>I appreciate Brian's lengthy response to the point I made about the
>anthropic principle. After skimming over it, I have a one-word comment in
>response to his post. Entropy.
> :-)
>
After this I think I should give my standard disclaimer. Although I've
read a great deal on the Anthropic Principle I'm in no wise an
expert on the subject.
Your reference to the quote in my sig. reminded me of an humbling
experience I had awhile back. This is related to another topic
which I'm also greatly interested in but definitely not an expert,
namely information theory. A rather controversial topic is whether
or not the information theoretic (IT) entropy (sometimes referred
to as "information content" or Shannon entropy) has associated
with it something analogous to the 2nd Law for the thermodynamic
entropy. Hubert Yockey, Jeffrey Wicken, Depew and Weber to
name just a few have given what seemed to me to be very convincing
arguments that Shannon entropy and thermodynamic entropy
are completely unrelated and that there is no 2nd law for the
Shannon entropy.
But there are also proponents for the idea of a 2nd law for information,
most prominent probably being Daniel Brooks and E.O. Wiley in their
book <Evolution as Entropy: Toward a Unified Theory of Biology>.
This topic (and book) came up on sci.bio.evolution and, foolish fellow
that I am, I gave a rather long summary of the various arguments
against the idea thinking these to be obvious and overwhelming ;-).
I included the well known and humorous anecdote about how
Shannon came up with the name "entropy" repeated in many
texts on information theory. Apparently Shannon wanted to
call it a measure of information content but hesitated for
fear of confusion since "information" has so many different
meanings. He then discussed his little "problem" with his friend,
Von Neumann, who advised him to call it "entropy" for
two reasons:
"First, the expression is the same as the expression for
entropy in thermodynamics and as such you should not use
two different names for the same mathematical expression,
and second, and more importantly, entropy, in spite of
one hundred years of history, is not very well understood
yet and so as such you will win every time you use entropy
in an argument." -- John Von Neumann
After this I gave some cute remark about how Shannon should
have ignored Von Neumann since naming it "entropy" seems to
have caused much more confusion than "information" could ever
have produced.
Perhaps the best known defender of Brooks and Wiley is a fellow
named John Collier and I was more than a little surprised (and
also pleased) when Collier responded to my post and, to put it
mildly, shot me right out of the water :). Now, I still agree with
Yockey and Wicken, however, I cannot give any coherent argument
against Collier. What I learned from this is that things are never
as simple as they seem. A little knowledge can take you a long
way in arguments with fellow laymen but not very far when
someone shows up who REALLY knows what they're talking about ;-).
>As a Christian priviliged to be able to explore a small part of the creation
>in my job, I appreciate the substance of the anthropic principle. However,
>I have problems with it as an apologetic tool simply because I think that it
>cannot be fully apreciated unless one already has a conception of a God who
>created the universe.
>
I tend to agree with you on this. My interest in the Anthropic Principle
is primarily academic. As an example (I think) of what you're saying here,
I believe that John Leslie is probably the leading proponent of the
argument for the existence of God based on the AP. Yet Leslie is
not a Christian and most of us would not even consider him a
theist in any obviously recognizable way [I guess Paul Davies would
be another example along these lines]. I think Pascal cautions us
wisely about attempts at finding God except by way of a Mediator.
>As an aside, I recall an interesting point about the principle made by Stan
>Jaki in his book, The Purpose of it All. He suggested that the AP was an
>extension of geocentrism--both representing attempts to place humankind at
>the center of the universe. He asserted that the AP does this by positing
>that God created the universe soley for the purpose of sustaining human life.
This fits in nicely with the above I think. Leslie, Brandon Carter and
many others have tried to correct the confusion caused by the
inappropriate naming of the principle. Despite the name, the AP
doesn't really have anything to do with us specifically as humans.
To see this one has only to investigate the types of fine-tuning
commonly discussed. Depending on the specific parameter involved,
the fine-tuning may be related to the existence of carbon-based life,
life of "any conceivable kind" or "intelligent observers" but not "us"
specifically. To say otherwise is, IMHO, to greatly abuse the anthropic
principle.
>"People of that kind are academics, scholars, and that is the nastiest
>kind of man I know." -- Blaise Pascal
Hey, who you callin' nasty, bubba? [Just kidding. This is one of
my favorite Pascal quotes]
Brian Harper | "If you don't understand
Associate Professor | something and want to
Applied Mechanics | sound profound, use the
The Ohio State University | word 'entropy'"
| -- Morrowitz
Bastion for the naturalistic |
rulers of science |