(1) The Weak And Strong Anthropic Principles
As Dawkins (2006: 135), for example, points out, the term ‘anthropic principle’ was coined in 1974 by Brandon Carter, and expanded by John Barrow and Frank Tipler (1988).[1] Carter’s point is that the very fact that humans exist is informative about the universe: it places restrictions on what the universe can look like (an argument from effects to causes). The weak and strong versions of the principle are outlined by Hawking (1988: 124-5) as follows:
The weak anthropic principle states that in a universe that is large or infinite in space and/or time, the conditions necessary for the development of intelligent life will be met only in certain regions that are limited in space and time. The intelligent beings in this area should therefore not be surprised if they observe that their locality in the universe satisfies conditions that are necessary for their existence.
…According to [the strong anthropic principle], there are either many different universes or many different regions of a single universe, each with its own initial configuration and, perhaps, with its own set of laws of science. In most of these universes the conditions would not be right for the development of complicated organisms; only in the few universes that are like ours would intelligent beings develop and ask the question: “Why is the universe the way we see it?” The answer is simple: if it had been different, we would not be here!
The Anthropic Principles are attempts to explain why the fundamental constants of physics are “coincidentally” just those required for the emergence of (intelligent) life; that is, to explain why, of all the potential universes that could exist, the one that physicists know exists happens to be just right for the emergence of beings capable of understanding it.[2] However, the directions that Anthropic reasoning has taken involves a number of ideational inconsistencies, both experiential and logical, motivated by interpersonal values, and facilitated by epistemological confusions, as explained below.
(2) Ideational Inconsistencies
Some anthropic reasoning confuses result and reason: science models intelligent life as an effect (cause: result) of the initial conditions and subsequent dynamics of the universe (cause: reason). Anthropic reasoning posits that the reason is caused by the result. That is, intelligent life, as an outcome of the fundamental constants is reinterpreted as the reason for the fundamental constants.
Some anthropic reasoning goes further and confuses result and purpose: intelligent life, as an outcome (cause: result) of the fundamental constants is reinterpreted as the objective (cause: purpose) of the fundamental constants. Note that to attribute purpose to the universe in this way is to model it as if it were an organism; it is to map models of purposeful behaviour onto models of the evolution of entire cosmos.
(3) Interpersonal Motivations
By reinterpreting intelligent life as the reason and purpose of the fundamental constants, rather than one of myriad results, anthropic reasoning attempts to reinterpret the contingent existence of humans (modalisation: probability) as a necessary inevitability (modulation: obligation). The interpersonal function of this is to ascribe high value to humans: humans are very special, very important, the whole point of the universe.
Given that virtually everything else in the universe would not have emerged if the values of the fundamental constants were different, anthropic reasoning assumes the judgement (by humans) that the process of modelling the universe (by humans) is of higher value than all other processes going on in the universe.
(4) Epistemological Confusion
This special valuing of the process of modelling the universe is facilitated by the epistemological confusion, outlined earlier, whereby some physicists use the notion of the mathematical equation as their model for understanding the the process of modelling the categorisable, such that the physical universe constitutes one half of the equation, and the theoretical model constitutes the other half. Finding the ultimate truth, on this view, is a matter of finding the model that is in perfect symmetry with the “real” world (a world that contains “true” categories independent of categorising systems).
It is because of this epistemological model that some physicists, following Einstein, are amazed that humans have the “good fortune” to be able to understand the universe (equated with the laws of physics). Unless it is just a coincidence, humans must be the most important entities in the universe. A less self-aggrandising — and more ideationally consistent — interpretation is that humans can only create models that humans are capable of understanding.
(5) The Participatory Anthropic Principle
Other Anthropic principles[3] have also been proposed, and one that can be mentioned here is the Participatory Anthropic Principle (Wheeler 1983), according to which all existents — past, present, and future — are brought into existence by acts of observation by all the observers that have ever existed. Again, this type of reasoning derives from not distinguishing the domain of categorisable phenomena from the domain of categories created by observers in the process of categorising. If this distinction is recognised, then the Participatory Anthropic Principle becomes: categorisable phenomena are not categorised until observed. It is models of the universe that are created by humans and function for humans, not the categorisable universe itself.
Footnotes:
[1] Carter now regards ‘cognizability principle’ a more appropriate term for what he had in mind (Dawkins 2006: 392), which more directly reflects the amazement by mathematicians that the universe is understandable (as mentioned earlier in this discussion).
[2] It might be argued that anthropic reasoning has become the physical equivalent of William Paley’s theological Argument From Design, invoking a (mathematical) designer that transcends the universe itself; perhaps a case of mathematical physicists seeing God in their own image.
[3] According to the Final Anthropic Principle (Tipler 1989), intelligent life must come into existence in the universe, and once it comes into existence it will continue to exist until the end of time.