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Would The Universe Exist If Not For Mankind?

Isn't attempting to define or label the universe (or existance) like defining God? Aren't the arguements exactly alike in that we... do... not... know? The book can never tell the author what he or she meant.
 
rhinefire said:
... then why would it exist?
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The word "why" has human-centric connotation, therefore irrelevant for reality.

The universe existed before humans did, and it will way after humans do. That much is true and provable.

Humans are irrelevant to the universe.
 
Paralogic said:
The word "why" has human-centric connotation, therefore irrelevant for reality.

The universe existed before humans did, and it will way after humans do. That much is true and provable.

Humans are irrelevant to the universe.
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Who would witness/verify?
 
Paralogic said:
The word "why" has human-centric connotation, therefore irrelevant for reality.

The universe existed before humans did, and it will way after humans do. That much is true and provable.

Humans are irrelevant to the universe.
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It actually isn't "provable" at all, since any proof would require human perception and empirical evidence.

You can't "prove" (you WAY overuse that word), that something outside our perception (or even the chance of being percieved) exists using our perception, and our perception is all we have.
 
rhinefire said:
... then why would it exist?
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That's the Anthropic Principle. It has been proven wrong.

Humans are irrelevant to the universe. So are you, and anyone else, and anything you can ever think about.
 
Paralogic said:
That's the Anthropic Principle. It has been proven wrong.

Humans are irrelevant to the universe. So are you, and anyone else, and anything you can ever think about.
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How has it been proven wrong?

Do you know what the anthropic principle is?
 
Anthropic Principle:

In astrophysics and cosmology, the anthropic principle (from the Greek, anthropos, human) is the philosophical consideration that observations of the physical Universe must be compatible with the conscious life that observes it. Some proponents of the anthropic principle reason that it explains why the Universe has the age and the fundamental physical constants necessary to accommodate conscious life. As a result, they believe it is unremarkable that the universe's fundamental constants happen to fall within the narrow range thought to be compatible with life.[1]

The strong anthropic principle (SAP) as explained by Barrow and Tipler (see variants) states that this is all the case because the Universe is compelled, in some sense, for conscious life to eventually emerge. Critics of the SAP argue in favor of a weak anthropic principle (WAP) similar to the one defined by Brandon Carter, which states that the universe's ostensible fine tuning is the result of selection bias: i.e., only in a universe capable of eventually supporting life will there be living beings capable of observing any such fine tuning, while a universe less compatible with life will go unbeheld. English writer Douglas Adams, who wrote The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, used the metaphor of a living puddle examining its own shape, since, to those living creatures, the universe may appear to fit them perfectly (while in fact, they simply fit the universe perfectly).
 
Paralogic said:
That's religion.

All religion is false by definition.
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I agree with you. I posted the anthropic principle because there was a back and forth about who knew what it was.
 
RGacky3 said:
Absolutely, now explain how it has been proven wrong.
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That's trivial.

Take an arbitrary time point in the universe's evolution, just say, randomly, between 350 mil and 351 mil years ago. The earth existed, we know that, but you come up with a reason why that period of existence was necessary so that humans had to evolve 350 mil years later.

You can't. That's reality, not just a hypothetical or wishful thinking.

There's is nothing existing at 350 mil years ago that was a necessary prerequisite for humans to exist 350 mil years later.

Humans are irrelevant to the universe. That much we know is true.
 
the_recruit said:
It stems from some interpretations of quantum mechanics, which suggest that things and events don't actually "exist" until they are observed.
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It does no such thing. An "act of observation" is whatever collapses the wave function. A quantum particle does not spring into existence at the moment when a measurement is taken: only its properties are being "picked" - one state "chosen" out of all probabilities. But we don't measure nothing and end up with something.
 
Paralogic said:
That's trivial.

Take an arbitrary time point in the universe's evolution, just say, randomly, between 350 mil and 351 mil years ago. The earth existed, we know that, but you come up with a reason why that period of existence was necessary so that humans had to evolve 350 mil years later.

You can't. That's reality, not just a hypothetical or wishful thinking.

There's is nothing existing at 350 mil years ago that was a necessary prerequisite for humans to exist 350 mil years later.

Humans are irrelevant to the universe. That much we know is true.
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It is not trivial to ask how we have proven something that you claim has been proven.

You're miss stating the anthropic principles, it isn't that our universe is the only universe that necessitates life, it's that our universe DOES necessitate life, since we are here, if it didn't we wouldn't be here.

Also you're post is not a proof at all, you havn't presented an argument, you've just stated as assertion without justifying it. THat isn't proof, it isn't even evidence or an argument.
 
RGacky3 said:
It is not trivial to ask how we have proven something that you claim has been proven.

You're miss stating the anthropic principles, it isn't that our universe is the only universe that necessitates life, it's that our universe DOES necessitate life, since we are here, if it didn't we wouldn't be here.

Also you're post is not a proof at all, you havn't presented an argument, you've just stated as assertion without justifying it. THat isn't proof, it isn't even evidence or an argument.
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The answer is trivial, not your question.

I'm not misstating the anthropic principle, you are.

First of all you're using the word "necessitate" in a completely subjective and human-centric context.

Second, the fact that humans exist is a completely random event in the universe's history. If you want to dismiss randomness by saying that everything that exists now is a necessary (mathematical meaning) prerequisite of everything that existed before now, then you're using both the concept of time and mathematical logic in reverse, and you're justifying things that existed in the past because of things that exist in the present.

That's just logically absurd. That's why it is trivial to dismiss the anthropic principle as nonsense, at least, and religion, at worst.
 
Cyrylek said:
It does no such thing. An "act of observation" is whatever collapses the wave function. A quantum particle does not spring into existence at the moment when a measurement is taken: only its properties are being "picked" - one state "chosen" out of all probabilities. But we don't measure nothing and end up with something.
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Read my whole post. I put "exist" in quotations for a reason - i meant in the classical sense of the word as in existing in a single state, known or not.

As I proceeded to clarify in my post, under the copenhagen interpretation, particles and events are in all possible states and all possible outcomes, until they're observed and the decohere into a single state.

In the two slit experiment, for example, the particle passes through both slits, it passes through only the left slit, it passes through only the right slit, and it passes through neither slit all simultaneously. Or rather, it behaves as if that's what it's doing. Only when the event is observed/measured does the event actualize into a single outcome (the particle goes through one slit or the other).

Besides, this isn't my interpretation. I'm explaining the reasoning of physicist/philosophers who use the copenhagen interpretation to justify the anthropic principle.
 
the_recruit said:
Read my whole post. I put "exist" in quotations for a reason - i meant in the classical sense of the word as in existing in a single state, known or not.

As I proceeded to clarify in my post, under the copenhagen interpretation, particles and events are in all possible states and all possible outcomes, until they're observed and the decohere into a single state.[...]
Besides, this isn't my interpretation. I'm explaining the reasoning of physicist/philosophers who use the copenhagen interpretation to justify the anthropic principle.
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Got it.

Personally, I think the (strong) anthropic principle is nonsense, and (separately) such use of the Copenhagen Interpretation is entirely unwarranted.

I would employ this (imperfect, by necessity) analogy:

You are running on a treadmill. Some experimenter is interested in learning the "state" of your left foot: is it behind or in front of your torso?
If his measurement instruments are inadequate - like the 19th cen. daguerreotype camera with ten minutes exposure time - he gets the "cloud of probabilities" on his picture - literally: the blur with a certain density pattern. But if he has modern equipment with decent shutter speed - snap! - the "picked one probability", and you foot had acquired the "state" - of, say, "in-front-ness".

Now, the assumption we make is that on the quantum level all observable qualities of particles are akin to this artificial "in-front-ness" or "behind-ness". In principle. It's not so much about the "existence" or even "states" of the objects, it is rather that we can observe or measure only states that are pretty much defined by the conditions of our experiment. The particle goes, "nebulously", through the slit(s), and "finds itself" upon measurement ("left foot is in front!").

It is not the reality that changes when an observation occurs - only our ability to describe some aspect of reality.
 
It would be missing something.
 
Paralogic said:
The answer is trivial, not your question.

I'm not misstating the anthropic principle, you are.

First of all you're using the word "necessitate" in a completely subjective and human-centric context.

Second, the fact that humans exist is a completely random event in the universe's history. If you want to dismiss randomness by saying that everything that exists now is a necessary (mathematical meaning) prerequisite of everything that existed before now, then you're using both the concept of time and mathematical logic in reverse, and you're justifying things that existed in the past because of things that exist in the present.

That's just logically absurd. That's why it is trivial to dismiss the anthropic principle as nonsense, at least, and religion, at worst.
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Look up the anthropic principle ... you're mistating it.

Also it isn't a random event, since the universe follows universal laws of physics ... and since we exist, means that the universe is one that produces life ... necessarily.

But again, you havn't "proved" ****, you throw that word around so much it's basically meaningless.
 
RGacky3 said:
Look up the anthropic principle ... you're mistating it.
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I have looked it up and studied it and have commented about it.

Why don't you tell us what you think the Anthropic Principle is about, without resorting to spam links for dubious websites?

Give it a try.
 
Infinite time and infinite space are two concepts that people can not really comprehend. The universe will never "end." Nor is it the only reality unless you define all as "the universe" - and in relation to the infinity of time or space, the Big Bang was just the blink of a firefly in the night.
 
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