ext_70066 ([identity profile] substitute.livejournal.com) wrote in [personal profile] substitute 2006-08-27 08:42 pm (UTC)

Re: Hey, I resemble that remark!

You've had a great time knocking over the "chaos worship" straw man, but you have the wrong person for that. The Erisian Hippies are down the hall to the left and I agree they're annoying.

Perhaps I am not smart enough to see how the "anthropic principle" differs from any other breathless truism in a Baptist pamphlet or any other "oh wow" moment from a late night freshman dorm room bull session. But I don't. It's still the old hoary watchmaker argument even if you leave out the deity and call him a principle.

The evidence that we occurred is, in fact, strong. In fact, the past in general has a probability of 1 which is about as good as you can get. I cheerfully join in agreeing with you that the way things happened is the way things happened.

Everything else about the "anthropic principle" seriously makes me wonder if anyone in Physics thought to stroll over to Philosophy and ask if anyone had been thinking about these problems.

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