so did you hear about the philosophy major who read too many layman's articles on quantum mechanics?

[dragonladyflame]

There's this principle called the Weak Anthropic Principle. It's basically a response to the question people sometimes phrase as, "Wow, isn't it odd that the universe consists of the amazingly unlikely concatenation of circumstances that allowed humanity to come into being?" The Weak Anthropic Principle replies, "I guess so, but it obviously

Comments

[dragonladyflame]

The article I was reading that inspired all this never mentioned Intelligent Design ... it's by Jim Holt, was published in the October 2 "New Yorker", and here are the relevant bits:

"[blah blah, there are many versions of string theory and we're not sure which is correct]
"[blah blah, multiple universes]
"Partisans of the anthropic principle say it can be used to weed out all the versions of string theory that are incompatible with our existence, and so rescue string theory from the problem of non-uniqueness.
"... Many physicists despise it; one has depicted it as a 'virus' infecting the minds of his fellow theorists. Others ... accept the anthropic principle, but provisionally and in a spirit of gloom. Still others soom to take a perverse pleasure in it ....
"In their books against string theory, Smolin and Woit view the anthropic approach as a betrayal of science. Both agree with Karl Popper's dictum that if a theory is to be scientific it must be open to falsification. But string theory ... comes in so many versions that it predicts anything and everything. ... Supporters of the anthropic principle ... rail against 'Popperazzi' and insist that it would be silly to reject string theory because of what some philosopher said that science should be."

The whole debate seems kind of muddled to me. Is the problem really with the anthropic principle? Sounds like it's more that string theory itself is controversial and people are trying to blame the anthropic principle.

Also, this: http://www.frinktank.com/string-theory-summarized-todays-xkcd/

[cogshiftingman]

That makes sense to me ... String Theory does have this multiple universe thing, which is objectionable to a lot of folks. And since String Theory is a fairly new fad, I suppose the spotlight on the anthropic principle is understandable.

Frankly, I have a problem with String Theory ... any theory that doesn't include any experimentally provable predictions is a bit hard to swallow. The mathematics of it are very elegant, though (or so I am led to believe), and that is why it appeals to many of the theorists.

[dragonladyflame]

Yes, the article I was reading claims that not only does it appeal to so many theorists, but is becoming so popular that non-string-theorists are starting to feel overwhelmed and excluded.

Incidentally, thank you for commenting! I hoped you would.

Also: does your address remain the same? At long last, I have some CDs for you.

[cogshiftingman]

Oh! You are most welcome ... :-)

Yes, my address is still the same ... I had completely forgotten about the CD!

[cogshiftingman]

I think my brain is going to explode, having read some of the other commenters on this post!

[gm_928]

Wow. I introduced you guys, and now you're really friends. For some reason that makes me happier than you might predict.

[cogshiftingman]

You may find the following short article/interview from the latest IEEE Spectrum of interest: http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/jan07/4812