![]() ![]() ![]() A solar system, a planet, a particular ecosystem, a type of complex life, the room you are sitting in now, whatever you like. Here is how the game should be played: You tell me the particular thing you insist must exist in the universe, for anthropic reasons. Maybe that could explain why we find such a profligate universe around us. Maybe this is a way out? Maybe, we might reason, in order for an advanced scientific civilization such as ours to arise, we require a “support system” in the form of an entire universe filled with stars and galaxies, originating in some sort of super-low-entropy early condition. ![]() Or, if we want to be a bit more careful, perhaps we should look for conditions that are not only hospitable to life, but hospitable to the particular kind of intelligent and self-aware life that we like to think we are. Clearly, what we want to do is find the most common conditions within such a universe that are hospitable to life. Boltzmann invoked the anthropic principle (although he didn’t call it that) to explain why we wouldn’t find ourselves in one of the very common equilibrium phases: In equilibrium, life cannot exist. “We can be more specific about what the universe would look like if it were an eternal system fluctuating around equilibrium. ![]()
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