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Originally Posted by HarryT
That's really just a re-statement of the anthropic principle which answers the question "why are the physical laws the way they are?" with the answer "because if they were different, we wouldn't be here to observe them."
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Yes, I mentioned the Anthropic Principle above. The Anthropic Principle is weak if you only allow the existence of a single universe, as it just amounts to saying "well things are as they are" and being glad the dice fell out the way they did.
However, once you allow the existence of multiple universes, the Anthropic Principle becomes much more useful. In this case it becomes possible to use the fact that we are here as observers to indicate that there may be a much greater number of other places where people like us could not have evolved, and you can then point to the statistical unlikelihood of getting such a wonderfully benign universe to suggest that it is more likely that there are multiple universes than just one.
There's also a great hypothesis floating about, which is pure speculation (but fun), that points out that if there is some property of life (or of the physics that generates a suitable environment for life) that makes it more likely that a universe could spawn new universes suitable for life, then as the multiverse developed the forces of evolution would fine tune it for life.
Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
It's available for pre-order from Amazon for £5.98.
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Have you got a link for that, Harry? I'm just seeing the hardcover at £8.54 as the cheapest version.
Graham