How Did the Designer Design? III - The Anthropic Principles

In my humble opinion, there are really only two arguments that can answer some of the serious questions about the human condition. For example, why do I exist? What is my position in the Universe? What am I supposed to do on Earth?

The answers are: random, directed evolution by Natural Selection of the fittest genes; or some sort of Design (Design allied to evolution, Creationism, ID)

You can argue that the unfolding of life in Earth was either contingent to the will of God or inevitable given some original conditions. I want to present the Anthropic Principles as arguments for the setting of initial conditions that would make life on Earth inevitable. Of course you could argue the same from a non-believer's point of view but this is compelling reading for me...

Gravity is roughly 1039 times weaker than electromagnetism. If gravity had been 1033 times weaker than electromagnetism, "stars would be a billion times less massive and would burn a million times faster."
The nuclear weak force is 1028 times the strength of gravity. Had the weak force been slightly weaker, all the hydrogen in the universe would have been turned to helium (making water impossible, for example).
A stronger nuclear strong force (by as little as 2 percent) would have prevented the formation of protons--yielding a universe without atoms. Decreasing it by 5 percent would have given us a universe without stars.
If the difference in mass between a proton and a neutron were not exactly as it is--roughly twice the mass of an electron--then all neutrons would have become protons or vice versa. Say good-bye to chemistry as we know it--and to life.

Weak Anthropic Principle (WAP): The observed values of all physical and cosmological quantities are not equally probable but they take on values restricted by the requirement that there exist sites where carbon-based life can evolve and by the requirements that the Universe be old enough for it to have already done so.

WAP

Strong Anthropic Principle (SAP): The Universe must have those properties which allow life to develop within it at some stage in its history. Because:

There exists one possible Universe 'designed' with the goal of generating and sustaining 'observers'. Or...
Observers are necessary to bring the Universe into being (Wheeler's Participatory Anthropic Principle (PAP)). Or...
An ensemble of other different universes is necessary for the existence of our Universe (which may be related to the Many_Worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics).

SAP

Final Anthropic Principle (FAP): Intelligent information-processing must come into existence in the Universe, and, once it comes into existence, it will never die out.

FAP in summary

Participatory Anthropic Principle
The early multiverse can perhaps be thought of as a massively parallel quantum computer which explored all of possibility-space until it was able to generate a living body, which became the habitation of an observing, sentient being. At that moment the multiverse collapsed into the actuality of that one alternative environment. This theory is known as the Participatory Anthropic Principle and was first put forward by the physicist John A.Wheeler in 1983.

PAP



[edit on 27/12/2007 by Heronumber0]

All the conditions that led to life needed too many different factors to be 'just right' for life/intelligent life to occur, just like Goldilock's porridge.

For example:
* The force of gravity was just right for stars to burn for a long time;
* The force that holds together atoms was 'just right' otherwise atoms that
made us would not be made

The point has been made by evolutionists that 'unlikely' events can occur given a long enough time. However, all the Laws of Nature seem to be making certain events much more likely don't they? God or Accident. Supreme Intelligence or Survival Advantage. Meaning to Life or No Meaning.

The Anthropic Principle cries out Design.