What is the anthropic principle?
In: Physics
It’s a certain type of answer for “why” questions about science and nature.
Imagine a very clever fish is asking “Why is my world made of water?”
One answer to that question is: “because if it weren’t, there would be no fishes to observe it and ask why.”
Of course, us more sophisticated humans, with our science and our telescopes, we know that the whole world *isn’t* made of water. Places with liquid water, which are hospitable to marine life, are actually very rare in the universe.
But if Fred the fish(I just named him that)’s mind is blown by what an amazingly lucky coincidence it is that there’s water right *here*, right where he needs it, then the anthropic principle still helps us explain that coincidence away. “If it weren’t here, you wouldn’t be either. If the water were someplace else, then you (or somebody a little bit *like* you) would be there instead, asking the same questions about *that* place.”
So if our minds are blown about some bigger coincidences like: “how amazing that all our universal constants are perfectly tuned to allow the existence of matter and atoms and stuff at all!” then maybe the anthropic principle has an answer too. Our universe could be just one of many, like part of a multiverse. If it is, then the “neighbouring” universes which are not hospitable to life, are uninhabited. There’s no one there to take note of the fact that that universe was a dud, and add it to the dataset.
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