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It's rather ridiculous to me how they can shut-down the notion of the "coincidences" that make Earth so extremely unique to support life. The precise placement

It's rather ridiculous to me how they can shut-down the notion of the "coincidences" that make Earth so extremely unique to support life. The precise placement of the moon, the composition of our core to generate perfect magnetic fields, etc. the laws of gravity and quantum theory allow universes to appear spontaneously from nothing Really? I'm having as hard a time believing in that as many of you might have believing in creation. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist. Sounds like God to me.

jedwhite 16y ago
The reasoning takes some thought to work through, but is fairly straightforward. The key is the concept of multiple universes, and how it changes the game by making a strong anthropic principle a weak one. "The strong anthropic principle suggests that the fact that we exist imposes constraints, not just on our environment, but on the possible form and content of the laws of nature themselves." It's understandable that we see "The Mind of God" in those laws. It give us comfort to put a label on them and see something other than quantum randomness in it all.
beej71 16y ago
What are the odds that those coincidences all lined up, and, given the number of planets in the Universe, how many of them are like ours? (Drake, of course.) Given the sheer size of the Universe, I'm personally not too surprised, but that's just gut-feeling.
patrickaljord 16y ago
> It's rather ridiculous to me how they can shut-down the notion of the "coincidences" that make Earth so extremely unique to support life. You mean to "support life as we know it". It's perfectly possible that under different laws of physics, life would still exist, that is to say, reproducible organisms could still exist but under a totally different form. Under the laws of physics of our universe, life exist as it is because this how the laws allow it to exist.
TNO 16y ago
" The precise placement of the moon, the composition of our core to generate perfect magnetic fields, etc." How precise are you defining these to be? The Moon's distance from earth increases yearly for example. The magnetic field fluctuates over time, possibly causing havoc to migrating animals. This argument seems like a confusion of cause and effect. My circular bowl was designed perfectly for my circular water to sit within...
- cookiecaper 16y ago
  Well, consider all of the potential places the Moon could have ended up; space is big. And then consider that not only the placement of the moon was necessary, but also the unique physical composition of the Earth and its atmosphere, the Earth's distance from the Sun and other celestial bodies, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc., and all of the potential states that could have been selected but were not hospitable to life, and you will see why some people find it so unlikely that there was no organizing force in the creation of our world.
  - vorg 16y ago
    What is it about the placement of the moon that makes earth so extremely unique as to support life. Does it merely deflect asteroids to provide more stability for evolving species? And how intelligent must life be to be considered the "Destined Entity" of the Anthropic Principle? Were dinosaurs not self-aware enough? The moon's placement is also such that it's the same size as the sun when viewed from the earth, making total solar eclipses more stunning, and intelligent life viewing them may become a more inquisitive species, and maybe more likely to innovate Agriculture, and so sit around in cities considering philosophical questions. But is this the only Destined Entity? Just as today's humans consider cats and apes to be not self-aware enough to be Destined Entities, maybe some future specimens of humans will consider today's humans in the same way. Or maybe humans today will create some future planet-wide automated intelligence that becomes self-aware, and be the Destined Entity, and the Anthropic Principle will really be the Robotic Principle. But just as today's humans are the result of thousands of trial-and-error experiments of evolution, an automated intelligence has more likelihood of becoming self-aware if there are many separate instances of it. If it's planet-wide, then different vastly separated planets are needed. So perhaps a moon for the earth increases the ease with which humans can adapt to space colonization, then Mars providing the next challenge, then terraforming Venus, more difficult, until humans blast off into other solar systems, eventually colonizing the galaxy. And one day, one of those planet-wide automated networks on one of the colonized planets will become self-aware enough to be considered the Destined Entity the Universe came into existence for. Such a self-aware automated intelligence will reminisce with itself that the moon "Luna" of old "Earth" had the correct placement not only to deflect asteroids, but also to display solar eclipses with a spectacular corona, and provide a baby step for space colonization by humans.
ThomPete 16y ago
If you believe in something as magic as a God, why can't you believe in spontaneous creation? I mean that is much less far out than the existence of a God who have always been there.
gmlk 16y ago
The problem I see is the simple fact that one can't ever do an actual experiment that demonstrates the existence of multiple universes… Here we have left empirical science and moved on to "anything can happen" speculative fiction, where authority counts as sufficient evidence, and the lack of observations maybe explained away. Any hypotheses which does not differentiate between "ordering" and "organization" is not actually a science, it's a cargo cult.

jedwhite 16y ago

The reasoning takes some thought to work through, but is fairly straightforward. The key is the concept of multiple universes, and how it changes the game by making a strong anthropic principle a weak one. "The strong anthropic principle suggests that the fact that we exist imposes constraints, not just on our environment, but on the possible form and content of the laws of nature themselves." It's understandable that we see "The Mind of God" in those laws. It give us comfort to put a label on them and see something other than quantum randomness in it all.

beej71 16y ago

What are the odds that those coincidences all lined up, and, given the number of planets in the Universe, how many of them are like ours? (Drake, of course.) Given the sheer size of the Universe, I'm personally not too surprised, but that's just gut-feeling.

patrickaljord 16y ago

> It's rather ridiculous to me how they can shut-down the notion of the "coincidences" that make Earth so extremely unique to support life. You mean to "support life as we know it". It's perfectly possible that under different laws of physics, life would still exist, that is to say, reproducible organisms could still exist but under a totally different form. Under the laws of physics of our universe, life exist as it is because this how the laws allow it to exist.

TNO 16y ago

" The precise placement of the moon, the composition of our core to generate perfect magnetic fields, etc." How precise are you defining these to be? The Moon's distance from earth increases yearly for example. The magnetic field fluctuates over time, possibly causing havoc to migrating animals. This argument seems like a confusion of cause and effect. My circular bowl was designed perfectly for my circular water to sit within...

cookiecaper 16y ago
Well, consider all of the potential places the Moon could have ended up; space is big. And then consider that not only the placement of the moon was necessary, but also the unique physical composition of the Earth and its atmosphere, the Earth's distance from the Sun and other celestial bodies, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc., and all of the potential states that could have been selected but were not hospitable to life, and you will see why some people find it so unlikely that there was no organizing force in the creation of our world.
- vorg 16y ago
  What is it about the placement of the moon that makes earth so extremely unique as to support life. Does it merely deflect asteroids to provide more stability for evolving species? And how intelligent must life be to be considered the "Destined Entity" of the Anthropic Principle? Were dinosaurs not self-aware enough? The moon's placement is also such that it's the same size as the sun when viewed from the earth, making total solar eclipses more stunning, and intelligent life viewing them may become a more inquisitive species, and maybe more likely to innovate Agriculture, and so sit around in cities considering philosophical questions. But is this the only Destined Entity? Just as today's humans consider cats and apes to be not self-aware enough to be Destined Entities, maybe some future specimens of humans will consider today's humans in the same way. Or maybe humans today will create some future planet-wide automated intelligence that becomes self-aware, and be the Destined Entity, and the Anthropic Principle will really be the Robotic Principle. But just as today's humans are the result of thousands of trial-and-error experiments of evolution, an automated intelligence has more likelihood of becoming self-aware if there are many separate instances of it. If it's planet-wide, then different vastly separated planets are needed. So perhaps a moon for the earth increases the ease with which humans can adapt to space colonization, then Mars providing the next challenge, then terraforming Venus, more difficult, until humans blast off into other solar systems, eventually colonizing the galaxy. And one day, one of those planet-wide automated networks on one of the colonized planets will become self-aware enough to be considered the Destined Entity the Universe came into existence for. Such a self-aware automated intelligence will reminisce with itself that the moon "Luna" of old "Earth" had the correct placement not only to deflect asteroids, but also to display solar eclipses with a spectacular corona, and provide a baby step for space colonization by humans.

ThomPete 16y ago

If you believe in something as magic as a God, why can't you believe in spontaneous creation? I mean that is much less far out than the existence of a God who have always been there.

gmlk 16y ago

The problem I see is the simple fact that one can't ever do an actual experiment that demonstrates the existence of multiple universes… Here we have left empirical science and moved on to "anything can happen" speculative fiction, where authority counts as sufficient evidence, and the lack of observations maybe explained away. Any hypotheses which does not differentiate between "ordering" and "organization" is not actually a science, it's a cargo cult.