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The Anthropic Principle Reconsidered

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 The Anthropic Principle Reconsidered

Martin Counihan
University of Southampton
February 2012

Abstract:

It is a quarter of a century since John Barrow and Frank Tipler published

their landmark book The Anthropic Cosmological Principle. They stated
the “Strong” Anthropic Principle to be that “the universe must have those
properties which allow life to develop within it at some stage in its history”.
Their “Final” Anthropic Principle is that “intelligent information-processing
must come into existence in the universe and, once it comes into
existence, it will never die out”. This paper is an account of some of the
ways in which the science behind the Anthropic Principle has developed
over recent years. Have “anthropic” arguments become more compelling,
or less so? We touch on the metallicity of the Sun and its motion through
the galaxy, the evolution of eukaryotes, the singular evolution of the eye,
and the saltation-like development of the human brain. We consider the
crucial question of whether the universe is open or closed, and present a
new model of a universe which is finite but which nevertheless displays
the apparently accelerating expansion whose observers were awarded the
2011 Nobel Prize for physics. It is pointed out that the concept of entropy
is central to current ideas about both cosmology and evolution.

1
Introduction

Although the Anthropic Principle (AP) had originated with Brandon Carter
some years previously, it was popularised and discussed at length in the
700-page book published in 1986 by John Barrow and Frank Tipler. The
AP has a number of variants, and the logic surrounding it has been the
subject of ongoing debate, but it is based on the observation that we are
apparently very lucky to be here. We live in a universe governed by
physical constants whose values seem to have been fine-tuned so that
the universe may support intelligent life, and, moreover, the actual
evolution of human life on Earth has depended on a succession of happy
accidents. Our existence seems providential. It is as if the universe is
designed so that that intelligence will necessarily emerge within it; and,
that being so, then intelligence – which means human life - should be
regarded as an inherent property of the universe as a whole and not a
mere transient sideshow. A useful history of the idea of the AP has been
written by Helge Kragh (2010).

The logic of the AP is contested. Some take the AP as a modern form of

the “design” argument for the existence of God, and therefore the
successor of the Natural Theology of previous centuries, but others take
the opposite, anti-theistic, view: that the universe does not actually
appear to be “pregnant with life” or congenial to its spread, that our
presence merely tells us that a very surprising chain of events occurred,
and the fact that it occurred somewhere, rather than nowhere, may
merely mean that we inhabit a tiny part of an infinite multiverse in which
all eventualities have their place. Yet other thinkers simply disregard the
AP, as if scientific observations cannot lead to significant theological or
philosophical conclusions any more than observations of games of football
can lead to conclusions about the laws of cricket.

However they are interpreted, there are numerous now-well-known

features of the universe, or “anthropic” phenomena, which underlie the
AP. There is the cosmic H/He ratio, dependent on the neutron lifetime,
itself dependent on the precise u/d quark mass difference; there is the 12C
resonance made famous by Fred Hoyle; and the dynamics of supernovae,
hinging on the properties of neutrinos. The sizes of galaxies are just right
for the formation of second-generation metal-rich stars: the globular
cluster M13 is perhaps lifeless because it is too small to have retained
heavy elements scattered by a first generation of stars - for this point,
see Martel et al. (1998). There is the “Goldilocks” position of the Earth in
the Solar System, giving us liquid oceans, and the surprising property of
water which allows ice to float. The rich chemical environment upon
which terrestrial life has depended came about because of the
circumstances of a chance collision which led to the formation of the Moon.
Then, given the necessary physical and chemical environment, was it
inevitable that living cells would arise, or was it, as many scientists have

2
felt, an extraordinary fluke, in view of the great complexity of even the
simplest cells? Finally, even when living cells had appeared on Earth, was
it not most improbable that complex multicellular organisms would be
constructed, culminating in intelligent animals such as Homo sapiens?

Solar Systems

During the past quarter century the scientific evidence surrounding the AP
has moved on. In at least one respect, the emergence of intelligent life
seems less improbable than it once did: it is now known that it is
commonplace for stars to have planetary systems. It is therefore likely
that, even within our own Galaxy, there are very large numbers of planets
with Earth-like temperatures.

However, we should still be surprised at our existence because, for life to

evolve, it is not sufficient for stars to have planets: the planets must
contain high proportions of the heavier elements on which life depends.
In the case of the Earth, it is well known and widely accepted that our
planet’s chemistry was enriched because, early in the history of the Solar
system, the Earth collided with another planetary body with the result
that the Earth acquired extra core material – iron and other heavy metals
– which have been crucial for the evolution of life. Meanwhile, much of
the lighter non-core material from the colliding body went to form the
Moon. However, that collision was not the only necessity: the Solar
System as a whole had to have been formed from a protosolar cloud rich
in heavy elements to start with. In other words, it was necessary for the
Sun to be formed with a high proportion of heavy elements, or, to use the
technical term, for the Sun to have a high metallicity.

Three parameters in particular determine the suitability of a star to be the

parent of a planet on which life may fruitfully evolve. One is the star’s
metallicity [Fe/H], which we have just mentioned. Another is its age,
since, if we may generalise from the example of the Earth, it takes billions
of years for simple life-forms to achieve the oxygenation of a planet’s
atmosphere and thereby to allow large animals to arise. The third
parameter is the star’s distance from the centre of the Galaxy, because a
life-nurturing planet needs to be in a stable orbit during those billions of
years, and its surface environment needs to remain relatively unaffected
by catastrophic interactions with material such as comets and meteorites.
Closer to the centre of the Galaxy, the density of stars is greater than it is
in the Sun’s vicinity, with the result that planetary systems are more
likely to be disturbed by close encounters between stars. In fact, recent
observations of isolated planets suggest that it might not be unusual for
stellar systems to be completely disrupted, with planets being scattered
into space.

3
It turns out to be rather unusual for those three parameters – metallicity,
age and galactocentric distance – to have suitable values simultaneously.
Generally, metallicity falls with distance from the galactic centre. Also, it
falls with the age of the star, older stars having lower metallicities. The
Sun is at a galactocentric distance of 8.5 kpc, but other stars of the same
age and in the same position have, on average, significantly lower
metallicities. Stars in the neighbourhood of the Sun with metallicities
similar to that of the Sun do exist, but they are very much younger than
the Sun is – typically, they are only about 1 Gy old. It can be deduced
(Wielen 1998) that the Sun probably formed originally about 6.6 ± 0.9
kpc from the galactic centre. It has an anomalously high radial velocity
and has moved out by a distance of 1.9 ± 0.9 kpa during the 4.5 Gy of its
life so far. This may be one reason why the Earth had a turbulent early
history but has since been congenial to life. As Wielen et al. put it:

The most important implication of the derived birth-place of the Sun,

at ... 6.6 kpc [from the centre of the Galaxy], may be the higher
cosmic-ray intensity for the Earth in earlier times, since the rate of
supernovae events increases with decreasing [distance from the
centre of the Galaxy]. Furthermore, the Sun should have
encountered more molecular clouds in earlier times, since they are
more frequent in the inner parts of the Galaxy. These encounters
could have sent more comets in earlier times from the outer Oort
comet cloud into the inner parts of the solar system than we
observe now.

Life on Earth

If we are granted a stable environment and the necessary mix of chemical

elements, is it probable that life will then emerge spontaneously
somewhere on the Earth’s surface? Or is it still wildly improbable, in view
of the complexity of even the “simplest” of living cells? It is still not
possible to answer this question with confidence, but at least there are
now plausible theories as to how the first self-replicating cells could have
emerged and how they might then have evolved. In particular, Martin
and Russell (2002) have considered in detail how nucleated (eukaryotic)
cells might have originated. In brief, the scenario is that a universal
ancestor, initially not bounded by a membrane, diversified into various
types; these entities developed surface membranes and became free-
living cells. Some were ancestors of eubacteria, and others were the
ancestors of archaeobacteria. These two lineages were biochemically
quite distinct from one another, but it was possible for them both the
benefit from a symbiotic relationship. If a eubacterial cell and an
archaeobacterial cell were in close proximity to one another, it would have
been valuable for hydrogen and other substances ejected by the former to
be absorbed by the latter. Symbiotic pairs of this sort could work

4
together most efficiently when the surface membrane of the eubacterium
was practically all in direct contact with that of the archaeobacterium.
The logical conclusion was for the eubacterium to become entirely
surrounded by the archaeobacterium, forming a new combined entity, the
ancestor of a eukaryotic cell. The eukaryotic cell therefore possessed an
outer membrane derived from that of an archaeobacterium, while inside
there was a “nucleus” derived from the eubacterium.

The paper by Martin and Russell was a notable step in the development of
the theory of the origin of eukaryotic cells and there is now a widespread
acceptance among biologists that that the first nucleated cells did indeed
arise from symbiosis.

The Eye

Debates about Darwin’s theory of evolution have often revolved around

the “problem” of how a complex piece of equipment such as the eye could
have evolved in a gradual way. Is it a problem, or is it not? If the
evolution of the eye is unremarkable, then one might expect different
sorts of eyes to have emerged independently, on different lineages,
several times during the course of evolutionary history. Alternatively, if
the evolution of the eye was an extraordinary accomplishment, then one
should be surprised that it happened at all, and it should not be expected
to have happened more than once.

Barrow and Tipler discussed this question and suggested that the
evolution of the eye was not a singular event, quoting Ernst Mayr, who
believed that the eye evolved on Earth at least 40 times independently.
However, Stanislav Tomarev and his co-workers (1997) succeeded in
growing extra eyes on the wings of fruit flies by using the gene which
stimulates the growth of eyes in mice, and also by using that which
stimulates the growth of eyes in a squid. The eyes all look the same (like
a normal fly’s eye), demonstrating that the eyes of the three creatures
are genetically similar: the conclusion is that the eyes of flies, mice and
squid are all developments of a single original eye which must have
appeared at a very early stage in the evolutionary history of multicellular
animals. The evolution of the eye, therefore, might reasonably be
included in the list of anthropic phenomena which were inherently
improbable but which were essential for the eventual emergence of
intelligence.

The Human Mind

Large animals have evolved, and many species display an impressive

level of intelligence and memory and have complex social interactions
involving communication by gesture and by sound. Is the intelligence and
language of modern Homo sapiens a straightforward and unsurprising

5
development of the skills of the “lower” animals? If so, then human-like
intelligence might presumably have appeared and flourished in a different
lineage if things had worked out differently. There might have been a
dinosaurian Plato, or an Aristotle among the dolphins, or elephants might
have flown to the Moon. The opposite view is that an enormous gulf
separates human capabilities from those of all other species; so enormous
that modern humans must be regarded as the product of a highly
improbable, if not miraculous, conjunction of circumstances.

Over the last few years, thanks to studies in human genetics, a plausible
theory of human origins has been developed. Timothy Crow has been
one of the leading figures in this field: over twenty years ago he argued
that schizophrenia is a “genetic encephalopathy” connected with the
mechanism which brings about asymmetric brain development (Crow
1990). It is claimed that hemispheric asymmetry is the defining feature
of the human brain and is linked to our capacity for language (Crow 2002).
In other words, schizophrenia is “associated with deviations in brain
structure that ... relate to the capacity for language” and this “relates
precisely to the genetic mechanism that distinguishes Homo sapiens from
its precursor” (Crow 2008a).

How did this come about? Between 5 and 6 million years ago a block of
3.5 megabases of DNA was duplicated accidentally from the X to the Y
chromosome. “Such events constitute ‘saltations’ ...” (Crow 2008b).
This duplication was the origin of the Australopithecus lineage and it
involved especially a gene-pair known as Protocadherin 11XY.
Subsequently there was accelerated evolution in that block, with
modifications both on the X and on the Y chromosomes. The
modifications on the Y have been most significant, and included the
inversion of a segment of the chromosome which is thought to have
occurred about 160 thousand years ago and to have been the origin of
the species Homo sapiens, of modern human language, and of the human
predisposition to psychosis. This scenario has been supported by
substantial research (e.g. Williams 2006 and Hawks et al. 2007),
including studies of the evolution of the auditory system. Hawks (2008)
has pointed out that human language requires highly sensitive hearing,
and that human hearing has been evolving rapidly in recent times. “It is
clear that humans have continued to adapt their hearing systems during
the Holocene. A reasonable hypothesis is that human communication
systems emerged gradually during the Pleistocene, but that the full
attainment of language was evolutionarily recent.”

So, it is reasonable to regard language as the defining characteristic of

Homo sapiens. Our capacity for language is intimately connected with the
asymmetry of the human brain. The change in brain structure did not
evolve gradually but began with a saltation corresponding to the origin of
the Australopithecus genus. A later key event, again saltational, and

6
involving the same gene sequence, took place about 160 thousand years
ago and constituted the origin of Homo sapiens. Our species has unique
and surprising characteristics which could not have been predicted in
advance.

Cosmology

The “anthropic” phenomena that were discussed by Barrow and Tipler

(1986), or mentioned above, fall into two classes. Some permeate the
whole universe, across all space and all time, and include the precise
values of the universal constants of nature, the masses of the elementary
particles, the existence of the crucial 12C resonance, and so on. The
second class of anthropic phenomena were lucky local accidents which
took place at particular moments in time, such as the collision which led
to the Earth-Moon system and the genetic aberration which produced the
first australopithecine.

This separation into two classes obviously depends on the existence of

universal laws of physics and constants of nature. However, in recent
years many cosmologists have promoted theories in which our universe is
to be regarded as just one among a very large, if not infinite, number of
universes. Such theories take various forms: endlessly recurring cyclic
universes, separate bubbles in a higher-dimensional spacetime, the
bifurcating parallel universes of the “many worlds” interpretation of
quantum mechanics, and so on. “Multiverse” is a term sometimes used
to describe such multiple universes, and Kragh (2009) has given a
valuable account of the recent history of cosmology with special reference
to the multiverse. There are expected to be an infinite number of
universes in the multiverse. A crucial point is that universes may be
formed with different values for the universal constants of nature. In
other words, the universal “constants” are not constants at all but vary
from universe to universe. In such a situation, something like (say) the
mass of the neutron should be regarded as a local accident, and the
distinction between the two classes of anthropic phenomena dissolves. In
other words, multiverse theories mean that “constants” vary from one
section of the multiverse to another.

Stephen Hawking is among those who appear to hold this view. He has
said (Hawking 2012) that M-theory (a field of speculative theoretical
physics) indicates that there are other universes with different values of
the fundamental constants, and, without mentioning the word “anthropic”,
he said that we should not be surprised that they have the values that we
observe in our universe because otherwise we would not be here to make
the observations.

If a multiverse theory is true, the AP reduces to the trite observation that,

in an infinite multiverse, anything that can happen is bound to happen

7
somewhere. Moreover, since any finite region is an infinitesimal fraction
of the multiverse, human life is of infinitesimal significance. Almost the
same thing can be said about any cosmological model – multiverse or not
– in which the universe is infinite in extent, and this would include a flat
or hyperbolic Friedmann–Lemaître–Robertson–Walker (FLRW) universe.
If space is infinite and homogeneous, any event which is not physically
impossible will take place somewhere. Statistical improbability alone will
not prevent an occurrence such as the evolution of rabbit-like animals
from taking place on an infinity of planets.

One of the reasons why cosmology has moved in this direction has been
cosmologists’ predilection for homogeneous universes, that is to say
universes which satisfy the Copernican Principle and in which the region
of our own galaxy is not in any way privileged. Another reason has been
the observation of the “accelerating universe”: that distant galaxies
appear to be receding from us at an increasing rate. This observation led
to the award of the 2011 Nobel Prize in physics to Perlmutter, Schmidt
and Riess. Astronomers and cosmologists familiar with FLRW universes
are naturally inclined to think that an accelerating universe will be open
and infinite.

But it need not necessarily be so, and a cosmological model is described

below which serves as a counter-example to an infinite universe. This
model has been developed partly for pedagogical reasons, because it is
based on Newtonian principles (in the spirit of the Milne-McCrea theorem)
and is therefore accessible to those who are not familiar with General
Relativity. It is a model of a non-homogenous finite universe based on
flat Euclidean space.

The Pancake Universe

Using the usual notation, Isaac Newton’s theory of gravitation is

expressed in differential form by

(1)

Here, ρ is traditionally taken to be the density of mass at each point.

During the early part of the 19th century it came to be accepted, in the
context of the theory of atoms, that mass is a conserved quantity. During
the latter part of the 19th century the concept of energy was developed,
and it became clear that energy is a conserved quantity. Moreover, it
seemed that “internal energy” might contribute to the mass of any
system. With the assumption that there is an equivalence between
energy and mass, in other words that energy and mass are different ways
of measuring the same thing, the principle of the conservation of mass

8
and that of the conservation of energy could be unified into a single
principle. The equivalence between energy and mass could be written

(2)

with c2 being a universal conversion factor which, at that point, did not
have to be related to the theory of light. This was not part of mainstream
physics during that century, and the equation above was not written down
in that form, but the idea was in the air and it was, and is, coherent with
the paradigm of Classical Physics.

Now, if the gravitational potential φ has a non-zero gradient then it can

be argued strongly (Counihan, 2007) that the gravitational field has an
energy density given by

| |

(3)

This energy density corresponds to an equivalent mass density which

must have a gravitational effect, so

| |
(4)

Allowing for the possibility of a cosmological constant Λ, this becomes

| |
(5)

If the density of matter ρ is negligible (or, at any rate, has a magnitude

which is small in comparison with Λ) then

| |
(6)

Using spherical coordinates, and assuming spherical symmetry around the

origin, and writing

(7)

9
and also assuming that Λ > 0 and writing

(8)

then the general solution may be written

( )
( ) ( )
(9)

Here, r0 is a constant of integration which can be set to zero if there is

no central mass at r = 0. That being the case,

( ) ( )
(10)

Roughly speaking, g(r) is a gravitational acceleration measured towards

r = 0. (This is not rigorously correct: unlike the situation with traditional
Newtonian gravitation, the gradient of the potential is not necessarily
equal to the acceleration of a test particle.)

The potential is

( ) ( ( ))
(11)

where a constant of integration has been set so that φ(0) = 0. So, to a

first approximation, for small r there is a universal expansion

( )
(12)

This is Hubble-like, with a Hubble parameter H0 = √(c2Λ/3), but for

larger values of r there is a more rapid acceleration in accordance with
what is now believed to be the case.

The gradient of the potential becomes singular at a distance r = π/√(2Λ).

In other words, the universe appears to be bounded by a singular
spherical surface at that distance. A particle approaching that surface,
and at a small distance z from it, will feel an acceleration of

10
approximately 2c2/z into the surface. The singular surface has infinite
mass density.

How is all this to be interpreted? A more detailed analysis shows that the
singularity at r = π/√(2Λ) does not really exist. Instead, there will be a
thin shell of high-density matter around that value, “the Fold”. The
gravitational potential within the Fold can be modelled by solving equation
(5) but with a large non-zero density ρ. The result is a continuous
potential which can be stitched to a similar solution for a second “universe”
on the other side of the Fold.

The simplest way to visualise this is by recourse to the “balloon” analogy

which is often used to describe a closed FLRW universe. The three
dimensions of space are represented as the two-dimensional surface of a
round balloon. Galaxies are distributed over the surface of the balloon.
The expansion of the universe is represented by the inflation of the
balloon. In the model presented here, however, the balloon is not round
but is an oblate (squashed) spheroid. It is squashed to such a high
degree that, for all intents and purposes, it is like a pancake. That is to
say, the universe consists of two almost-flat regions connected by a rim
of extremely high curvature. The rim – the edge of the pancake – is the
Fold.

Our galaxy is close to the centre of one side of the pancake. The universe
we see around us obeys ordinary Euclidean geometry to a very good
approximation, but it is not infinite: it is the inside of a sphere, with a
radius which is determined by the cosmological constant Λ, and we are
not far from the centre of the sphere. Matter flows outwards from the
centre towards the surface of the sphere, the Fold. If it were possible to
pass through the Fold, one would emerge moving away from the inner
surface of another sphere – the bottom of the pancake. But it is not
possible to pass through the Fold, because it is a region of extraordinarily
high density and temperature.

The universe as described above would have begun its life as an FLRW-
like closed homogenous universe – a sphere, in the balloon analogy. This
universe expanded with a Big Bang from an initial state of high density,
but as it did so it lost homogeneity and became increasing oblate. Both
sides of the spheroid flattened rapidly and expanded, the pancake
spreading out. But in the region of the Fold, space expanded much less
than it did elsewhere, so the material in the Fold remained dense and hot.

The “pancake” cosmology may correspond to reality. It describes a finite

universe, and has many similarities with the standard FLRW Hot Big Bang,
but it explains why the universe appears to be flat and why there appears
to be an accelerating expansion. The acceleration is because galaxies far
from the centre of the universe are being pulled outwards and will

11
eventually fall into the Fold. The Fold is an impassable barrier of hellish
heat, but it should be regarded as benign: it draws energy and entropy
from the rest of the universe, and acts as a kind of cosmic refrigerator.
We live and think in a cool, low-entropy environment because of it.

The idea that entropy has a role in cosmology is at the centre of an

important line of research which seeks to explain gravitation itself as an
entropic force: see, for example, Verlinde (2010), Cai et al. (2010), Caia
et al. (2010) and Easson et al. (2010). Such research offers an
alternative to mainstream cosmology and holds out the appealing
prospect of a linkage between cosmology and organic evolution, both
being described within a framework based on a development of
information theory. As far as evolution is concerned, the positive
achievements of conventional Darwinism might be preserved but the
theory recast in terms of the reduction of entropy in organised
information-bearing systems.

Conclusion

One might say that the AP seems to have become less compelling in the
context of mainstream scientific thinking over the last quarter-century,
particularly with the rise of “multiverse” cosmology. But current
paradigms may shift towards models of entropic gravity and to non-
homogeneous universes which can accommodate the observational data
without demanding that the universe is infinite. Meanwhile, Darwinism in
the narrow sense may be giving way to a broader view of development
which embraces combinatorial evolution and information theory. In that
context, the Anthropic Principle may appear in a new light, with human
language, intelligence and love being seen more clearly as fruits of a
universal entropic tendency. It may then be possible for us to move on
from the old dichotomy between the study of the world and the study of
God, and to perceive science and theology as being different vocabularies
for describing aspects of the same thing.

12
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