Misanthropic Me

Bee has a long thoughtful post on various versions of the Anthropic Principle, with many comments. Lubos has another, much longer, and related post on what kind of universe is necessary for life. Unfortunately I didn't get much out of either one, since my brain shuts off when I read (or hear) the phrase "Anthropic Principle."

Basic statistical mechanics indicates that if our universe started from a random state, it is more likely that our present ideas of the history of the Universe, the Earth, and even ourselves, is more likely to be an illusion based on chance alignments of molecules than real. It's more likely that those memory traces in your brain (and the rest of you) are a chance fluctuation than real records of your history (see, for example, Brian Greene's Fabric of the Cosmos, pg. 160 ff.

In such a universe it's very hard for me to believe anthropic considerations are likely to help us make sense of the whole thing. It seems very unlikely that there was anything ineluctable about the evolution of the human race here on Earth, so it's also possible that our universe and its laws somehow evolved. If, to abuse Einstein's phrase, God had some choice in the design of the universe, I don't see how the AP helps us understand it.

Comments

  1. Anonymous9:14 AM

    And what if "he" didn't?

    Certainly, the AP can't most naturally be considered to be evidence that we are here by accident.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous12:23 PM

    http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/krauss06/krauss06.2_index.html
    When you look at [the cosmic microwave background] map, you see that the structure that is observed, is in fact, in a weird way, correlated with the plane of the earth around the sun. Is this Copernicus coming back to haunt us? That's crazy. We're looking out at the whole universe. There's no way there should be a correlation of structure with our motion of the earth around the sun. That would say we are truly the center of the universe.


    Funny how Peter Woit, nor anyone else even mentioned this part of Krauss' article, innit?

    I'd like to know when the game quits being one of "explaining-away" the hardest empirical evidence that exists in support of anthropic specialness, rather than to look for some good physical reason why the implication for specialness might be true.

    Where and when to scientists start acting like real scientists again, in other words.

    I'm guessing that never is too soon for most, and don't pretend that I don't have a damned good empirically supported point.

    ReplyDelete
  3. CapitalistImperialistPig8:01 PM

    I'm afraid I don't take your point.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous8:51 AM

    Yeah, willful ignorance runs ramapant when it comes to this subject.

    Welcome to the group of losers that can't call themselves honest scientists.

    ReplyDelete
  5. CapitalistImperialistPig6:55 PM

    Dear island,

    I regret that I'm unable to accept your kind invitation to join your society, club, or political party, because:

    (a) I belong to a rival society X

    (b) It sounds boring X

    (c) Crazy people make me nervous X

    Thanks anyway, don't forget to play again, maybe someplace else.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Anonymous4:59 AM

    What?... TFAreYOUtalking about, you clueless little moron? Either face the facts or shut the hell up, idiot.

    Here, let me start over, for the weak of mind:

    http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/krauss06/krauss06.2_index.html

    Lawrence Krauss said:
    When you look at [the cosmic microwave background] map, you see that the structure that is observed, is in fact, in a weird way, correlated with the plane of the earth around the sun. Is this Copernicus coming back to haunt us? That's crazy. We're looking out at the whole universe. There's no way there should be a correlation of structure with our motion of the earth around the sun. That would say we are truly the center of the universe.


    Funny how Peter Woit, nor anyone else even mentioned this part of Krauss' article, innit?

    I'd like to know when the game quits being one of "explaining-away" the hardest empirical evidence that exists in support of anthropic specialness, rather than to look for some good physical reason why the implication for specialness might be true.

    Where and when to scientists start acting like real scientists again, in other words.

    I'm guessing that never is too soon for most, and don't pretend that I don't have a damned good empirically supported point.

    ReplyDelete
  7. CapitalistImperialistPig9:05 PM

    Island politely said - What?... TFAreYOUtalking about, you clueless little moron?

    You must be pretty big, if you can call me (6' 4" and more than a little husky)little.

    There are many plausible explanations for alighnment between the ecliptic and the plane of the quadrapole and octupole moments. See, for example: astro-ph/0603451 and references cited therein. The most plausible are experimental artifact or some outer solar system effect as well as your theory of divine intervention - I guess that's your theory, you don't seem to articulate it that well.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Anonymous4:40 PM

    Hey, I finally got a responsible answer from you... so my method can't be all bad... ;)

    your theory of divine intervention

    No, that's your false assumption, which quite commonly gets made, and just as commonly proves my point for me, since I don't EVER say anything that should lead a person to that conclusion. It only proves that they are pre-prejudiced and, are, therefore, unable to act like honest scientists.

    And especially given that I'm an atheist.

    FYI: Cosmological evidence that we are not here by accident cannot be construed as evidence for "devine intervention" or any other kind of "intelligent design" without direct proof, since any good physical need for us to be here is all that is needed for us to arise to satisfy the need.

    Which illustrates my point that science does not pursue that route, rather that *automatically* take the same "explain-it-away" road that you chose. Not only that, they purposely avoid the implications of the evidence, like Woit did, and commonly does.

    I'll guarantee you that I can prove to you that this is done for all the wrong reasons, and NEVER for scientific reasons.

    I think that it's interesting though that they went from a 99.999% confidence level, to "well, maybe there's a bunch of artifactual distortions".

    http://www.arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0508047/

    ReplyDelete

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