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You're referring to the Anthropic principle, which is a hypothesis, not a law of nature. It also says nothing on inevitability. These things could easily have

You're referring to the Anthropic principle, which is a hypothesis, not a law of nature. It also says nothing on inevitability. These things could easily have just not occurred (knowing what we know) and then we wouldn't be here to observe them. The causal arrow is important.

zero-sharp 2y ago
My understanding is that the principle is just the observation that our existence implies that a certain chain of events occurred in the past. That isn't the same thing as saying that the chain of events necessarily had to occur.
- soulofmischief 2y ago
  Yeah, it's basic conditional logic. If humans, then <chain of events> doesn't mean <chain of events> is guaranteed to occur. We haven't even been able to guarantee the existence of existence.
lxgr 2y ago
"Only universes capable producing/hosting conscious observers can be consciously observed from within them" seems like more than just a hypothesis to me.
- alserio 2y ago
  A tautology, even
- jvanderbot 2y ago
  That's not what GP says. The original post said " all universes must inevitably produce the conditions for intelligent life" which is not obviously true. The anthropic principle does not say that either. Any mention of the anthropic principle w.r.t. the article is essentially screwing up the causality, as correctly stated ITT.
  - lxgr 2y ago
    Yes, but parent said "the anthropic principle is a hypothesis", and I was replying to that.
ValentinA23 2y ago
The anthropic principle in its weak form isn't really a hypothesis - it's more of a methodological principle that warns us against unnecessary theories. This is best illustrated by the historical debate between Dirac and Dicke (who came up with this idea) about cosmic coincidences. In 1937, Dirac noticed striking numerical relationships between fundamental physical constants and the age of the universe [1]. He proposed these couldn't be coincidental and suggested fundamental constants must vary with cosmic time. But Dicke (1961) showed that some of these "coincidences" weren't so mysterious: they were necessary conditions for our existence as observers [2]. The universe had to be old enough for heavy elements to form in stars, but not so old that all stars burned out. These constraints naturally explain some of the numerical relationships Dirac found, without requiring varying constants. However, Dicke's argument has limits: it only works for coincidences necessary for intelligent life. It can't explain away "gratuitous coincidences" - numerical relationships that aren't required for our existence. This is particularly relevant because Dirac's work was actually part of a longer tradition - going back to Weyl in 1919 [1] - of physicists finding peculiar numerical relationships between physical constants. While the article discusses coincidences that make our existence possible, we need to consider how to explain the other ones. Is it even feasible ? Let me give it a try. If physical constants were "set" randomly, with their observability conditioned only by whether they allow intelligent life, we should expect to find both types of coincidences in our universe: the necessary ones that enable our existence, and gratuitous ones that just happened to come along for the ride in our universe's "roll of the dice". This leads to a disturbing conclusion: for laws of physics to be discoverable by observers in a universe without a creator, they must contain misleading elements as a by-product of what allowed these observers to emerge. The universe seems to impose a double-bind on its observers - the very conditions that make it observable must also make it deceptive. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirac_large_numbers_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirac_large_numbers_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle#Anthropic_observations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle#Anthropic_...
- DennisP 2y ago
  Here's a counterargument. Let's say there are two possible coincidences, A and B, each with an independent one-in-a-million chance. Coincidence A is necessary for life to emerge, but B is irrelevant. Now let's say there are a trillion universes, with random settings. Only one in a million universes have coincidence A, but those are all the universes with observers. All the observers see coincidence A. Out of those million universes, we can expect to see only one universe with coincidence B. The vast majority of observers will only see the coincidence that allowed them to exist.
GoblinSlayer 2y ago
Anthropic principle is a law, because it is tautology: conditions that are observed in the universe must allow the observer to exist.
- soulofmischief 2y ago
  Since you seem to know this with certainty, perhaps you'd like to edit the related Wikipedia article [0]: > The anthropic principle, also known as the observation selection effect, is the hypothesis that the range of possible observations that could be made about the universe is limited by the fact that observations are only possible in the type of universe that is capable of developing intelligent life. > The anthropic principle is often criticized for lacking falsifiability and therefore its critics may point out that the anthropic principle is a non-scientific concept, even though the weak anthropic principle, "conditions that are observed in the universe must allow the observer to exist", is "easy" to support in mathematics and philosophy (i.e., it is a tautology or truism). However, building a substantive argument based on a tautological foundation is problematic. Stronger variants of the anthropic principle are not tautologies and thus make claims considered controversial by some and that are contingent upon empirical verification. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle
  - GoblinSlayer 2y ago
    > it is a tautology or truism >According to Jürgen Schmidhuber, the anthropic principle essentially just says that the conditional probability of finding yourself in a universe compatible with your existence is always 1. It already contains my claim.
    - soulofmischief 2y ago
      If you cherry-pick, sure, but you have to completely ignore the rest of the article. The excerpt you provided indeed points out it's a truism. The article also clearly states why that's problematic.

zero-sharp 2y ago

My understanding is that the principle is just the observation that our existence implies that a certain chain of events occurred in the past. That isn't the same thing as saying that the chain of events necessarily had to occur.

soulofmischief 2y ago
Yeah, it's basic conditional logic. If humans, then <chain of events> doesn't mean <chain of events> is guaranteed to occur. We haven't even been able to guarantee the existence of existence.

lxgr 2y ago

"Only universes capable producing/hosting conscious observers can be consciously observed from within them" seems like more than just a hypothesis to me.

alserio 2y ago
A tautology, even
jvanderbot 2y ago
That's not what GP says. The original post said " all universes must inevitably produce the conditions for intelligent life" which is not obviously true. The anthropic principle does not say that either. Any mention of the anthropic principle w.r.t. the article is essentially screwing up the causality, as correctly stated ITT.
- lxgr 2y ago
  Yes, but parent said "the anthropic principle is a hypothesis", and I was replying to that.

ValentinA23 2y ago

The anthropic principle in its weak form isn't really a hypothesis - it's more of a methodological principle that warns us against unnecessary theories. This is best illustrated by the historical debate between Dirac and Dicke (who came up with this idea) about cosmic coincidences. In 1937, Dirac noticed striking numerical relationships between fundamental physical constants and the age of the universe [1]. He proposed these couldn't be coincidental and suggested fundamental constants must vary with cosmic time. But Dicke (1961) showed that some of these "coincidences" weren't so mysterious: they were necessary conditions for our existence as observers [2]. The universe had to be old enough for heavy elements to form in stars, but not so old that all stars burned out. These constraints naturally explain some of the numerical relationships Dirac found, without requiring varying constants. However, Dicke's argument has limits: it only works for coincidences necessary for intelligent life. It can't explain away "gratuitous coincidences" - numerical relationships that aren't required for our existence. This is particularly relevant because Dirac's work was actually part of a longer tradition - going back to Weyl in 1919 [1] - of physicists finding peculiar numerical relationships between physical constants. While the article discusses coincidences that make our existence possible, we need to consider how to explain the other ones. Is it even feasible ? Let me give it a try. If physical constants were "set" randomly, with their observability conditioned only by whether they allow intelligent life, we should expect to find both types of coincidences in our universe: the necessary ones that enable our existence, and gratuitous ones that just happened to come along for the ride in our universe's "roll of the dice". This leads to a disturbing conclusion: for laws of physics to be discoverable by observers in a universe without a creator, they must contain misleading elements as a by-product of what allowed these observers to emerge. The universe seems to impose a double-bind on its observers - the very conditions that make it observable must also make it deceptive. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirac_large_numbers_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirac_large_numbers_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle#Anthropic_observations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle#Anthropic_...

DennisP 2y ago
Here's a counterargument. Let's say there are two possible coincidences, A and B, each with an independent one-in-a-million chance. Coincidence A is necessary for life to emerge, but B is irrelevant. Now let's say there are a trillion universes, with random settings. Only one in a million universes have coincidence A, but those are all the universes with observers. All the observers see coincidence A. Out of those million universes, we can expect to see only one universe with coincidence B. The vast majority of observers will only see the coincidence that allowed them to exist.

GoblinSlayer 2y ago

Anthropic principle is a law, because it is tautology: conditions that are observed in the universe must allow the observer to exist.

soulofmischief 2y ago
Since you seem to know this with certainty, perhaps you'd like to edit the related Wikipedia article [0]: > The anthropic principle, also known as the observation selection effect, is the hypothesis that the range of possible observations that could be made about the universe is limited by the fact that observations are only possible in the type of universe that is capable of developing intelligent life. > The anthropic principle is often criticized for lacking falsifiability and therefore its critics may point out that the anthropic principle is a non-scientific concept, even though the weak anthropic principle, "conditions that are observed in the universe must allow the observer to exist", is "easy" to support in mathematics and philosophy (i.e., it is a tautology or truism). However, building a substantive argument based on a tautological foundation is problematic. Stronger variants of the anthropic principle are not tautologies and thus make claims considered controversial by some and that are contingent upon empirical verification. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle
- GoblinSlayer 2y ago
  > it is a tautology or truism >According to Jürgen Schmidhuber, the anthropic principle essentially just says that the conditional probability of finding yourself in a universe compatible with your existence is always 1. It already contains my claim.
  - soulofmischief 2y ago
    If you cherry-pick, sure, but you have to completely ignore the rest of the article. The excerpt you provided indeed points out it's a truism. The article also clearly states why that's problematic.