Rationally Speaking #8 - The Anthropic Principle
Rationally Speaking Podcast
New York City Skeptics
4.6 • 787 Ratings
🗓️ 9 May 2010
⏱️ 33 minutes
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Summary
The Anthropic Principle (AP), in its many forms, attempts to explain why our observations of the physical universe are compatible with the life observed in it. From the Weak AP (WAP), which in one form states that "conditions that are observed in the universe must allow the observer to exist", to the Strong AP (SAP) which in one version states that: “The Universe (and hence the fundamental parameters on which it depends) must be such as to admit the creation of observers within it at some stage,” they all try to answer the question of why there is life in the universe, or why the fundamental constants are the way they are. But, do any of these principles add anything to our understanding of the ultimate question of life and the universe?
Perhaps the best answer is embedded in Martin Gardner’s sarcastic proposal of the Completely Ridiculous Anthropic Principle (CRAP): “At the instant the Omega Point is reached, life will have gained control of all matter and forces not only in a single universe, but in all universes whose existence is logically possible; life will have spread into all spatial regions in all universes which could logically exist, and will have stored an infinite amount of information, including all bits of knowledge which it is logically possible to know. And this is the end.”
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Rationally speaking is a presentation of New York City skeptics dedicated to promoting critical thinking, skeptical inquiry, and science education. |
| 0:22.6 | For more information, please visit us at NYCCEptics.org. |
| 0:35.2 | Welcome to Rationally Speaking, the podcast where we explore the borderlands between reason and nonsense. |
| 0:41.2 | I am your host, Massimo Piliucci. And with me, as always, is my co-host, Julia Galev. |
| 0:46.8 | Julia, what are we going to talk about today? |
| 0:49.4 | Massimo, today we're going to tackle the anthropic principle. |
| 0:52.5 | Oh, boy. Yes, it has many variants, but it's either an observation of or an explanation for the fact that |
| 1:00.6 | there is this series of seemingly surprising coincidences in the structure of our universe, |
| 1:07.2 | that if any one of the many fundamental parameters of the physical universe had been even slightly different, |
| 1:13.9 | the universe would not have been able to support life. |
| 1:16.8 | So today we're going to ask which forms of the anthropic principle are well supported and logically coherent, |
| 1:23.6 | and how surprised should we be that our universe is the way it is? |
| 1:28.1 | Right. |
| 1:28.6 | So one way to explain, before we get into the, we need at some point to get into the history |
| 1:34.3 | a little bit of the entire principle, because as you mentioned, there are many different |
| 1:38.3 | varieties of it. |
| 1:39.0 | And this is a topic that is both important, especially for people who want to understand |
| 1:43.7 | anything about, |
| 1:45.0 | you know, the history of the universe, but also very complicated, because it gets really complex, |
| 1:50.5 | really, really fast and confusing really fast. But before we do that, let's talk about sort of |
| 1:55.4 | the intuitive version of the entropy principle, which is not an official version. It's just a way |
| 2:00.5 | to understand what we're talking about. |
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