Boltzmann Brains and Descartes

[risu]

The more I think about this the more I think that the anthropic principle is a trick. That it has no explanatory power.

It seems at first like it's a useful mental sleight.

What do we know about the universe? Well, for one thing, we're in it, thinking about it, making theories about it. Why not start there? Why not recognize that we must live in

Comments

[heron61]

The more I think about this the more I think that the anthropic principle is a trick. That it has no explanatory power.

I completely agree, it seems more of a trick of logic than anything meaningful. From my PoV, the silliest version is the one where people attempt to prove that humans are the only sentient life in the universe via the anthropic principle, which seems to me to be utterly devoid of logic. I think much of this comes does to the tattered but exceptionally durable remnants of pre-scientific revolution & pre-Darwinian Christianity that manage to find resting places in careless philosophy - there seems to be a great desire to have the universe be all about us - god's special creation, which works rather less well once you remove the idea of god or any species being its special creation.