THE ANTHROPIC PRINCIPLE In astrophysics and cosmology, the Anthropic Principle (from Greek anthropos, meaning human) is the philosophical consideration that observations of the physical Universe must be compatible with the conscious life that observes it. Some proponents of the anthropic principle reason that it explains why the Universe has the age and thefundamental physical constants necessary to accommodate conscious life. As a result, they believe it is unremarkable that the universes fundamental constants happen to fall within thenarrow range thought to be compatible with life.[1][2] The strong anthropic principle (SAP) as explained by Barrow and Tipler (see variants) states that this is all the case because the Universe is compelled, in some sense, for conscious life to eventually emerge. Critics of the SAP argue in favor of a weak anthropic principle (WAP) similar to the one defined byBrandon Carter, which states that the universes ostensible fine tuning is the result of selection bias: i.e., only in a universe capable of eventually supporting life will there be living beings capable of observing any such fine tuning, while a universe less compatible with life will go unbeheld. Such arguments are closely related to some multiverseideas and can link to the Fermi paradox.
Posted on: Sun, 20 Apr 2014 03:22:52 +0000
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