Wiktionary
n. Any of several similar explanations for the nature of the universe, and for the values of its fundamental constants, that states either that the universe is as it is because otherwise we wouldn't be here to observe it, or that the very presence of intelligent life constrains the universe to be as it is.
Wikipedia
The anthropic principle is the philosophical consideration that observations of the Universe must be compatible with the conscious and sapient life that observes it. Some proponents of the anthropic principle reason that it explains why this universe has the age and the fundamental physical constants necessary to accommodate conscious life. As a result, they believe it is unremarkable that this universe has fundamental constants that happen to fall within the narrow range thought to be compatible with life. The strong anthropic principle (SAP) as explained by John D. Barrow and Frank Tipler states that this is all the case because the universe is in some sense compelled to eventually have conscious and sapient life emerge within it. Some 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 and reflecting upon fine tuning. Most often such arguments draw upon some notion of the multiverse for there to be a statistical population of universes to select from and from which selection bias (our observance of only this universe, compatible with life) could occur.
Usage examples of "anthropic principle".
In fact, the act may pretty much be necessary for a universe where the anthropic principle obtains.
Why the universe is put together in such a way that it has been called The Symbiotic Universe, and how the apparently amazing universal coincidences leading to the formulation of this Anthropic Principle have actually come into existence.
One would feel happier about the anthropic principle, at least in its weak version, if one could show that quite a number of different initial configurations for the universe would have evolved to produce a universe like the one we observe.
This would mean that one could appeal to the weak anthropic principle, provided one could show that string theory does at least allow there to be such regions of the universe –.
Until that time comes, if it ever does, it seems to me premature to put faith in the Anthropic Principle as an argument for human centrality or uniqueness.
There is no controversy about the Weak Anthropic Principle: Change the laws and constants of Nature, if you could, and a very different universe may emerge-in many cases, a universe incompatible with life.
The Weak Anthropic Principle states that the universe is the way we see it because only at this stage in its development could we exist to observe it.
The Weak Anthropic Principle supports my argument, because we also exist only at this stage in human development.
This is our old friend the anthropic principle, employed in an entirely sensible way to relate the way we function to the kind of universe that we need to function in.
It was the old anthropic principle, the fudge which had saved a thousand cosmologies.
His Roger's Version is expressly about the argument from design, which Hume supposedly disposed of long ago but which keeps cropping up in such newfangled guises as the astrophysicists' Anthropic Principle.
In any case, it is called the anthropic principle: The observer influences the events he observes by the mere act of observing them or by being there to observe them.
In any case, it is called the `anthropic principle: The observer influences the events he observes by the mere act of observing them or by being there to observe them.
In any case, it is called the 'anthropic principle: The observer influences the events he observes by the mere act of observing them or by being there to observe them.