The Anthropic Principle - How Your Existence Could Lead to a Multiverse
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The Anthropic Principle and why we might live in a multiverse.
Hi! I'm Jade. Subscribe to Up and Atom for physics, math and computer science videos!
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Script
Jules Rankin
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@jules_rankin
Music
www.epidemicsound.com/ - วิทยาศาสตร์และเทคโนโลยี
"I had my first existential crisis."
Late to the party, hmm? Well, welcome. You can have a seat right over there, next to Mortal Dread, Questioning Self-Worth, and "AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH."
I'm 20 yrs old... I feel so worthless.... I stopped studying..... I don't want to get up my bed... But when i do.. I punch trees hopping on the river rocks.... Walking alone in the mountain..... Some say I'm crazy..... But I just want to be human... I have this serious existential crisis..... And i don't have feelings anymore... Sorry for bad English
@@ginomatusasiamen8336 watch this video and maybe you'll feel okay
th-cam.com/video/yWkq7btSQvs/w-d-xo.html
@@anujarora0 hahaha lunch time bong is illegal... Magic paper is not easy to earn.. But i love this video thanks😁😁
haha yeah I am late to the party but better late than never right?!
@@upandatom My first existential crisis was when I learned about Kurt Godel's Incompleteness Theorem and its implications in a course in philosophy of science I took in the final year of my undergraduate degree. That led me to take a year off while I contemplated the merits of continuing with graduate studies (my undergraduate field was cognitive science)... and then reality had its way with me. First, I got into a nice, practical field and got certified as a computer and network technician, then I lost my younger brother suddenly in 2002 (cue second existential crisis), and in the last decade or so I've gone back into the sciences via TH-cam and channels like yours, PhysicsGirl, SpaceTime, and 3Blue1Brown. Philosophy, mathematics, number theory, and theoretical physics are still my deepest interests, and your new channel definitely has me interested.
Jade: Why are we here?
Universe: no u
As far as I can tell, the Anthropic Principle is a more specific version of the Survivorship Bias.
Or rather, the Anthropic Principle is a way of _avoiding_ Survivorship Bias with regards to a specific set of questions.
Silkwesir well, the survivorship bias is just the wrong interpretation of the anthropic principle. they have nothing to do with specific or generic versions.
the anthropic principle is just the concept of necessity of the ability of observation. this is some sort of law of consistency. but this is just due to some postselection logic. it is true when we observe the past retrospectively, but not true when we observe the future prospectively. ergo: the survivorship bias is just the wrong interpretation and wrong application of the anthropic principle. this principle applies towards the past, but not the future. this wrong extension (temporal inversion) leads to the survivorship bias, which is actually a logical fallacy.
@@_kopcsi_ Exactly, that is what I meant. Thanks for your elaboration.
The generic-specific thing that I was on about was that the Anthropic Principle applies to a certain subject matter, namely the origin of our species, planet, galaxy, universe, etc., while the Survivorship Bias is a fallacy that can occur in all kinds of other contexts as well.
Basically, the Anthropic Fallacy is the awareness-of and hence not-falling-prey-to the Survivorship Bias with regards to those questions.
@,@@_kopcsi_ more of an inherent temporal bias, meaning that you would have to be inhuman (ie. dead) to be justly accused of false logic.
@@imdawolfman2698 what? why? believing that we will always exist just because so far we have been existing is a false conclusion and a logical fallacy. that's about it when we deal with the survivorship bias. in order to see and understand that it's false we don't have to go extinct. that's the stupid way to prove something. in our world we can prove and understand things without directly experience things. we can recognise our logical fallacies and cognitive biases so we can free our mind from these harmful thought schemes. it's pretty easy to show that the consistency is necessary (incontingency) when we deal with the past, and that the consistency is possible (contingency) when we deal with the future.
One way to grapple with the ideal of the anthropic principle is to consider the improbability of your own birth. If you were observing early hominids 3 million years ago and trying to predict your specific birth imagine the staggering odds that in each generation of hominids leading to and through the 100,000+ years of modern homo sapiens that each exact individual would have to meet and mate with the right other exact individual so that you would be born at the end of that chain. In fact not just each individual, but the exact right egg and sperm for every generation. The odds against you happening when thinking of it this way are fantastically high. Yet from a weak anthropic point of view - someone had to be at the end of that chain of human beings and that someone happens to be you - so of course when looking backwards that chain of events its not improbable at all, it is just what had to happen so that you could be in the position of wondering how you got there. If any one generation of the exact right individuals did not meet or mate, then some other human would be pondering the improbability of their birth, just not you.
*Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnizl, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and Martin Heidegger* : "Why is there something instead of nothing?🤔🤔🤔"
*Sidney Morgenbesser* : "If there were nothing you'd still be complaining!😡"
because "nothing (0) + something (1) = something (1)". this is the arithmetical equivalent of the anthropic principle.
@@_kopcsi_ Nothing is mathematically unsustainable.
(infinity)
NX = 1 / 10
One divided by 10 to the power infinity.
Nothing: If I have 5 apples and I sell them, i don't have nothing of apples, but I have apples equivalent of money. As long as I have any materials, it could be equivalent of 5 apples or some apples. So I still don't have nothing of apples.
If I say I have above number NX of apples then that number is so small, I can say I have nothing equivalent of apples.
As number NX involves infinity and division, it is not sustainable.
So we have something instead of nothing.
Jaydeep Vipradas I don’t really see what you wanted to prove here. OK, i see that in this world we can’t ultimately destroy something to nothingness. that’s quite trivial due to the conservation laws (matter, energy, momentum etc.). however these fundamental laws are valid only in closed systems (and in case of infinitely large universe this definition breaks down). so it’s OK that when there has already been something, you can’t make nothing from that. but the origonal comment’s quote is related to something more fundamental. why is there anything in the first place at all? well, the answer is that if we consider the state of being (existence) and not being (lack), then the two together in additive (parallel) way provide being/existence. however in multiplicative (serial) way they provide not being/lack. this is also coded in our arithmetic: 0+1=1 and 0x1=0. which is not magical at all, since our arithmetic just reflects the logic of our world, so if our arithmetic is consistent, then it must be consistent with everything else which is also consistent (e.g. our world).
@@_kopcsi_ I'm suggesting that total nothing may not be sustainable by itself and something may arise spontaneously in total nothing. The reason for total nothing may not be sustainable is could be because of its definition, which involves infinity. That's why there is something instead of nothing.
Jaydeep Vipradas what do you mean by “sustainability”?
I don’t think enough people value Philosophy as much as they should. I think it can really help us ask the right questions to understand our purpose and our existence. I’m interested to see your series on it!
I concur. I recently watched an interview of a very successful game designer explaining how they came up with an innovative method of solving game creation problems... he called this "the layering method"...
when he described the method it was a philosophical analysis.
People struggle to solve their life problems, those who manage to do that accidentally reinvent ideas which are present in philosophy for a quite long time now. People dismiss philosophy thinking it is this wishy washy mumbo jumbo irrelevant to reality, which is actually the opposite of what it is :\
Part of the anthropic problem that you didn't mention (or I missed it) is that humans as other animals, are programmed to look for patterns. With all of our senses, patterns help us recognize and differentiate enemies, food, drum beats, paths, aromas, etc. Our programming may push us to find order in the universe in the same way it tricks us into confusing random order for patterns. That is, we have to be careful to avoid forcing order onto chaos.
True, but whose to say we even fully experience the universe. There could be other senses that don't register to humans. For instance, animals run away before a natural disaster happens. How do they know? A fly can see more colors than our brains can process. Is there even a way to truly observe the universe with 100% accuracy when we are limited to 5 core senses?
What do you think, elegant theory of everything or random chaos?
I think it's the latter one. I wonder if this Wiki could make sense after all. :) Link: verse-and-dimensions.fandom.com/wiki/Verse_and_Dimensions_Wikia
A random page of it: verse-and-dimensions.fandom.com/wiki/Imaginarium
Also, you're really amazing and beautiful. Never feel bad if you can't upload because of a particular reason. You're still better and smarter than at least 95% of TH-cam. :)
Greetings from Limburg, the Netherlands.
First, welcome back. I was just wondering if something happened with you, yesterday. Now on to your question.
If we live in a simulation, then I lean heavily towards chaos. Reason: A simulation requires a lot of people to maintain and each will have their own stipulations to add in. Everything designed by committee, quickly proves chaos theory to be correct.
If we are an organic universe, then one thing would naturally lead to another, until we have this conversation. It might not be easy to see it, but much like a piece of music written for a symphony orchestra, once it all comes together, it cannot help but be beautiful.
There has to be a theory of everything as nothing is random (except quantum mechanics) there have to be patterns in things described by mathematical equations they are just too complex to be figured out.
You are not including the consciousness in this?
A big problem with “it couldn’t have been any other way” is that we don’t actually know how many other universes could allow life that could eventually do physics and ask about anthropic principles.
I agree. Assertions like 'if electrons were a little bit bigger, matter couldn't be formed", apart from being intrinsically untestable, are, or appear to be, true only with reference to the laws of physicas as they are known to apply in our universe*. A different universe might have entirely different laws of physics which would allow the formation of identical-looking matter even with bigger electrons! (*Or at least in our part of the universe - we cannot even be certain whether the same laws apply in more remote parts of the cosmos to which we have no sensory access!)
No sense
have you ever seen another universe?
Singularity-point positioning in log-antilog relative-timing-> coherence-cohesion condensation (Physics), observation of WYSIWYG ONE-INFINITY is the Observable Multiverse.
"Theoretical" sciences. If I had a million dollars I could cure mushbrain, in another universe.
13:09
Up and atom- 'cpg grey'
CGP grey- well....
Peter Parker: So your saying there's a mutiverse
More like one in a million...
well there is a multiverse in marvel so.. (well it's actually an omniverse)
@@wrox9684 I doing a joke
@@wrox9684 Well ok then
Multiverse: a philosophical conclusion posited by people who claim to have banished any need for philosophy.
I love you!!!! Your way of expressing yourself resonates with me and makes me smile :) I love the way you look at this world and I can see it through the beautiful way you share your inner world with us.
Your videos are super interesting! I’m so glad to have such great sources of content in my life.
What a wonderful random existence :)
Thank you, wonderful fleshy human being 🙏🏻❤️
oh mai god
"Wherever you go, there you are." -- Buckaroo Bonzai
Me, towards the end of the video: Sounds like you need philosophy
You, immediately afterwards: That's why I'm starting a philosophy series on Nebula
Was thinking the same. I guess it’s true that philosophy is essentially an extension to theoretical physics.
@@springbok4015 I'm definitely not trying to start an argument here, but given history and the breadth of topics philosophy covers, it's more apt to say that science, is a subset of philosophy.
@@RegisBodnar I think you're right.
@@RegisBodnar Yes. Science is merely the act of measuring things. How we apply the answers we get from science and what meaning we ascribe to the information science gives us is a metaphysical question. So many scientists (and their followers) foolishly think their conclusions are purely objective and that they have banished the need for metaphysics, all while making the grandest metaphysical leaps.
Check out Edward Feser's "Aristotle's Revenge: The Metaphysical Foundations of Physical and Biological Science".
What is Nebula?
I've had an existential crisis before, so I understand how you're feeling. I've studied philosophy in university, and it really helped me deal with it. Having a philosophy channel is an amazing idea! good luck.
Thank you!
Wooowww, I never saw such a beautiful and elegant theory ever in my life. It questions almost everything. When you started the video, I thought, "Ah, another theory". But as I watched your video, "Oh man, what I was doing in my life without knowing this theory ?"
It even transcends string theory upto some limit. That is just mind blowing 🤯
Although the randomness of the standard model makes the universe seem less special, it’s still mysterious that our universe is so consistent with respect to the laws of physics when universes with the occasional deviation from the laws of physics would still be able to support life and would be a lot more numerous
Some guy got very high once, and came up with a beautiful answer to the existential crises.
""All matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration, that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively, there is no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and we are the imagination of ourselves."" -Bill Hicks.
I love these philosophical science type videos. Can't wait for more. They just change the way you interpret things:)
Nice ti see/ hear you back again, very through provoking as usual. Keep up the good work.
Thank you Bryce!
Your philosophy series is the main reason I'm seriously considering for the first time subscribing to one of these services. It's a bummer I can't get this through.
Everything existing in the universe is the fruit of chance and necessity.
- Democritus
And so,
The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make it.
- Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius was Wisdom incarnate.
Love his Meditations.
Imagine you were now dead, or had not lived before this moment. Now view the rest of your life as a bonus, and live it as nature directs.
- Marcus Aurelius
The first step: Don’t be anxious. Nature controls it all.
- Marcus Aurelius
Today I escaped anxiety. Or no, I discarded it, because it was within me, in my own perceptions, not outside.
- Marcus Aurelius
These are the sort of lines he wrote, ahead of his time indeed.
my whole life since I was 6 years old was one existential crisis...
So what does it feel like to be seven then? It's a joke.
I'am happy to see you back! I have to see your video one more time to understand everything but I'am clearly for the chaos side.
When I look around me I objectively see chaos, fighting with my human bias that whant me to make sens to everything.
Thank you!
Thank you! And yeah I spent like 3 weeks reading and rereading the script to finally get it so don't worry if it takes a couple viewings
Hey Jade - So lovely to see you back! I hear ya, about the existential crisis. After one or more myself, I have an idea for a video I plan to regarding the philosophical principal of essentialism: the idea that objects or persons contain an 'essence' that forms the definition of that object or person. It's fun-ner than it sounds, really - or I hope to make it so. You are (one of) my inspiration(s)! - Uncle Mike
Hi Mike! I've heard of essentialism, it doesn't sound boring at all! Please let me know when you make the video because I would love to learn about it (email me because I'll probably miss the comment)
Another question this brings up is "Is there a consensus reality?" Recently I've begun to lean more towards "yes." That switch is simply due to the belief in the color magenta. It only exists as a mental construct, not as a color of light. Fun, eh! Looking forward to your philosophy series on Nebula.
thank you this has been enlightening :)
Existence of our own consciousness is undeniable reality. Other things are flexible!
Magenta isn't any more of a mental construct than yellow or orange. Its true that magenta doesn't have a spot on the EM spectrum like yellow or orange do, but in terms of our biology we actually perceive yellow in exactly the same way we perceive magenta -- relative activation intensities of two different cones. That "real" yellow gets split apart by our eyes into red and green and our brains convert it back to yellow for us.
So magenta is an odd case where the consensus is actually more "real" than the reality. Everybody's cones work in pretty much the same way (give or take small genetic differences and excluding things like color blindness,) and everybody's brains similarly work in pretty much the same way (again, neglecting genetic outliers, injury, etc.)
If you really want some color-based philosophical quandries though, look to linguistics. Vox has a good starter video here: th-cam.com/video/gMqZR3pqMjg/w-d-xo.html. What it basically amounts to is that the language you speak in many ways defines how you perceive color. For a nice example in English, just try to think of pink as "light red" in the same way you look at the sky and the ocean and see blue in both cases. We can easily distinguish "sky blue" from "dark blue," but Its really really hard to get that idea of "pink" out of your head and think in terms of red, even when you're fully aware that they're fundamentally just different shades of the same color.
Linguistics actually has quite fascinating connections to philosophy. The language(s) we learn informs a _lot_ about how we see the world. One example I certainly never would have thought of prior to seeing it laid out is our so-called "inner monologue." Its pretty easy to realize that you "think" in English, and its not that difficult to spoke another language would "think" in that language. But what about people who were born deaf? Who have only ever been able to learn sign language? Well they still have an inner monologue.. their brains are still fundamentally the same as everyone else'. But its not spoken, it's visual. They "think" in terms of signing to themselves. Its the only language they can possibly know, so their brain just adapts to make it work for them.
Other weird examples include languages that don't have left and right -- they always speak in terms of absolute direction. That is, something isn't "to your left," its "to the west of you." And it will remain to the west of you even if you turn around, because its relative to the ground not to your person.
And have you ever thought about how we talk about distance? Apparently this is mostly an American (and Canadian) phenomena: If someone asks us how far away the next down is, we might tell them its "2 hours away." Hours? It seems super normal when you're used to it, but for people coming from places where they don't do so, having someone tell you a distance in terms of a time measurement is just.. weird. Especially when they then ask how far away the gas station is and you tell them "about 5 miles." But if you're meeting them at the gas station, you might be 10 minutes away. Linguistic quirks that seem super normal until someone stops and asks "why do you do that?" And then there's no logical reason -- our language (or localized version of our language) happened to develop like that, and now we all just think that way. And there's nothing _wrong_ with that, but its enlightening when we realize there are other ways of thinking about the same things that accomplish the same task in totally different ways.
Is this like an absolute inertial frame of reference? That would be fascinating.....
@altrag this is a fascinating perspective. I watched the Vox video you mentioned. Thank you. The notion of how human bodies are constructed shapes how and what we think has long been of casual interest to me. Especially the idea that there may be concepts that we are not physically capable of imagining. By its very nature only the framework, at most, could be identified, otherwise it would be imaginable.
One bit about the "inner monologue" that I find intriguing is when it slips out of spoken language and into a mode that is not language, rather non-auditory and non-visual perceptions, like the feel of moving. I wonder if there is an analogue to Berlin & Kay's color perception research that addresses non-language thought expressions versus what the person's language provides.
That's the smoothest I've ever seen anyone asking viewers to subscribe...
I absolutely had to leave a comment to do my due diligence. Brilliant video I say. From content, to writing, to presentation, it all was well done. Thank you! 😊
I love this! Amazing video and I cannot wait for the next one 🤘🤘🤘
Sorry to hear about the crisis... it can be a good thing, although difficult. Hope you're doing okay! But looking forward to seeing this philosophy stream! As a fan of philosophy, and knowing how wonderful you are at explaining things, I think it'll be awesome. Best of luck on your journey of learning and discovery.
Thank you so much! And yes it definitely was a good thing, I feel my life has much more direction than before and I know who I am (kind of lol)
@@upandatom Awesome, that's great to hear!
"Man is the measure of all Things" said Protagoras. Which means things can be very subjective sometimes. Something to think about.
➕ know thy self. If you discover that all you know is a thought. Then you might wonder who you are. It turns out, who you think you are is also a thought.
So who are you without a thought?
This is the process of diss identification. To un-know yourself.
In this process you discover that you know nothing.
Meaning that all your past and future and alternative possibility are just dreams. Self validating dreams.
That thinking is an activity.
So who are you when you stop thinking? Is there still someone saying "me"?
Isn't that an observable activity?
Who are you when you are still?
You are still.
That is who you are.
And you fell free and happy for no reason.
That is who you are.
You are amazed. Out of the maze of thoughts.
Un bound. Un limited. Un defined.
In finit. Unfathomable. Indescribable.
Being.
Aware.
Present.
@@aurelienyonrac nice. Worst case cenario is that I am a bunch of delusional particules haha. Philosophy is great!
It delights me that you posted this video, because I didn't know the name for this concept, but I managed to "stumble upon" it as an idea VERY recently in my own studies (comp theory, chewing on "observability"). Personally, I still believe there's a "theory of everything" for our specific universe, but I suspect it might need the context of a "theory of anything". I love your channel, and hearing what you said at the end, it sounds like I have plenty more to look forward to on Nebula!
Aww thank you Jake! It's cool you came across the idea by yourself, I had never even considered it before! You must be a natural philosopher ;)
@@upandatom One way to grapple with the ideal of the anthropic principle is to consider the improbability of your own birth. If you were observing early hominids 3 million years ago and trying to predict your birth imagine the staggering odds that in each generation of hominids leading to and through the 100,000+ years of modern homo sapiens that each exact individual would have to meet and mate with the right other exact individual so that you would be at the end of that chain. In fact not just each individual, but the exact right egg and sperm for every generation. The odds against you happening when thinking of it this way are fantastically high. Yet from a weak anthropic point of view - someone had to be at the end of that chain of human beings and that someone happens to be you - so of course when looking backwards that chain of events its not improbable at all, it is just what had to happen so that you could be in the position of wondering how you got there. If any one generation of the exact right individuals did not meet or mate, then some other human would be having the exact same thoughts, just not you.
actually the essential seed of this concept (anthropic principle) have already manifested in different forms and places. for example John A. Wheeler theoretical physicist used the “self-observing universe” phrase, which is effectively equivalent to the anthropic principle (with slight differences).
Jade, normally I love your content, but this video makes it seem like String Theory was made in an attempt just to spite the Anthropic Principle. String Theory is a beautiful solution that came from decades of trying to solve the hardest equations known to man, not because scientists threw a hissy fit.
Sorry for the misinterpretation.
One theory I've come up with..
Maybe whoever/whatever created 'the universe' only figured things out to a certain point, and when we look past that point, it's not actually 'defined' yet. Once we come up with a theory, that fits (all previous observations) that, in itself becomes the 'reality' so essentially, we're creating our own reality as we go.
If you look at a mandelbrot, it only looks like it goes down to a certain resolution, but once we look closer, (or calculate a further resolution) then, and only then, we see the additional detail to it. Who says that everything that exists, couldn't be the same way? We have to calculate, or 'figure out' the next layer ourselves, and if we come up with a hypothesis that fits all pre-existing conditions, the universe says, 'yeah, that works for me' and makes it so.
I like it. A lot. Except for the "creator" part. It is clear that we are only capable of observing the nature of reality down to a certain level- even Leonard Susskind essentially says that after a point; all we can "see" is a fuzzy blur- nothing is defined, they give it names like "uncertainty principle"... but it appears that we have definitely hit a wall, so to speak, both on the macro and the micro scales. You may be bang-on; and we are currently at the limits of our capability to observe... now we need to discover new technology to enable us to define that next level.
@@arealassassin Not to get all political but let me proceed to do that and say that I think Marx (and critical theory literature) rightly attributes the bounds of such technological/material "progress" as a necessary consequence of the mode of economic production. Really, it's kind of a political anthropic principle in that material survival must be foundational and other social organizations are downstream from that necessity. In other words, we are bounded in our ideologies and consequently our reasoning and imagination by the constraints/rules of material organization (economics). Gramsci kind of expands this through his conception of cultural hegemony which serves to entrench a certain unquestioned logical episteme and I think Mark Fisher in his book Capitalist Realism highlights what I'm ultimately trying to suggest might be the case, which is that over time the entrenchment of layers of institutional and legal frameworks perpetuate their own recreation which eventually traps our collective imagination and really knowledge itself. Or something.
Great topics as always
I just love how you chose to depict the bottom quark!
I had the thought while watching the video "if physics is ultimately random, why does so much of physics seems so elegant and beautiful?" And I think have answer, but I don't know how well it holds up. Similar to how humans evolved to fit our specific environment, what if we evolved a sense of mathematics to fit our specific universe? It could be we evolved to find our current system of mathematics the most logical because it best helps describe the universe we see. So just as the laws of physics are random, so may be the logic of mathematics.
I certainly wouldn't rule that out
My response would normally be, well, alternative maths wouldn't be useful. But this conversation goes deeper, huh? You're asking, why aren't they useful?
@@upandatom www.maths.ed.ac.uk/~v1ranick/papers/wigner.pdf
A lot of this boils down to a philosophical theory called "principle of sufficient reason". It basically says "there must be a reason for everything". It is really one of the foundations of the scientific method so it makes sense that abandoning it (or even modifying it) feels wrong.
plato.stanford.edu/entries/sufficient-reason/
You said CPGgrey by accident and my brain INSTANTLY new something was off 😂 great video
haha WHOOPS!
i like the way you talk in the video! your videos are fascinating!
Love that depiction of the landscape, especially the black holes picnic setup :)
Book recommendation on multiverses: Anathem by Neal Stephenson. It's a fiction book but not an easy read. The author is very well spoken about a lot of interesting topics.
Thanks Rusty!
Neil Stephenson is a fantastic engineer, but a horrible writer. Which explains almost everything about his books. The flip side of that coin is William Gibson, who is an amazing writer but a horrible engineer, which also explains almost everything about his books too. They both write cyberpunk, but the difference between the two is fascinating. For the record, I'm not bagging on Stephenson. He has a couple of novels that I really enjoy. But the fact that he is a horrible writer is what makes his books difficult to read. They are fascinating because he really is a great engineer and comes up with some outstanding concepts, but his execution is terrible.
10:36 the old man looks like Leonard Susskind
he is
@@upandatom I knew it all along
Great video. Profoundly thought provoking.
you have an interesting style :) thank you for creating!
"I wonder if God had any choice in creating the universe"
- Albert Einstein
Probably not, otherwise any intelligent creature (or creator) would not!
Poor God did not even have any choice in his own creation let aside universe! Men created God to get sense of security from uncertainties and vagaries of the world.
@@alephii well, first of all an omnipotent entity is illogical, and so carries many logical contradictions. secondly, if we assume that someone created consciously the universe (which is illogical, but let us forget it for a second), then the anthropic principle does not mean that there could not be any other variants of universes which are consistent. the anthropic principle guarantees that the universe that we can observe must be consistent with the existence of the observer (i.e. us). this means: "there must be X", and not "there must be only one X", where X is the consistent universe variant. so the anthropic principle in itself does NOT exclude the possibility of other consistent universes, but it does NOT prove it either.
@@_kopcsi_ I know a few omnipotence paradoxes like "Can God create a prison so secure that he cannot escape from it?" If God can create such a prison then he is not omnipotent because he cannot escape from it and if he is able to escape from it then again he is not omnipotent because he couldn't make such a prison
@@anujarora0 yeah, that is one of the many alternative and equivalent versions of the mother of all paradoxes. it is logically and structurally equivalent to the "Liar's paradox" and the "Russel's paradox" as well. but the inclusion of an omnipotent and timeless entity in our models is not just contradictory, but also illogical in the aspect of "Occam's razor" principle. it is just superfluous and unnecessary to insert God into our models. why? because there can be two options to explain the origin of God.
1, God, who created our universe, was created by a higher-level creator (meta-God), and so there is an infinite chain of creations, therefore we can construct an extended model where God is just as contingent as our universe, so the two can be merged to a meta-universe, which contains both (and where this original God loses its special attribute of being timeless and omnipotent).
2, God was never created, it always existed (or equivalently God created itself), but in this case we can get the SAME result, but with a SIMPLER model, if we assume that our world (universe) always existed or created itself (no God is needed).
so in every case we can see, that the role of an omnipotent creator entity is not just contradictory, but also superfluous.
"It is what it is, until it ain't"
William Gillespie
so wise
I like that the Anthropic Principle is a kind of meeting point inbetween Science and Philosophy because just like you made this video due to you as a Scientist coming to understand Philosophical thinking I came across this video when I a Philosopher was trying to understand Physics better.
The strong anthropic principle sounds like a circular argument: the conclusion is conscious life, so what ever contributes to the foregone conclusion is expected. It sounds like a way, intended or not , to squelch inquiry.
I consider it the backward firing reasoning. It's like so I born on 2002
Out of 2000 billion humans only 100 million were born on 2002 the probability is 1/20000 so there is something unique and I am special .
The conclusion itself doesn't make sense because the reasoning is backfired . Which started from I was born on 2002 and on this basis i established the facts . The established fact shouldn't propose for its own origin otherwise we could end up in cycles/false reasoning. To born on specific year isn't special if not me then someone else have to born on the year but I started my reasoning with the fact and then took it as a random occurring event which led to ill consequences. similarly the constant are so is not special saying that they are so because for us to happen is a reasoning backfire .
These are my thoughts .
Btw nice video jaiden keep it up. Have some philosophy cheers!
02er??
It would be more like:
You ask yourself the question "Why am I alive in the age of the internet instead of the middle ages?" You could try to come up with some fundamental laws of society that force you to be in the internet age. Or you could recognize that you need to live at some period in time and that the specific time you live in is basically random.
You should have asked your subs, we could have told you that the meaning of life is 42!
Epistemology, yay!!! I was a double major in history and philosophy at University, and I can tell you from my perspective epistemology is absolutely the best.
Great video 👍Sounds like selection bias is a pretty big part of this principle. I mean you can only measure as accurately as the smallest quantity on your measure if device
42, btw.
Okay, I'm gonna bIoш your mind even further now:
We do _not actually_ experience our universe as a collection of observers observing -- i.e. all humans, maybe some/all animals, potentially some/all aliens, etc., and even possibly some/all inanimate matter, since you cannot really draw a non-arbitrary line what constitutes a measuring device / observer and what doesn't.
Instead, we really experience our universe as only *1 observer* observing: *YOU.* Or rather: *ME.* This means "our universe" is really always just "YOUR/MY universe," configured in a way that allowed to favor YOUR/MY P.O.V. over that of any other -- hence you/me experiencing "our universe" strictly as 1 observer observing, and not as a collective of more or less equal observers observing.
In other words: *the multiverse is OUR universe as the sum of all individual P.O.V.s*
which leads us to the next question, what is this YOU or ME ;)
where do I start or end. Is ME my body, my brain cells, the interplay of the chemical reactions therein..? When does a hair that falls out cease to be a part of me? If I get a transplant, is it part of me? If all the matter is exchanged constantly between me and my surroundings, my cells dying and being replaced, my body building itself from the things I eat and inhale, then how can I say I am different from you or from my cat or from a star billions of lightyears away?
In other words, what constitutes a self.
If everything interacts with everything else in the same way that 'I' interact with 'non-I', is a stone an 'I'? Or an atom, or any other entity of matter?
I don't know, I'm getting carried away. I should go to sleep.
Great and intriguing video as always!
Thank you!
Thank you for making this video. It's important to question things. Is something is true then questioning it will prove that it's true. God bless you.
Heart this comment pls
Yipee!!!!
I'm really surprised by this revelation! I'm completely disinterested in philosophy, I tried getting into it at University when I was looking for answers about God (raised a catholic but for all intents and purposes am an atheist) but I quickly lost interest! I was after answers that I just couldn't get and then got really into science instead. I love that science doesn't care about things like truth or what's real or how do we know what we know etc etc, it just cares about the "how" and leaves the "why" out of it. To me it's just not relevant and in terms of all the things science doesn't tackle like love and the meaning of life etc, I get all that from my kids and wanting to make a difference for them - that's the meaning of my life. Having said all that I really like your channel, you produce awesome content and I've always considered subscribing to Curiosity Stream so I guess now you've given me a reason to sign up!.
I would love to see your philosophy series. I might finally really get that curiosity stream subscription.
Wonderful vid! Yes I had noticed a decline in new videos, thought you were just busy doing life!
My first existential crisis was to do with time... Sort of a time crisis if you will.
If we are the measuring instrument, who/what is taking the readings? So many times physics crosses over with philosophy (and if you ignore the 'waffle' and focus on game mechanics, religion). It'll be good to see what you come up with!
She’s a live 🧟♀️🧟♀️🧟♀️🧟♀️🧟♀️
How have you never considered humans as measuring devices? We've literally been doing exactly that since forever - before there were standard weights and measures we used our own biology. Also you're just now having your first exticential crisis? Wow. I had my first one in grade school.
yeah I'm late to the party but at least I arrived!
Your animation explaining particle physics is beautiful.
Hi Jade. I am a high energy physicist who decided to get into writing fiction a few years ago, and I also took the dive into the philosophy mindscape as part of my world building. At one point I decided to try an exercise where I tried to derive the universe from cardinality. Oddly, it mostly works. One of the main questions that I had was whether I had eliminated free will. Well ... it's not all that apparent that free will exists. I did finally decide that you cannot derive free will from natural law. You can derive chaos, randomness; but not free will. In my own little verse, I started playing with the concept of whether the past can be changed. I decided that that is, in fact, one thing we can't observe. Changes in the past are not observables. Anyway, its' a fun ride. Enjoy.
Hah, nerds!
There's 2 ways to think about the meaning of life:
1) There is no meaning. What's the point of asking even? Life sucks and then you die.
2) Hooray, there is no meaning it's all pointless let's party.
3) there *might* be meaning and I'm going to spend my life searching for it
E) I MAKE MY OWN MEANING (existentialism).
The anthropic principle doesn't imply that the fundamental basis for our existence is random and "just happens" to be compatible with life and observers, and therefore there does not need to be an explanation for it. Rather, it is a rich source of constraints that begs explanation of *how* these particular values support the emergence of many orders of complexity between fundamental particles and the existence of philosophically-oriented TH-cam science popularizers. (And one particularly good one, thanks.)
Nice video. Damn, so many of my favorite creators keep on clamoring on about this curiositystream thing. I think I'll try the trial
That's right, you can improve your life so much by paying for the random shit in the ad.
reading "Critique of Pure Reason" by Kant will go a long way. worth the effort
Oh man, Kant. I'm having flashbacks to freshman Philosophy. My prof LOVED Kant. I'm more a fan of Hume myself. There's nothing like the problem of induction to make you question whether you actually know anything.
Philosophy is fascinating, but it is a deep rabbit hole. While on that journey, don't forget to bring a razor or two. Like this one: it is not possible to draw any conclusions from the fact that the laws of nature seem exclusively conducive of the existence of life. In order to draw conclusions our data set must be bigger than one, and even in our own reality we have found life only on our little planet. It's profound to realize that the laws of physics could be much more robust than the tiny chunk we can observe, but any venture down that path must be predicated on experiment and observation, in which we are limited to the scope of our own existence. Basically, it's circular thinking. We can't know until we know.
Hi Jade! How are you? I missed you! I'm thankful that you are uploading more videos! About the existential crisis, I would reccomend you to search about David Chalmers, he makes a very interesting point about that doesn't make sense that subjective things like colour, the sound of a violin, the taste of cookies should arise from the synapses of the brain, after all, all that neurons do is turn on an off, and all that matter and energy does is attract and repel, how does that should give raise to the subjective experience of red colour? Also, I would reccomend Mircea Eliade "The sacred and the profane: the nature of religion".
Thanks again for the great video!
Ok thanks so much for the recommendations Joao! Glad to hear you are enjoying the videos :)
Watched a few of your videos now and the paradoxes are really interesting. The script is always well written and great animation keeps it entertaining.(A balanced stick unless force is applied from the wind,.... or a monkey. 😆) X
Dear Jade, I love your channel and noticed from the very onset that you are a philosophically inclined person. I love that, too. (I know people with science background who abhors philosophy but they don't know better) However, owing to your existential crisis and given your physics background, may I suggest two eye-opener books by Christopher Caudwell: (1) Illusion and Reality; (2) The Crisis in Physics. I hope it helps in your quest. Best wishes!
Thank you so much Saumitra!
7:20,... I've thought this for a long time and just didn't have the words to express it.
Of course we live in a very special and VERY unlikely universe. The only universe we COULD have developed in.
It's not the universe that met OUR needs, it's that WE met theirs. What a fantastic video, Thank you and great work. : )
I think that there IS an elegance of The Standard Model. The Standard Model shows that life emerges in a universe, if its fundamental constants & values seek stability.
For example, masses of the electron & the photon being such that they can be a part of & interact with atoms.
Or we are just at a random point in vast instability in which what appears to be a moment in which apparent stability is possible. The Ancient Greek idea that there is stability in nature and things naturally return to some sort of equilibrium (the 'balance of nature') is demonstrably false, just as the universe evolved from a situation in which life and even complexity was not possible, and will evolve further into a state in which it is possible no more.
If you’re interested in the anthropic principal I’d suggest looking at the work of Nick Bostrom. He’s a philosopher and one of the papers he’s well known for is “Are you living in a computer simulation?”
Thanks! I've read some of Nick Bostrom's stuff but not that specific paper, I'll check it out!
I think Philosophy is the right path to help understand these questions. I'm not sure if you'll really find the answers you're looking for--maybe just more/different questions, but just because we push the frontier forward on what kind of questions we ask about our place in the universe doesn't mean that there's nothing to be gained by asking them. We may never be able to answer the most fundamental questions--the answers may be beyond our reach, but we can certainly push our understanding forward. Carl Sagan once said, "We are a way for the cosmos to know itself."
Hello, Jade! Have you ever heard of Wolfgang Smith’s work? He’s a fellow physicist who’s been plagued by existential crisis as well. This led him to India to find deeper meaning, but he was unable to find a satisfying answer for his questions. So after fiddling a little with the idea of becoming a lumberjack and leaving deeper questions behind, he went on to study the relationship of traditional cosmology and philosophy and modern science. His work is fascinating. I’d recommend you look for either Wisdom of Ancient Cosmology or Cosmos and Transcendence. Or maybe his most popular work, the Quantum Enigma. I think this would be a good read for helping with the questions you’ve been presented!
To be serious, I've learned a lot from you and your show.
I really appreciate the work, research and preparation you put into it. thank you for it.
Aww thank you Jerry! you are most welcome :)
Great approach to define a human being as measuring device - makes me feel weird (fleshy measuring devices)... and amazing in the same time. :D
Jade, brilliant work. I've been pondering the anthropic principle most of my life. At least long enough to know that I'm wrong about almost everything! That said I see no inherent conflict between a Theory of Everything (ToE) and random chaos. The two are matters of perspective. ToE, if it does exist is a description of the interplay of systems. This could include a system which places the properties of fundamental particles in a coherent and elegant framework. Random chaos on the other hand needs falls within very strict bounds necessary for us to exist to observe it. Chaos playing within a structure, if you will.
I agree that there is no conflict between a ToE and random chaos, but the ToE we're investigating at the moment is based on the assumption that the laws of physics we observe in our universe are the only ones, and so we are trying to make sense of those. But I agree a complete ToE based on the laws of the entire multiverse is not incompatible with a multiverse.
@@upandatom,
And what about beyond the Multiverse? Like the Megaverse, Omniverse etc.? :)
Physics interests me for its proactive qualities in regards to seeking answers, and it always sucks getting stuck in an existential crisis. Yet on this occasion it made me oddly delighted to hear of yours, for many of the same reasons that I like your channel: Existence is unimaginably complex, much more than mere formulas can decode. You always acknowledge that to some degree in your videos, and now even more so.
Most scientists never seem to do so, at least never beyond a certain comfortability level. They accept what uncertainty they must grudgingly, and return to brute-forcing their way to the truth, within the parameters of our Universe.
Like I said I do wish us to seek answers, on good days I even believe in us reaching "The Truth", and I really believe that science is an essential part of that. However, philosophy must be applied as well, if we are to avoid ending up the kings of a smaller hill than the one two blocks down the road.
Really good video, Ms. Atom
Thank you!
i love the sound of your voice! ~ excellent content as well.........super fun / solid
I just like to think that no matter how much gets explained there's always going to be more unknowns to encounter. Nobody will ever truly form a "theory of everything" because as soon as that happens the definition of everything just gets even bigger. Then people would start to want to find "the theory of the theories of everything"
I've had several existential crisis. They are really bad...I looked up "dark night of the soul" to help me get through them. It helped me to know that I'm not the only one going through all this. I believe that everyone will go through this at one point or another. You are on a great journey of remembering who you are. I think about Plato's Cave like an analogy about life.
Read Philip Larkin poem : Aubade.
You need to read "Science and Sanity" by Alfred Korzybski, the founder of General Semantics, which has been called, "the study of the meaning of meaning", or, "How we know what we know." It's not for everyone-- it's some of the densest writing in the English language, and generally needs to be digested a sentence or paragraph at a time, but answers a lot of the questions you raise.
Though I in a very surface level sense understand the concept and argument for a multiverse I do still fall down on the evolutionary thought which is that the version of the universe we have now is just what ended up “surviving” over the time from the start to now. We just don’t observe what didn’t make it e.g. the atoms that didn’t form didn’t get to here but doesn’t mean that they are separated into their own universe. I would love to know more about the alternative ideas and “proof” of them though
I used to teach a college course in Evolution, and the first thing I taught every class was the WAP (I consider the strong anthropic principle as stated at 4:08 here to be subsumed within the weak, and the strong anthropic principle actually to be the one contradicted at 7:48 .) It was an excuse to say that none of the events leading to our existence had to be at all probable before the fact, because of our insuperable selection bias. Then I would tell a true story of how I was called in after the fact to evaluate a clinical study in which all the treatment failures were left out of the sample. This is the value of the weak anthropic principle: not compelling us to throw out the freakishly improbable in the past.
For many years I took the weak anthropic principle as a prop for my snap judgment that life, let alone advanced life, was so improbable that even in a universe this vast, we were probably alone. I changed my opinion only after evidence later emerged that life existed on Earth very soon after conditions first allowed it. Previously the evidence had not been of life on the planet for the great majority of the time it could've supported it, but the new evidence of life's antiquity said life was much more probable than I'd given the universe credit for; still didn't do much for *advanced* life, though.
If you want to see a good argument backed up by evidence for the strong anthropic principle and/or intelligent design, read _Privileged Planet_ . You could precede it by reading _Rare Earth_ for the evidence of improbability, but _Privileged Planet_ does such a good job of summing that up that you don't have to.
Im mostly pleased that im already subscribed to this channel.
Jade, as always, thank you again for your generosity. It has created this platform which is relatively free of prejudice and which makes it so enjoyable to follow your train of thought. As an instrument and calibration guy for many years I appreciate the " we are measuring instruments" outlook along with its necessary (to me) companion: "all measurement is biased". And yet we have only two choices, persist or give up. It seems like you are continuing to make the choice that suits my taste. Sorry for your crisis as they can be quite painful.
Thank you Stephen! They are somewhat painful but I'm glad I went through it, I feel like I can see a *tiny* bit clearer than before. And giving up just seems too sad, like if there is an answer why not at least try and look for it?
@@upandatom Thanks for your rapid response! To me, at least, one main question is to ask ourselves where do we as humans put "faith" while we progress toward who knows what new relationship with our world. At least for now it seems like an "objective" truth about the way things really are is well beyond us, so how can we not just survive but thrive despite painful phases in our evolution.
"Existential crisis" - we all go thru it - mine was when I lost a loved one - I completely changed
People misunderstand Reincarnation - it can happen in one life time also, in fact, to all of us, several times!
Once I was a baby, totally lost without my mother, she was the whole world to me
Then a kid, a Teenager who kept my distance from my family
Then a young man full of dreams and hopes
Middle age, and now am in my winter years
Lost a loved one, quite a bit died & then i became a new person
I was all those people and yet I am not them anymore - I have been Reincarnated several times in this one lifetime. We all have
Love the little fighting particles :D
nice video! I really like the drawings :-)
I enjoy your videos. Thank you.
I used to think about these questions like meaning of life, why life and is there afterlife. If i recall correctly once i heard that we can't prove the existence of life beyond this universe because we are in it. It is like being in a closed room and trying to prove existence of stuff outside the room. Thus at some level there would be a need for faith
I’m happy you got the job, and thanks for letting us down gently
Jwst is helping to make a similar complexity occur when we look out into the macro. Almost like it only gets unified and beautiful on our observational level.
I think this is your best video that I've seen. I've long been interested in this topic. I've read a number of books by John Barrow that touch on it. I like to point out to people an obvious yet unstated caveat to the question: Why is there something rather than nothing? Without consciousness, there might as well be nothing.
Ultimately you end up agreeing with Bertie Russell. ie. The Universe just IS ...! So, might as well get on with it !
Nice touch with the Leonard Susskind thinking at the landscape hahaha
glad you got it ;)
the standard model is indeed elegant: the properties of the particles are symmetric, in fact searching for the symmetric opposite of a particle was how new particles were found.