NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #31/NN_1992_31.iso/spool/talk/origins/15881

Text File | 1992-12-22 | 4.8 KB | 91 lines

Newsgroups: talk.origins
Path: sparky!uunet!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!cs.utexas.edu!torn!nott!cunews!emc
From: [e-mail] (Eli Chiprout)
Subject: Re: On God and Science
Message-ID: <emc.725060254@tomalak>
Sender: [e-mail] (News Administrator)
Organization: Dept. of Electronics, Carleton University
References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <emc.725044151@tomalak> <[e-mail]>
Distribution: world,local
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 1992 21:37:34 GMT
Lines: 80

In <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (James J. Lippard) writes:

>In article <emc.725044151@tomalak>, [e-mail] (Eli Chiprout) writes...
>>But the anthropic principle,which you challenged, does not refer to
>>life's origins within the context of the earth alone.  It only attempts
>>to answer the question "why is the universe so "constructed", the
>>earth so "placed", the water content "just so", etc. for life to arise
>>here.  The answer is that in places where things are not "just so" we
>>would not be around to ask the question (and there may be VERY MANY such
>>places in the universe, or in "previous" worlds).

>Well, I think that "answer" is completely lacking in explanatory value.
>Your parenthetical remark seems to hint at another explanation:  that
>it is a matter of random chance, that there are (but why?) multiple
>universes with different laws, so many of them that life was bound to
>arise in some of them.  Stronger forms of the anthropic principle
>(e.g., Barrow and Tipler's SAP and FAP) look like claims of backward
>causation--it is *because* of our observations that the world is the
>way it is.  Regarding claims that strong, I have to agree with
>Martin Gardner's assessment that these are Completely Ridiculous
>Anthropic Principles, or CRAP.

>>I agree that
>>we can get SOME sense of probabilities, though how good that sense
>>is, is debatable, because of the enormous difficulty in recreating the
>>early conditions on the earth, and for reproducing/understanding long
>>periods of time in the laboratory. So it is still not equatable
>>to the 15 riflemen that one can see, judge, and measure.

>The point of the analogy was that there are two different questions
>to which we'd like an answer.  The anthropic principle can only answer
>the less interesting one.  (Why am I here?  Because all the riflemen
>missed/because the conditions were right for life to arise.  The more
>interesting question is why did all the rifleman miss/why were conditions
>right for life to arise?  At some point the answer is probably going to
>have to be "it just did," but the anthropic principle looks like an
>attempt to disguise that fact and answer with "it just did" much
>earlier than necessary.)

I think that I am starting to see your drift.  But let me clarify further.
The anthropic principle does not offer a final solution, i.e. an explanation
of why life is here.  If it were so, I agree that it is too early to
answer (i.e. preempting the investigation).  It just offers an additional
dimension of thinking that preempts the "this universe is amazing for
its exact character so as to produce life" explanation as the only one
possible.  It may be true
that "this universe is amazing" (i.e. non-random) but this will have to
be shown by proving that indeed this is the only world that has ever
existed and that, although many other possible worlds can exist, only
this one (a life bearing world) exists.  Now to show THAT, is quite an
undertaking.  I would not know how to go about it, nor, I suspect, would
most scientists.  The anthropic principle says, that a much more reasonable
position (if not reasonable, then at least plausible) is that many other
worlds (planets) could have existed (could exist), but no one would be
on those worlds asking these questions.  It does not deny the possibility
that this world is non-random.  It just offers a way out of the "this
is the only possible explanation" that some automatically assume.  It
denies the automatic statement of "Creation cannot exist without a Creator"
because one has to prove "Creation" rather than "one of many possibilities"
first (which is what I believe you are saying).

It may be true that given logic, the universe as it must exist, that
life would ALWAYS arise as a consequence of the laws, no matter what the
setup would be.  The anthropic principle would still be true in that case
since it does not preempt that answer.  (I think that this position would
be easier to show).

Now the investigation can begin!

>Jim Lippard              [e-mail]
>Dept. of Philosophy      [e-mail]
>University of Arizona
>Tucson, AZ 85721
--
Eli Chiprout
Dept. of Electronics,
Carleton University, Canada
[e-mail]