Let's imagine there only existed one planet in the entire Universe, and
it is Earth. Now I would suggest that it would be utterly extraordinary if it just happened to be ideally suited for life. It
would be far far more likely that it would be a planet wholly
devoid of any life.
But, of course, there are at least trillions
of planets in the Universe. The overwhelming majority are likely to be
hostile to life. So why do we happen to live on one suitable for life?
Well, obviously because we couldn't have evolved on any of the planets
hostile to life!
Now, the Earth is ideally suited for life. Hence, even if we knew of the
existence of no other planets, it would be overwhelmingly likely that zillions of other planets must exist.
This is the precise
same argument whereby we infer there must exist zillions of
other Universes, all with different physical properties. In the
overwhelming majority of such Universes life simply could not arise.
The reason why we live in an incredibly unusual Universe that happens to
permit life is precisely the same reason why we happen to live on a
planet which is ideally suited to life.
The other alternative is
to suppose there is only one Universe. The reason why the physical
constants and properties permit life must be because some outside
influence -- a creator of some description -- constrains the Universe to
be that way.
Obviously scientists prefer the multiverse hypothesis.
Mostly philosophical topics, especially pertaining to the philosophy of mind.
Tuesday, 8 November 2016
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
After death will we be subsumed into a universal soup of consciousness?
After death I don't think our individual selves or souls are subsumed into a universal soup of consciousness, which I regard as being cl...
Popular Posts
-
As a preliminary, I should point out that I haven't watched this series of programmes, nor have I read the book that the series is based...
-
All 29 essays from the 2021 BICS essay contest that have been awarded a prize are now available to download and can be read for free from he...
-
Note: This response is approximately 13,000 words long. I have a shorter version of approximately 5,000 words that I have called A Review ...
-
Introduction This is the first part of an intended series of posts addressing alleged problems with the concept of reincarnation. Perhaps ...
-
I read the following article two days ago: Can We Explain Near-Death Experiences? The author concludes that, " NDEs are probably caused...
-
At the outset I need to stress that I specifically have in mind the reductive materialism that has prevailed in the West since the birth of ...
-
The falsifiability criterion was advanced by Karl Popper to demarcate scientific from non-scientific theories. The idea is that if one has...
-
Consciousness is necessarily causally efficacious It is widely believed by scientists and philosophers, and even the scientifically educa...
-
The following essay is essentially an expanded and updated version of a previous blog post I've written called: Why are we all so convi...
-
Introduction: I read the following article: Why Parapsychological Claims Cannot Be True It says: The entire field [of parapsychol...