This is a common misapplication of the anthropic principle. All the weak anthropic principle (which is the only one appropriate) states is this: For you to be here now, conditions in the Universe must be right to allow you to be here. In probabilistic form, it simply states: The probability of your existence being made possible by the history of the Universe is 1.
Most people with something to prove use this to make probabilistic arguments based on the probability of life, or the number of existent civilizations, but these are misguided. The anthropic principle tells you nothing about how many civilizations are out there, or how likely other similar creatures are, it simply says that for you to be here, the Universe must allow your existence.
Arguments such as the ones made in this article are based on a faulty understanding the anthropic principle. They are assuming a probability distribution that they not only have no reason to believe is true, but which the anthropic principle says nothing about.
It is true that either Dr. Bostrom or you has a faulty understanding of the anthropic principle. Dr. Bostrom has written a book about it: Anthropic Bias: Observation Selection Effects in Science and Philosophy [anthropic-principle.com]. I'm not saying that makes him right necessarily, but others may want to take that into account before assuming he has committed such an elementary error.
I'm certainly not an expert on the anthropic principle, but let me see if I can at least make an analogy here.
Suppose you have four bags. One bag contains ten pennies, one a hundred pennies, one a thousand pennies, and one has ten nickles. (If you want the sensible version of this analogy, imagine that each bag has some number of pennies and some number of nickles, in interesting variations. I'm making it really simple.)
Suppose I pull a penny out of a bag, but you don't see which, and I say, which bag d
But you're making a mistake similar to that which the original author did. Given a set of probability distributions, you can start making meaningful arguments about what probabilities of events might be given a starting event (i.e., pulling out a penny).
But the anthropic principle alone gives you no probability distribution, and it tells you absolutely nothing about it, except that 1. your existence is not impossible and 2. you exist. It tells you nothing at all about the probability distribution, which
The real issue here, is whether or not a super-human or post-human civilization would have the remotest interest in our view of the world. The question that I think is interesting, is one of parallel. Do we run simulations of existant life-forms? Or do we rather, try to understand life by the means of new life-forms that simulate some the particularity under study? As we are talking about a different form of intelligence, post-human intelligence, it seems to me that we are guilty of self-aggrandizing pr
"Be there. Aloha."
-- Steve McGarret, _Hawaii Five-Oh_
False anthropic principle applications (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a common misapplication of the anthropic principle. All the weak anthropic principle (which is the only one appropriate) states is this: For you to be here now, conditions in the Universe must be right to allow you to be here. In probabilistic form, it simply states: The probability of your existence being made possible by the history of the Universe is 1.
Most people with something to prove use this to make probabilistic arguments based on the probability of life, or the number of existent civilizations, but these are misguided. The anthropic principle tells you nothing about how many civilizations are out there, or how likely other similar creatures are, it simply says that for you to be here, the Universe must allow your existence.
Arguments such as the ones made in this article are based on a faulty understanding the anthropic principle. They are assuming a probability distribution that they not only have no reason to believe is true, but which the anthropic principle says nothing about.
Re:False anthropic principle applications (Score:3, Informative)
Re:False anthropic principle applications (Score:2, Interesting)
Suppose you have four bags. One bag contains ten pennies, one a hundred pennies, one a thousand pennies, and one has ten nickles. (If you want the sensible version of this analogy, imagine that each bag has some number of pennies and some number of nickles, in interesting variations. I'm making it really simple.)
Suppose I pull a penny out of a bag, but you don't see which, and I say, which bag d
Re:False anthropic principle applications (Score:2)
But you're making a mistake similar to that which the original author did. Given a set of probability distributions, you can start making meaningful arguments about what probabilities of events might be given a starting event (i.e., pulling out a penny).
But the anthropic principle alone gives you no probability distribution, and it tells you absolutely nothing about it, except that 1. your existence is not impossible and 2. you exist. It tells you nothing at all about the probability distribution, which
Re:False anthropic principle applications (Score:1)