this post was submitted on 08 Nov 2023
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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I still don't get what the appeal of this thought experiment is. In the Wikipedia article one cited common critique is the truism of AP, because it only tells us, well, how the world is and how unlikely it is that it is just this way. And even if we go so far to say that it would be so unlikely to find other life out there because of the fine tuning, what so we gain? We already know the chances are super low for life to emerge and we have our ways to figure out how likely that is. I still don't see how we can benefit from AP apart from being in awe of the cheer vastness of the world and how unlikely everything seems.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I don't think the hypothesis was supposed to have a benefit

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

No? What is a hypothesis for then if not benefitting our understanding of the world?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Ohhhh right, you meant in that way. In that way absolutey yeah. Well depending on one's position on the AP anyhow 😄 Partially it sort of is a truism (although I'd argue that the "fine tuning problem" trips up a lot of people and the AP doesn't seem to be obvious to everybody) and more of a philosophical thing than necessarily just straight-up physics, but I think there's interesting points there. I'm not very good at explaining the general principle so it might sound dumber than it is, and there's a lot of different versions of it as well