The Anthropic Principle

I accidentally hit the ‘Add New’ on my blog’s WordPress toolbar when all I wanted to do was edit another post, so I guess I’m supposed to be writing something new. Maybe that’s today’s theme: there are no accidents. There are those believe that, and there are those who believe there are nothing but accidents. I suppose there’s a middle ground between these positions, too.

You ever heard of the Anthropic Principle? There are a few versions of it, but in its basic form it states that the universe is the way it is simply because we’re around to see it. If it had turned out to be hostile to life, the cosmos wouldn’t have evolved us. We wouldn’t be here to describe it. You remember that question about whether, when a tree falls in the forest, if there’s no one around to hear it, does it make a sound? Those who subscribe to the stronger versions of the Anthropic Principle might say that without us, that tree don’t even whisper.

In the Anthropic Principle, I think we might find some agreement between those who profess a belief in a Higher Power, in those who endorse the most widely accepted theory of quantum physics, and even among secular humanists.

The stronger versions of the Anthropic Principle hold that, in a way, the universe evolves toward us as we evolve toward its endgame, or its Omega Point, a term coined by paleontologist/philosopher Teilhard de Chardin. The Anthropic Principle concludes that all the seeming coincidences in the universe which made the evolution of life on earth possible are in fact not coincidences at all. And this is approached from an entirely scientific standpoint.  The arguments of Intelligent Design take it one step further. They declare that these scientific coincidences – the value of the cosmological constant being one example – prove the existence of a Creator. They argue that God can be scientifically proved.

In my post, Do I Even Properly Exist? Oh My!, I came to the conclusion, in agreement with the verdict of the ages, that you can’t prove or disprove God. I believe that a conscious intelligence did give rise to the universe, but I don’t think we can prove this ultimate question. A wise poet, Rainer Maria Rilke, once said that we must learn to live with the questions themselves, and that by doing so, we may arrive distantly at the answers. The conclusions of science itself depend on the nature of the questions we ask of its method. Good or bad input results in an equally good or bad output.

So, my question isn’t whether there is or isn’t a God. It’s why the universe we inhabit is, against all probability, so remarkably conducive to our own existence. Why is there something rather than nothing? How is it that there is awareness, and that this consciousness is aware of itself?

I believe, and therefore I am, to bastardize Des Carte. The remarkable consistency of the universe with my own being is, perhaps, no accident. This is a belief, not an observation. Yet perhaps as I believe, so I see.

© 2023 by Michael C. Just