Philosopher talks back to the Copernican Principle (Principle of Mediocrity)

_{Denyse O'Leary

September 18, 2014

Cosmology, Extraterrestrial life, News}

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Pigs fly. Someone with a blackboard behind him (Dartmouth philosophy prof Marcelo Gleiser) says something sensible on Earth’s uniqueness:

The bottom line: Earth is not mediocre.

If life is out there (and there is no good reason why it should not be), it will most probably be simple. If there are intelligent creatures in our galaxy, they are likely so far away as to make us effectively alone. According to this view, which I call humancentrism, modern science is telling us the opposite of Copernicanism: as molecular machines capable of self-awareness, we matter because we are rare; our planet matters because it is rare.

Copernicanism (Earth is NOT special) was popularized by Carl Sagan, apparently in part to promote belief in many alien civilizations. A view best exemplified in the Drake equation.

See also: Copernicus, you are not going to believe who is using your name. Or how.

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Neil deGrasse Tyson and the Metaphysical Dilemma of the Left - Sept. 2014 Excerpt: In the first go-around, these anti-capitalists (the left) tried to capture the science of economics, forming theories about how capitalism is a system of exploitation that will impoverish the common man, while scientific central planning would provide abundance for all. Let’s just say that this didn’t work out. When it turned out that central planning impoverishes the common man and capitalism provides abundance for all, they had to switch to a fallback position. Which is: to heck with prosperity—too many material goods are the problem. Our greed for more is destroying the planet by causing environmental catastrophes. This shift became official some time in the 1960s with the rise of the New Left. Some of the catastrophes didn’t pan out (overpopulation, global cooling) and others proved too small to be anything more than a speed bump in the path of capitalism (banning CFCs and DDT). But then along comes global warming—and it’s just too good not to be true. It tells us that capitalism is not just exploiting the workers or causing inequality or deadening our souls with crass materialism. It’s destroying the very planet itself. http://thefederalist.com/2014/09/19/neil-degrasse-tyson-and-the-metaphysical-dilemma-of-the-left/bornagain77_{September 20, 2014
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The fact that we are so incredibly infitesmally rare (pale blue dot is way overstated) makes us special with a captal S.ppolish_{September 18, 2014
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The following touches on why the universe must be as old as it is
Anthropic Principle: A Precise Plan for Humanity By Hugh Ross Excerpt: Brandon Carter, the British mathematician who coined the term “anthropic principle” (1974), noted the strange inequity of a universe that spends about 15 billion years “preparing” for the existence of a creature that has the potential to survive no more than 10 million years (optimistically).,, Carter and (later) astrophysicists John Barrow and Frank Tipler demonstrated that the inequality exists for virtually any conceivable intelligent species under any conceivable life-support conditions. Roughly 15 billion years represents a minimum preparation time for advanced life: 11 billion toward formation of a stable planetary system, one with the right chemical and physical conditions for primitive life, and four billion more years toward preparation of a planet within that system, one richly layered with the biodeposits necessary for civilized intelligent life. Even this long time and convergence of “just right” conditions reflect miraculous efficiency. Moreover the physical and biological conditions necessary to support an intelligent civilized species do not last indefinitely. They are subject to continuous change: the Sun continues to brighten, Earth’s rotation period lengthens, Earth’s plate tectonic activity declines, and Earth’s atmospheric composition varies. In just 10 million years or less, Earth will lose its ability to sustain human life. In fact, this estimate of the human habitability time window may be grossly optimistic. In all likelihood, a nearby supernova eruption, a climatic perturbation, a social or environmental upheaval, or the genetic accumulation of negative mutations will doom the species to extinction sometime sooner than twenty thousand years from now. http://christiangodblog.blogspot.com/2006_12_01_archive.html Hugh Ross - The Anthropic Principle and The Anthropic Inequality - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/8494065/
At the 38:10 minute mark of the following video, Dr. Huterer speaks of the 'why right now? coincidence problem' for dark matter and visible matter:
Dragan Huterer - 'coincidence problem' - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qTJc1Y7duM#t=2290
Supplemental notes overturning the Copernican principle:
The Galileo Affair and “Life/Consciousness” as the true "Center of the Universe" Excerpt: I find it extremely interesting, and strange, that quantum mechanics tells us that instantaneous quantum wave collapse to its 'uncertain' 3D state is centered on each individual conscious observer in the universe, whereas, 4D space-time cosmology (General Relativity) tells us each 3D point in the universe is central to the expansion of the universe. These findings of modern science are pretty much exactly what we would expect to see if this universe were indeed created, and sustained, from a higher dimension by a omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, eternal Being who knows everything that is happening everywhere in the universe at the same time. These findings certainly seem to go to the very heart of the age old question asked of many parents by their children, “How can God hear everybody’s prayers at the same time?”,,, i.e. Why should the expansion of the universe, or the quantum wave collapse of the entire universe, even care that you or I, or anyone else, should exist? Only Theism, Christian Theism in particular, offers a rational explanation as to why you or I, or anyone else, should have such undeserved significance in such a vast universe. [15] https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BHAcvrc913SgnPcDohwkPnN4kMJ9EDX-JJSkjc4AXmA/edit
and
The Scale of The Universe - Part 2 - interactive graph (recently updated in 2012 with cool features) http://htwins.net/scale2/scale2.swf?bordercolor=white
The preceding interactive graph points out that the smallest scale visible to the human eye (as well as a human egg) is at 10^-4 meters, which 'just so happens' to be directly in the exponential center of all possible sizes of our physical reality (not just ‘nearly’ in the exponential center!). i.e. 10^-4 is, exponentially, right in the middle of 10^-35 meters, which is the smallest possible unit of length, which is Planck length, and 10^27 meters, which is the largest possible unit of 'observable' length since space-time was created in the Big Bang, which is the diameter of the universe. This is very interesting for, as far as I can tell, the limits to human vision (as well as the size of the human egg) could have, theoretically, been at very different positions than directly in the exponential middle. Verse and music
Isaiah 40:12 Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, or with the breadth of his hand marked off the heavens? Who has held the dust of the earth in a basket, or weighed the mountains on the scales and the hills in a balance? Chris Tomlin - Indescribable - music video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FlIchSJoOA
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As well, in direct contradiction to the Copernican Principle, Radio Astronomy now reveals privileged position for Earth in relation to the quasar and radio galaxy distributions in the universe:
Is there a violation of the Copernican principle in radio sky? - Ashok K. Singal - May 17, 2013 Abstract: Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation (CMBR) observations from the WMAP satellite have shown some unexpected anisotropies (directionally dependent observations), which surprisingly seem to be aligned with the ecliptic\cite {20,16,15}. The latest data from the Planck satellite have confirmed the presence of these anisotropies\cite {17}. Here we report even larger anisotropies in the sky distributions of powerful extended quasars and some other sub-classes of radio galaxies in the 3CRR catalogue, one of the oldest and most intensively studies sample of strong radio sources\cite{21,22,3}. The anisotropies lie about a plane passing through the two equinoxes and the north celestial pole (NCP). We can rule out at a 99.995% confidence level the hypothesis that these asymmetries are merely due to statistical fluctuations. Further, even the distribution of observed radio sizes of quasars and radio galaxies show large systematic differences between these two sky regions. The redshift distribution appear to be very similar in both regions of sky for all sources, which rules out any local effects to be the cause of these anomalies. Two pertinent questions then arise. First, why should there be such large anisotropies present in the sky distribution of some of the most distant discrete sources implying inhomogeneities in the universe at very large scales (covering a fraction of the universe)? What is intriguing even further is why such anisotropies should lie about a great circle decided purely by the orientation of earth's rotation axis and/or the axis of its revolution around the sun? It looks as if these axes have a preferential placement in the larger scheme of things, implying an apparent breakdown of the Copernican principle or its more generalization, cosmological principle, upon which all modern cosmological theories are based upon. http://arxiv.org/abs/1305.4134 http://arxiv.org/pdf/1305.4134.pdf Mysteries of the Large-Angle Microwave Sky - Dragan Huterer - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bc6K32ZaHas Why is the solar system cosmically aligned? BY Dragan Huterer - 2007 The solar system seems to line up with the largest cosmic features. Is this mere coincidence or a signpost to deeper insights? Caption under figure on page 43: ODD ALIGNMENTS hide within the multipoles of the cosmic microwave background. In this combination of the quadrupole and octopole, a plane bisects the sphere between the largest warm and cool lobes. The ecliptic — the plane of Earth’s orbit projected onto the celestial sphere — is aligned parallel to the plane between the lobes. http://www-personal.umich.edu/~huterer/PRESS/CMB_Huterer.pdf Of note: The preceding article was written before the Planck data (with WMPA & COBE data), but the multipoles were actually verified by Planck. A Large Scale Pattern from Optical Quasar Polarization Vectors - 2013 http://arxiv.org/pdf/1311.6118.pdf Testing the Dipole Modulation Model in CMBR - 2013 http://arxiv.org/pdf/1308.0924.pdf
Of related interest, we also live at the 'right time' in the universe for intelligent life to discovery the CMBR:
We Live At The Right Time In Cosmic History (To see the Cosmic Background Radiation) - Hugh Ross - video http://vimeo.com/31940671 The End Of Cosmology? - Lawrence M. Krauss and Robert J. Scherrer Excerpt: We are led inexorably to a very strange conclusion. The window during which intelligent observers can deduce the true nature of our expanding universe might be very short indeed. http://genesis1.asu.edu/0308046.pdf
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In fact, the book, and documentary, 'The Privileged Planet', extends the argument from the rarity of the earth to the 'suspicious' Observability Correlation that goes with the habitability of the earth for intelligent life...
The very conditions that make Earth hospitable to intelligent life also make it well suited to viewing and analyzing the universe as a whole. - Jay Richards The Privileged Planet - The Correlation Of Habitability and Observability “The same narrow circumstances that allow us to exist also provide us with the best over all conditions for making scientific discoveries.” [for instance] “The one place that has observers is the one place that also has perfect solar eclipses.” - Guillermo Gonzalez - Astronomer http://books.google.com/books?id=lMdwFWZ00GQC&pg=PT28#v=onepage&q&f=false The Privileged Planet – video playlist https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ohuG3Vj_48&list=PLbzQ4aXdqWD-9kjFsSm-cxNlzgrkJuko7 Privileged Planet - Observability Correlation - Gonzalez and Richards - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/5424431
A new documentary, (The Privileged Species), which is soon to be released this fall, dovetails into the overall thesis of 'The Privileged Planet'. The documentary, which is based on the work of Michael Denton, shows, when scrutinizing the details of chemistry, that chemistry is not only 'suspiciously set up for life', but is suspiciously set up for life just like human life.
Privileged Species - Trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAHPTwGZSP4 The Place of Life and Man in Nature: Defending the Anthropocentric Thesis - Michael J. Denton - February 25, 2013 Summary (page 11) Many of the properties of the key members of Henderson’s vital ensemble —water, oxygen, CO2, HCO3 —are in several instances fit specifically for warm-blooded, air-breathing organisms such as ourselves. These include the thermal properties of water, its low viscosity, the gaseous nature of oxygen and CO2 at ambient temperatures, the inertness of oxygen at ambient temperatures, and the bicarbonate buffer, with its anomalous pKa value and the elegant means of acid-base regulation it provides for air-breathing organisms. Some of their properties are irrelevant to other classes of organisms or even maladaptive. It is very hard to believe there could be a similar suite of fitness for advanced carbon-based life forms. If carbon-based life is all there is, as seems likely, then the design of any active complex terrestrial being would have to closely resemble our own. Indeed the suite of properties of water, oxygen, and CO2 together impose such severe constraints on the design and functioning of the respiratory and cardiovascular systems that their design, even down to the details of capillary and alveolar structure can be inferred from first principles. For complex beings of high metabolic rate, the designs actualized in complex Terran forms are all that can be. There are no alternative physiological designs in the domain of carbon-based life that can achieve the high metabolic activity manifest in man and other higher organisms. http://bio-complexity.org/ojs/index.php/main/article/view/BIO-C.2013.1/BIO-C.2013.1
As well, when scrutinizing the details of physics, Robin Collins has now found that the laws of physics also display this bias towards life like human life,,,
The Fine-Tuning for Discoverability - Robin Collins - March 22, 2014 Excerpt: Examples of fine - tuning for discoverability. ,,A small increase in ? (fine structure constant) would have resulted in all open wood fires going out; yet harnessing fire was essential to the development of civilization, technology, and science - e.g., the forging of metals.,,, Going in the other direction, if ? (fine structure constant) were decreased, light microscopes would have proportionality less resolving power without the size of living cells or other microscopic objects changing.,,, Thus, it is quite amazing that the resolving power of light microscopes goes down to that of the smallest cell (0.2 microns), but no further. If it had less resolving power, some cells could not be observed alive. The fine - structure constant, therefore, is just small enough to allow for open wood fires and just large enough for the light microscope to be able to see all living cells. Predictive and Explanatory Power of Discoverability - Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation Prediction: DLO: Within the range of values of a given parameter p that yield near - optimal livability, p will fall into that subrange of values that maximize discoverability (given constraints of elegance are not violated). In every case that I was able to make calculations regarding whether the fundamental parameters of physics are optimized in this way, they appear to pass the test.[iv] This alone is significant since this hypothesis is falsifiable in the sense that one could find data that potentially disconfirms it,,, http://home.messiah.edu/~rcollins/Fine-tuning/Greer-Heard%20Forum%20paper%20draft%20for%20posting.pdf Greer Heard Forum: Robin Collins – “God and the Fine-Tuning of the Universe for Discovery” – (March 2014) video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBWmMU7BXGE
bornagain77_{September 18, 2014
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The Copernican Principle (Principle of Mediocrity) has far more overturning it than just our rarity in the universe. Impressive as that rarity is,,,
Privileged Planet - Michael Strauss - video https://vimeo.com/91775975 Does the Probability for ETI = 1? Excerpt; On the Reasons To Believe website we document that the probability a randomly selected planet would possess all the characteristics intelligent life requires is less than 10^-304. A recent update that will be published with my next book, Hidden Purposes: Why the Universe Is the Way It Is, puts that probability at 10^-1054. http://www.reasons.org/does-probability-eti-1 Linked from Appendix C from Dr. Ross's book, 'Why the Universe Is the Way It Is'; Probability for occurrence of all 816 parameters approx. equals 10^-1333 dependency factors estimate approx. equals 10^324 longevity requirements estimate approx. equals 10^45 Probability for occurrence of all 816 parameters approx. equals 10^-1054 Maximum possible number of life support bodies in observable universe approx. equals 10^22 Thus, less than 1 chance in 10^1032 exists that even one such life-support body would occur anywhere in the universe without invoking divine miracles. http://www.reasons.org/files/compendium/compendium_part3.pdf Hugh Ross - Evidence For Intelligent Design Is Everywhere (10^-1054) - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4347236 Part 1: Fine-Tuning for Life in the Universe http://www.reasons.org/files/compendium/compendium_part1.pdf Part 2: Fine-Tuning for Intelligent Physical Life http://www.reasons.org/files/compendium/compendium_part2.pdf Part 3: Probability Estimates for Features Required by Various Life-Forms http://www.reasons.org/files/compendium/compendium_Part3_ver2.pdf Part 4: Probability Estimates on Different Size Scales for the Features Required by Advanced Life http://www.reasons.org/files/compendium/compendium_Part4_ver2.pdf Isaiah 40:28 Do you not know? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom.
bornagain77_{September 18, 2014
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I have to disagree. If the universe is what they say it is being rare doesn't make anything matter more than its being common. It may matter to him but it need not matter to anyone or anything else.lpadron_{September 18, 2014
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