Letters to the Editor
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Anonymous
You seem to think that uneducated and ideologically predispositioned opinions should be given credence, rather than used to expose the real problem here.
It isn't my pet, it's more like a curse, ask Paul. I hate the "goddamned" AP for the same reason, I'm sure.
Exposing the dogma for what it is, IS the only satisfaction to be had for too many years of research that's wasted by the fact that the problem reaches the highest levels of science... like Carter said.
If a correct understanding of the AP is necessary to the theory of everything, quantum gravity and our survival... then, as far as I can tell, we're as good as dead on all counts.
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What is the meaning of meaning?
Why do people want to believe that there is some meaning in the universe? What's wrong with the possibility that we die and disappear after out turn on the planet? Death is just part of life for every other species. Why should we be different, with our longing for an "afterlife" or a "meaning".
Davies admits that the term "meaning" is a human construct. What purpose does it serve? What part of my life is made different from his because I couldn't care less if my life has "meaning" in his sense or any other sense. If "meaning" is a human construct, it does not have any reason to be one thing or another, and will be different from one human to another. Much of the damage in the world arises from different human constructs for meaning and purpose.
Science isn't going to answer the question, or whatever Davies is talking about, because it cannot be posed as a question amenable to the scientific method.
I'm with Protagoras: Man is the measure of all things, of those that are, that they are; of those that are not, that they are not. Click on my signature for a link.
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Pandering to New Age Nitwits
The headline says it all - "We are meant to be here". Unless, of course, an astoroid just happens to hit earth next week and destroy all life. In that case, we were not meant to be here.
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jared2
The headline says it all - "We are meant to be here". Unless, of course, an astoroid just happens to hit earth next week and destroy all life. In that case, we were not meant to be here.
And now you have a falsifiable hypothesis.
If we are not killed next week by an astroid or nuclear stupidity, or global warming, or every other cry from "chicken-little" reactionaries, like yourself, that has occurred since time began, then you have a clue that the anthropic balance points are "self-regulating", and you have to admit that your hypothesis has been falsified to date.
By your own gloom-n-doom standards, we were dead a long time ago.
And yet we are still here!!!
-Morpheus
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Why limit the observer?
Why limit the observer? If there is an infinite space and time, what ever that means, there may be an infinite number of observers and an infinite number of observed universes. Why should we assume that we are in a special corner of this immensity? Why should we assume that we are the only bubble where life has developed and that we, collectively across the galaxies in our universe, are the only observers?
In the infinite observer model, every universe in the multiverse can be a carrier of life.
I can imagine observers who intentionally create universes to fill this infinity of time and space with life.
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smallpkgs
Thanks for your letter which is not only true, but elegant.
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Groovy
And they say you can't get good acid anymore.
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re: island
As a "neutral observer" of this discussion, with a science degree but no formal knowledge of (or chops enough to handle, unfortunately) graduate level physics, I'm still waiting for somebody with the same understanding/experience as island clearly demonstrates with this topic to confront him on it.
My own instincts are to think Davies and the Anthropic Principle are out to lunch -- but my own instincts tell me a lot of things that aren't supported by reality.
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Read Buckley's At the Origins of Modern Atheism
Evangelical atheists and intensely dogmatic persons of a scientific mindset (inevitably almost always the worst "scientists" out there) should investigate the origins and limits of atheism as a philosophical discourse before trotting out their four-hundred-year-old arguments as though they have stumbled on some new revelation. It's all quite boring and predictable, the language of "proof" and "evidence" will be invoked as though these terms apply equally in all realms of human experience and knowledge.
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Rare Earth
There really ought to be a way to search a thread, if only to avoid duplicating reading recommendations.
Just a suggestion that folks might enjoy considering the arguments put forward in the book, "Rare Earth: Why Complex Life Is Uncommon in the Universe" by Ward and Brownlee. These arguments don't tend to devolve to dancing on the head of a pin arguments about the anthropic principle, but make a lot of sense. Folks that just want to marvel at the cosmic oooh, ahhh factor might google Olber's Paradox or the "collapse of the wave function".
One might also want to consider synthesizing Davies' not too outrageous extension of the standard model of QM with Dawkin's notion of the extended phenotype. If current day peeping Toms are responsible for collapsing the grandpappy of all wave functions during the Big Bang, that certainly is one heck of an extended phenotype...
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They are out to lunch
Anonymous wrote:
"My own instincts are to think Davies and the Anthropic Principle are out to lunch -- but my own instincts tell me a lot of things that aren't supported by reality.
They ARE out to lunch. The problem is that a comprehensive rebuttal demands more time than most of us are prepared to deliver (and right now, I am in the middle of writing a new monograph on solar flare prediction).
If you want to see a slam bang demolition of the whole AP crap I suggest you get hold of Dawkins' The God Delusion. He crushes this absurd, homo-centric pile of rubbish better than anyone I know, and does it with class, humor and flair.