The Anthropic Principle

  1. A Brief Introduction to A Fascinating Principle: Since we are, as

    2. Descartes puts it, "things that think," we cannot help but question our

    place in the universe; we wonder why our universe allows for "thinking

    things" when the specific conditions necessary for life seem so highly

    improbable. The anthropic principle considers such questions,

    reasoning that "We should not be surprised that, given that we do

    observe features of the universe, the features that we observe are

    compatible with our own existence. For if the features of the universe

    were incompatible with our existence, we should not be here to notice

    it." (Craig).

  2. Methods Used to Derive the Anthropic Principle: Our current

    3. explanation of the anthropic principle might apply to scientific models

    such as the chaotic inflationary universe, a model developed by Andrei

    Linde. The model says that the observable, life-supporting part of the

    universe that we know is "only a tiny fraction of the whole" that expanded

    along with many other parts; we view our small part as life-supporting

    because if it were not, we would not exist (Ferris, 231). The anthropic

    principle and chaotic inflationary universe model explains why the

    universe appears to be flat, homogeneous, and isotropic; since we only

    observe our region of the universe, we observe characteristics conducive

    to our own existence. The model of a chaotic inflationary universe, which

    places our universe as only one of many possible universes, allows one to

    invoke the anthropic principle, for when we observe a universe that has

    all of the "right" mathematical values to support life, we do so because if

    it were any different, we would not be here to observe our part of it. Many

    scientists, however, remain dissatisfied with the principle, and seek more

    substantial answers to their cosmological questions.

  3. A Small Sample of Results: Results that support the chaotic inflationary

model of the universe uphold the anthropic principle. According to the

model, we observe the microwave background radiation as nearly the

same in all directions (which means that light must have traveled from

one distant region of the universe to the other) because of a very rapid

inflation at the beginning of the universe that allowed for both a much

larger universe and our own existence (and thus for our ability to observe

the conditions that allow for that existence!).

4. Analysis of These Results: The results of the microwave background

radiation tell us that "since the inflationary model is gigantic, the

observable part of [the univers] is only a tiny fraction of the whole" (Ferris,

231) and therefore when we look at our flat universe and its isotropic

distribution, that which we observe necessarily meets all of the

qualifications for our own existence. The anthropic principle explains that

"the appearance of design in the physical and cosmological quantities

of the universe is just that: an appearance due to the self-selection factor

imposed on our observations by our own existence" (Barrow and Tipler,

1986).

5. What More May Be Found: We can hardly predict what phenomena

and theories in the future may support the anthropic principle. As of now,

it is a circumstantial explanation at best, and the problems with it are

numerous. As Ferris says, "we need to be careful that anthropic

constraints don’t blind us to deeper explanations" (Ferris, 300). If we find

more evidence in support of models such as the chaotic inflationary

universe, however, the anthropic principle may continue to gain support

and attention.

Works Cited:

Barrow, John and Tipler, Frank. The Anthropic Cosmological Principle.

Clarendon Press, 1986.

Ferris, Timothy. The Whole Shebang. Touchstone, 1997.

 

Hawking, Steven. A Brief History of Time. Bantam Books, 1998.

 

VERY Interesting Anthropic Principle Websites (Some More Scientific than Others):

www.anthropic-principle.com

The Anthropic Principle

http://www.airtime.co.uk/users/station/anthrop.htm

Anthropic Principle as an Explanation

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/cosmology-theology/#5

Anthropic Principle Site

http://cs.bluffton.edu/~berger/essays/impert.html

Rejecting the Anthropic Principle

http://home.wxs.nl/~gkorthof/kortho17.htm

Was Darwin Wrong? The Anthropic Cosmological Principle

http://www.kingsu.ab.ca/~brian/astro/chp19.htm

An Incredible Balancing Act: God, the Anthropic Principle, and Inflation