Thanks Arlo, For now, when you say "Life exists here. Therefore life must exist out there. Thus the cosmos is perfectly balanced to support life."
Doh ! You must surely know that's what I meant about the more sophisticated AP's, when I say surely no-one worth any respect is expressing anthropic principles that way. Are you just expressing a straw-man ? The Flatland reference I didn't know, though maybe I should have guessed. I've not read the original but did read "Flatterland". Thanks for that. And, on my post-mortem Vonnegut catch-up "Slaugherhouse Five" is one I've just bought but not started yet. My unread reading list is scary. Ian On 3/21/08, ARLO J BENSINGER JR <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > [Ian] > Try "finely balanced" (rather than perfect or tuned) - I'm OK with that. I > didn't intend to imply any sentient teleology, as I felt sure you would > already > know. > > [Arlo] > I know you did not, but there are many who do. I'm just cautious of those > words, I suppose. > > [Ian] > I was just expressing interest in understanding them, and keeping open mind on > acceptance or denial. > > [Arlo] > And I said, my jury is still out too. > > [Ian] > The tuning, sorry balance, says life is to be expected in this universe. Our > lack of contact so far is an entirely separate issue, surely ? > > [Arlo] > I suppose its the (apparent) jump from speculation to definity that I am > responding to. We are speculating the cosmos is balanced for life, but we are > basing that speculation on hypothetical thinking about the ubiquity of life. > Something like this (and correct me where this is wrong)... > > Life exists here. > Therefore life must exist out there. > Thus the cosmos is perfectly balanced to support life. > > This draws its theoretical conclusion using an unevidenced assumption (no > matter how "logical" or desired that assumption may be. Instead, I say this. > > Life exists here. > Despite effort and desire, we have little evidence to date that life exists > anywhere else. > Therefore the cosmos seem to be not balanced to support life. > > Do I think we need to keep looking? Absolutely, as we both agree that > logically > life should be "out there" in some form. As to what form that life will take, > whether it will be Betazed counselors on starships or intelligent hydrogen > clusters sans "meat", is a fascinating debate. > > On that note, FYI, the "squares trying to perceive spheres" comes from (as I'm > sure you know, but just passing it on for others who may not) the novel > "Flatland" (Abbot, 1884) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flatland). For those > who > have not read it, an interesting theme like that is found in Slaughterhouse > Five (Vonnegut). (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slaughterhouse-Five). > > > > > Moq_Discuss mailing list > Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. > http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org > Archives: > http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ > http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/ > Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
