Philosophical musings on Quanta & Qualia;  Materialism & Spiritualism; Science & Religion; Pragmatism & Idealism, etc.

  Post 116.  October 4, 2021  . . . . . continued

   The Anthropic Cosmological Principle

   Weak, Strong, and Final Cosmologies  

The Anthropic Principle has been expressed in various degrees of conviction, and with conclusions ranging from prosaically physical to fantastically metaphysical. Some of the earliest forms are found in the beginning of literary civilization, such as the book of Genesis. So, the authors briefly review the history of both Design arguments, and human-centered assumptions, from ancient to modern times. But this book is mostly concerned with the anthropogenic³ implications of current scientific knowledge. Which, they claim, reveals a “series of mysterious coincidences between the numerical values of the fundamental constants of Nature”. And they also contend that “our picture of the universe and its laws are influenced by an unavoidable selection effect . . . this self-selection principle . . . is usually called the Weak Anthropic Principle”(WAP). Since the WAP is essentially a tautology, it only implies that those coincidental values and laws are consistent with the emergence of Life, but doesn’t imply design or specify the humanoid species. That’s what Brandon Carter, in 1973, concluded from his astronomical and physical studies : contrary to the old Copernican Principle of Mediocrity, "Although our situation is not necessarily central, it is inevitably privileged to some extent."⁴

But, Barrow and Tipler go much farther than that modest assertion. “There is one interesting approach we can take which employs an Anthropic Principle in a more adventurous and speculative manner . . .” In fact, they extrapolate beyond Carter’s limited WAP to speculate on the ultimate destiny of the universe, taking not only a Strong interpretation (SAP), but going so far as to present a Final Anthropic Principle (FAP). They express their confidence in no uncertain terms : “mathematical physics possesses many unique properties that are necessary prerequisites for the existence of rational information-processing and observers similar to ourselves”. This, despite the fact that the evidence for such a bold statement is well-hidden underneath the apparent reality available to our five senses. They admit that, “it appears at first sight so carefully cleaned of clues”.

In the Introduction, Wheeler notes that we are only able to discover those fundamental facts because, “our own time has made enormous headway in sniffing out the sophisticated relations between entropy, information, randomness, and computability”. Coincidentally, that list of 21st century sciences is also at the heart of the Enformationism Thesis. It is based on the recent indications that mundane Information – originally referring only to the contents of metaphysical minds – is also the essence of physical reality. Hence, my interest in the ideas presented in this book. And, I’m not concerned that the FAP is more acceptable to metaphysical philosophers, and religious theologians, than to pragmatic physical scientists. Information theory applies to both sides of that Cartesian dichotomy between Body & Soul, Matter & Mind. Enformationism straddles that divide with a bridge constructed from Generic Information⁵, which presents in various forms, from mental concepts, to material objects, to the universal causal agent : Energy.

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The anthropic principle is the principle that there is a restrictive lower bound on how statistically probable our observations of the universe are, given that we could only exist in the particular type of universe capable of developing and sustaining sentient life.
Wikipedia

3. Anthropogenic :
An evolutionary tendency toward the emergence of the homo sapiens species.

4. Privileged vs Mediocre :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle

5. Generic Information :
Information is Generic in the sense of generating all forms from a hypothetical formless pool of possibility : similar to the Platonic Forms.
http://bothandblog2.enformationism.info/page29.html

The Anthropic

Cosmological

Principle

John D. Barrow

& Frank Tipler

1996

“. . . A series of mysterious coincidences between the numerical values of the the fundamental constants of Nature. The possibility of our own existence seems to hinge precariously upon these coincidences..”

Creation of a

Man-centered

World

ENFORMATIONISM