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I think you may be mixing up the causation. How probable our universe is, we'll never know (until we can see other universes). We do know that in this universe,
by dumbfoundded 7y ago
I think you may be mixing up the causation. How probable our universe is, we'll never know (until we can see other universes). We do know that in this universe, life exists. Thus our universe has to be "fine-tuned" for us to exist because we do.
As for the universe "favor"ing life, that doesn't really make sense either. I think it's safe to say the universe favors stars, gas giants, black holes but it's pretty hard to say the universe favors life when it's only given us ourselves as an example.
- bryanrasmussen 7y agoI suppose if the anthropic principle is correct that would mean there are many examples, it's just our problem that we are only familiar with one.
- dumbfoundded 7y agoOur universe certainly has to allow for the existence of us because we exist, but I don't think it says much more than that. It's easy enough to imagine on Earth that conscious life never formed and to imagine such without changing the laws of physics. I don't understand anything about our universe that guarantees the existence of conscious life, let alone guarantees multiple instances. All we can really say for certain is that our universe allows for us. We really don't know how rare we are.
- cryptonector 7y agoOur universe is "fine-tuned" to make it difficult for life on different planets, on different star systems, to find out about and communicate with each other.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- three_seagrass 7y agoI mean, you can calculate the probability of an abiogenesis event on pre-biotic Earth (or in our Universe in general), and then run the probability against the known number of solar systems/planets/atoms in the known universe. Whether or not the universe favored life can be interpreted from the resulting improbability and the current results. Stars, gas giants, and black holes are probable.
- dumbfoundded 7y agoThe assumptions probably dictate the probability more than anything else. We don't even know how life originated on Earth
- three_seagrass 7y agoAbiogenesis implies natural means, but I agree that we simply do not know.
- tsimionescu 7y agoHow could you calculate the probability of an event that we have no idea about? We don't even know for sure that life originated entirely on earth itself - life or some crucial substances required for it could have originated on some other planet with conditions we know nothing about and been brought to earth on some meteorite; or it could have originated in some extreme conditions like a comet tail in close proximity to the sun. I'm not saying these are necessarily plausible theories, but the fact that we can't discount them tells me enough about how likely we are to be able to calculate a probability for abiogenesis.
- three_seagrass 7y agoLife seeded implies that life still went through abiogenesis somewhere else. I agree that we can't know the exact means, just that abiogenesis happened, but we can still calculate the probability of our conditions needing to occur for abiogenesis to happen.
- jjoonathan 7y agoIsn't this the distinction between the Strong Anthropic Principle and the Weak Anthropic Principle? WAP: we're going to see selection bias in our universe because the preconditions for life must have been satisfied for us to exist within it. SAP: all universes must satisfy the preconditions for life because cogito ergo sum -- the definition of existence requires life to perceive it. I've probably sold SAP short because my own model of existence doesn't require perception, but clearly by this point we're well within the realm of philosophy.
- skissane 7y ago> SAP: all universes must satisfy the preconditions for life because cogito ergo sum -- the definition of existence requires life to perceive it. Rather than cogito ergo sum, I think esse est percipi is the more appropriate phrase to use here.
- TheSpiceIsLife 7y agoI had to look that one up: esse est percipi: to be is to be perceived
- quotemstr 7y agoI love how terse Latin is
- saagarjha 7y agoThat’s mostly because the “to be” gets a folded into the verb.
- quotemstr 7y agoNo, that's not right. Latin has a separate copula --- sum, est, and so on. What gives Latin its terseness is that it supports dropping words implied by context (like the copula in many contexts) and that it's highly inflected, allowing single words to communicate grammatical information that we need word spam to spell out in English.
- 8fingerlouie 7y ago> Thus our universe has to be "fine-tuned" for us to exist because we do. Because we of course do not exist in this universe because we're fine tuned to exist in it. I can't think of a better way to describe it than the late Douglas Adams did : “This is rather as if you imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, 'This is an interesting world I find myself in — an interesting hole I find myself in — fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!' This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, frantically hanging on to the notion that everything's going to be alright, because this world was meant to have him in it, was built to have him in it; so the moment he disappears catches him rather by surprise. I think this may be something we need to be on the watch out for.”
- DonHopkins 7y agoThat's such a deep thought for a shallow puddle.
- chottocharaii 7y agoBad analogy. A puddle is a local system, governed by local random conditions (e.g. the sun as in that example) The strong anthropic principle makes a statement about the fine tuning of the one and only, non-random, system that governs all systems. I.e. the rudimentary physics & chemistry that happens to favours determine carbon based life generally.