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It's Official: Oxygen Has Been Directly Detected in Venus' Dayside Atmosphere (www.sciencealert.com)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I didn't find the text on the anthropic principle or rather the principle itself very convincing. But nonetheless, I think you might have misunderstood what the article you linked is arguing for. They say that "the idea that physical laws must be the way they are because otherwise we could not be here to measure them is called the anthropic principle". However, you talked about a universe that is "tuned" to us? Isn't the anthropic principle actually more likely to cause life in general, not only life on earth? That is, if the conditions are just right to cause us, why wouldn't this significantly increase the chances of creating life somewhere else?

Anyways, I liked the thought experiment on intelligent species destroying their home before being able to expand into space. I think you might have a point there. However, it also depends very much on the chance of new life emerging. In a gazillion times of life emerging, at least some will make it, even if chances are near impossible. So the question remains, how often does life emerge in our universe?

Regarding your "worst case", I don't really take it as a worst case. Why is life better than no life? I mean, let's make the most of it while we're here. But I don't think life itself in itself adds any value to a future universe without humans.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I didn’t find the text on the anthropic principle or rather the principle itself very convincing. But nonetheless, I think you might have misunderstood what the article you linked is arguing for. They say that “the idea that physical laws must be the way they are because otherwise we could not be here to measure them is called the anthropic principle”. However, you talked about a universe that is “tuned” to us? Isn’t the anthropic principle actually more likely to cause life in general, not only life on earth? That is, if the conditions are just right to cause us, why wouldn’t this significantly increase the chances of creating life somewhere else?

Sorry that's just my terrible wording, I can't English today so I just used the first word I could reach for and tried to explain that it doesn't imply any sort of intention. You're exactly right! But there's different versions of the principle (usually divided into "weak" and "strong") and they imply slightly different things, but I think that page doesn't go that "deep" since it's more of a general intro. "Stronger" versions of the AP basically… err, can make that "tuning" (again, I'm sorry for using that term I know it's bad but English hard 😅) stricter or more restricted in a sense so that instead of this universe being like it is "because" of its suitability for carbon-based life which might then sort of pop up anywhere, it might be just us here.

edit: re the "worst case", I just think it'd be sad if the only life in the whole universe got snuffed out because we do something stupid. Not that I necessarily believe or don't believe in the AP or the likelihood of us being totally alone here, I'm not qualified to have an actual opinion

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Haha, I'm not a native speaker either so I can relate ;)

I read some of the Wikipedia article on AP and well, I still don't know what to make of it. It either tells me nothing (yeah, the universe is at it is) or it feels like a false deduction (why would the universe have an intention in producing intelligent observers?).