anthropic principle

(redirected from Anthropic reasoning)
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Related to Anthropic reasoning: Anthropic principle, Anthropic argument

anthropic principle

n.
Any of various hypotheses in theoretical physics asserting that human existence and the ability to observe the universe are necessary rather than contingent facts about the universe and must be considered when interpreting or theoretically constraining fundamental physical laws.
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

anthropic principle

n
(Astronomy) astronomy the cosmological theory that the presence of life in the universe limits the ways in which the very early universe could have evolved
Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014
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References in periodicals archive ?
Inspired by anthropic reasoning behind Doomsday arguments, Nick Bostrom's Simulation Argument says: people who think advanced civilizations would run many fully conscious simulated minds should also think they're probably simulated minds themselves.
This same framework offers much scope for understanding why the constants of nature assume the values they do without recourse either to mathematical arguments or anthropic reasoning [74].
I shall describe one particular anthropic selection mechanism as well as (hopefully) convincing you that anthropic reasoning is a valuable tool in the arsenal of any cosmologist.
In the last couple of decades, physics journals have begun publishing articles containing "anthropic reasoning." (1) Anthropic reasoning attempts to explain why physical constants governing our universe seem to be "finetuned" to allow the existence of life.
Opponents of anthropic reasoning argue that it cannot be tested, rendering it at best interesting philosophy that doesn't qualify as science.
In a series of papers, the first of which was published in 1987, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Steven Weinberg (University of Texas) has invoked anthropic reasoning to explain the increasingly well-observed values of the cosmological constant.
Ernan McMullin on Anthropic Reasoning in Cosmology, ROBERT J.
But only a century ago did the biologist Alfred Russel Wallace--widely credited as the first scientist to speculate on the role of natural selection in biological evolution--proffer a clear precursor of anthropic reasoning. In his 1903 book Man's Place in the Universe, Wallace wrote that "a vast and complex universe as that which we know exists around us, may have been absolutely required ...