental physical constants consistent with the evolution of carbon-based life may also be wider than those who advocate a fine tuned universe have argued. For instance, Harnik et al. propose a weakless universe
Weakless Universe
The Weakless Universe is a hypothetical universe that contains no weak interactions, but is otherwise very similar to our own universe.In particular, the Weakless Universe is constructed to have nuclear physics and chemistry identical to standard nuclear physics and chemistry...
in which the weak nuclear force is eliminated. They show that this has no significant effect on the other fundamental interaction
Fundamental interaction
In particle physics, fundamental interactions are the ways that elementary particles interact with one another...
s, provided some adjustments are made in how those interactions work. However, if some of the fine-tuned details of our universe were violated, that would rule out complex structures of any kind — star
Star
A star is a massive, luminous sphere of plasma held together by gravity. At the end of its lifetime, a star can also contain a proportion of degenerate matter. The nearest star to Earth is the Sun, which is the source of most of the energy on Earth...
s, planet
Planet
A planet is a celestial body orbiting a star or stellar remnant that is massive enough to be rounded by its own gravity, is not massive enough to cause thermonuclear fusion, and has cleared its neighbouring region of planetesimals.The term planet is ancient, with ties to history, science,...
s, galaxies, etc.
Lee Smolin
Lee Smolin
Lee Smolin is an American theoretical physicist, a researcher at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, and an adjunct professor of physics at the University of Waterloo. He is married to Dina Graser, a communications lawyer in Toronto. His brother is David M...
has offered a theory designed to improve on the lack of imagination that anthropic principles have been accused of. He puts forth his fecund universes theory, which assumes universes have "offspring" through the creation of black hole
Black hole
A black hole is a region of spacetime from which nothing, not even light, can escape. The theory of general relativity predicts that a sufficiently compact mass will deform spacetime to form a black hole. Around a black hole there is a mathematically defined surface called an event horizon that...
s, and that these offspring universes have values of physical constants that depend on these of the mother universe. Some versions of the anthropic principle are only interesting if the range of physical constants that allow certain kinds of life are unlikely in a landscape of possible universes. But Lee Smolin assumes that conditions for carbon based life are similar to conditions for black hole creation, which would change the a priori distribution of universes such that universes containing life would be likely. In the string theorist Leonard Susskind
Leonard Susskind
Leonard Susskind is the Felix Bloch Professor of Theoretical Physics at Stanford University. His research interests include string theory, quantum field theory, quantum statistical mechanics and quantum cosmology...
disagrees about some assumptions in Lee Smolin
Lee Smolin
Lee Smolin is an American theoretical physicist, a researcher at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, and an adjunct professor of physics at the University of Waterloo. He is married to Dina Graser, a communications lawyer in Toronto. His brother is David M...
's theory, while Smolin defends his theory.
The philosophers of cosmology John Earman
John Earman
John Earman is a philosopher of physics. He is currently an emeritus professor in the History and Philosophy of Science department at the University of Pittsburgh. He has also taught at UCLA, the Rockefeller University, and the University of Minnesota, and was president of the Philosophy of...
, Ernan McMullin
Ernan McMullin
Ernan McMullin was the O’Hara Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at the University of Notre Dame. He was an internationally-respected philosopher of science who has written and lectured extensively on subjects ranging from the relationship between cosmology and theology, to the role of values in...
and Jesús Mosterín
Jesús Mosterín
Jesús Mosterín is a leading Spanish philosopher and a thinker of broad spectrum, often at the frontier between science and philosophy.-Biography:He was born in Bilbao in 1941. He studied in Spain, Germany and the USA...
contend that "in its weak version, the anthropic principle is a mere tautology, which does not allow us to explain anything or to predict anything that we did not already know. In its strong version, it is a gratuitous speculation". A further criticism by Mosterín concerns the flawed "anthropic" inference from the assumption of an infinity of worlds to the existence of one like ours:
See also
- Big BounceBig BounceThe Big Bounce is a theoretical scientific model of the formation of the known universe. It is implied by the cyclic model or oscillatory universe interpretation of the Big Bang where the first cosmological event was the result of the collapse of a previous universe.- Expansion and contraction...
- Doomsday argumentDoomsday argumentThe Doomsday argument is a probabilistic argument that claims to predict the number of future members of the human species given only an estimate of the total number of humans born so far...
- Final anthropic principle
- Fine-tuned UniverseFine-tuned universeThe fine-tuned universe is the proposition that the conditions that allow life in the Universe can only occur when certain universal fundamental physical constants lie within a very narrow range, so that if any of several fundamental constants were only slightly different the universe would be...
- The Great FilterThe Great FilterThe Great Filter, in the context of the Fermi paradox, is whatever prevents "dead matter" from giving rise, in time, to "expanding lasting life"...
- Infinite monkey theoremInfinite monkey theoremThe infinite monkey theorem states that a monkey hitting keys at random on a typewriter keyboard for an infinite amount of time will almost surely type a given text, such as the complete works of William Shakespeare....
- Inverse gambler's fallacyInverse gambler's fallacyThe inverse gambler's fallacy, named by philosopher Ian Hacking, is a formal fallacy of Bayesian inference which is similar to the better known gambler's fallacy. It is the fallacy of concluding, on the basis of an unlikely outcome of a random process, that the process is likely to have occurred...
- Mediocrity principleMediocrity principleThe mediocrity principle is the notion in philosophy of science that there is nothing very unusual about the evolution of our solar system, the Earth, any one nation, or humans. It is a heuristic in the vein of the Copernican principle, and is sometimes used as a philosophical statement about the...
- Metaphysical naturalismMetaphysical naturalismMetaphysical naturalism, also called ontological naturalism and philosophical naturalism, or just naturalism, is a philosophical worldview and belief system that holds that there is nothing but natural elements, principles, and relations of the kind studied by the natural sciences, i.e., those...
- NeocatastrophismNeocatastrophismNeocatastrophism is the theory that life-exterminating events such as gamma-ray bursts have acted as a galactic regulation mechanism in the Milky Way upon the emergence of complex life in its habitable zone...
- Nick BostromNick BostromNick Bostrom is a Swedish philosopher at the University of Oxford known for his work on existential risk and the anthropic principle. He holds a PhD from the London School of Economics...
- Puddle thinking
- Quark Mass and Congeniality to Life
- Rare Earth hypothesisRare Earth hypothesisIn planetary astronomy and astrobiology, the Rare Earth hypothesis argues that the emergence of complex multicellular life on Earth required an improbable combination of astrophysical and geological events and circumstances...
- Selection biasSelection biasSelection bias is a statistical bias in which there is an error in choosing the individuals or groups to take part in a scientific study. It is sometimes referred to as the selection effect. The term "selection bias" most often refers to the distortion of a statistical analysis, resulting from the...
- Triple-alpha process
- TeleologyTeleologyA teleology is any philosophical account which holds that final causes exist in nature, meaning that design and purpose analogous to that found in human actions are inherent also in the rest of nature. The word comes from the Greek τέλος, telos; root: τελε-, "end, purpose...
External links
- Caner, Taslaman, Anthropic Principle and Infinite Universes
- Nick BostromNick BostromNick Bostrom is a Swedish philosopher at the University of Oxford known for his work on existential risk and the anthropic principle. He holds a PhD from the London School of Economics...
: web site devoted to the Anthropic Principle. - Chown, Marcus, Anything Goes, New Scientist, 6 June 1998. On Max Tegmark's work.
- Stephen HawkingStephen HawkingStephen William Hawking, CH, CBE, FRS, FRSA is an English theoretical physicist and cosmologist, whose scientific books and public appearances have made him an academic celebrity...
, Steven WeinbergSteven WeinbergSteven Weinberg is an American theoretical physicist and Nobel laureate in Physics for his contributions with Abdus Salam and Sheldon Glashow to the unification of the weak force and electromagnetic interaction between elementary particles....
, Alexander VilenkinAlexander VilenkinAlexander Vilenkin is Professor of Physics and Director of the Institute of Cosmology at Tufts University. A theoretical physicist who has been working in the field of cosmology for 25 years, Vilenkin has written over 150 papers and is responsible for introducing the ideas of eternal inflation and...
, David GrossDavid GrossDavid Jonathan Gross is an American particle physicist and string theorist. Along with Frank Wilczek and David Politzer, he was awarded the 2004 Nobel Prize in Physics for their discovery of asymptotic freedom. He is currently the director and holder of the Frederick W...
and Lawrence Krauss: Debate on Anthropic Reasoning Kavli-CERCA Conference Video Archive. - Tobin, Paul N., 2000, "Is the Universe Fine-Tuned for Life?" (Archived 2009-10-25) A critique of the Anthropic Principle from an atheist viewpoint.
- "Anthropic Coincidence"—the anthropic controversy as a segue to Lee SmolinLee SmolinLee Smolin is an American theoretical physicist, a researcher at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, and an adjunct professor of physics at the University of Waterloo. He is married to Dina Graser, a communications lawyer in Toronto. His brother is David M...
's theory of cosmological natural selection. - Leonard SusskindLeonard SusskindLeonard Susskind is the Felix Bloch Professor of Theoretical Physics at Stanford University. His research interests include string theory, quantum field theory, quantum statistical mechanics and quantum cosmology...
and Lee SmolinLee SmolinLee Smolin is an American theoretical physicist, a researcher at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, and an adjunct professor of physics at the University of Waterloo. He is married to Dina Graser, a communications lawyer in Toronto. His brother is David M...
debate the Anthropic Principle. - debate among scientists on arxiv.org.
- Evolutionary Probability and Fine Tuning
- Benevolent Design and the Anthropic Principle at MathPages
- Critical review of "The Privileged Planet"
- The Anthropic Principle - a review.
- Berger, Daniel, 2002, "An impertinent resumé of the Anthropic Cosmological Principle." A critique of Barrow & Tipler.
- Jürgen SchmidhuberJürgen SchmidhuberJürgen Schmidhuber is a computer scientist and artist known for his work on machine learning, universal Artificial Intelligence , artificial neural networks, digital physics, and low-complexity art. His contributions also include generalizations of Kolmogorov complexity and the Speed Prior...
: Papers on algorithmic theories of everything and the Anthropic Principle's lack of predictive power. - Paul DaviesPaul DaviesPaul Charles William Davies, AM is an English physicist, writer and broadcaster, currently a professor at Arizona State University as well as the Director of BEYOND: Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science...
: Cosmic Jackpot Interview about the Anthropic Principle (starts at 40 min), 15 May 2007.