Misanthropic Principle: Universe is fine-tuned against life

I like this guy's way of thinking. He has a letter in the most recent issue of New Scientist where he points out how ill-suited the universe is for life. 

This is, he says, the Misanthropic Principle -- as contrasted with the Anthropic Principle. It doesn't appear to be his original idea. Googling this term, I found a post by a Jewish astrophysicist, Howard Smith, who says that he coined the term.

 Here's the New Scientist letter:

From Nathaniel Hellerstein

Michael Slezak says that the universe is fine-tuned for life (2 May, p. 32). Balderdash. 

Inspection of the night sky reveals that the universe is almost entirely cryogenic pitch-black irradiated empty space, void of life, or indeed of anything much. To a high order of approximation, the universe resembles a vacuum.

The universe isn't 100 per cent lifeless, but 99.9999999999 per cent lifeless is pretty good fine-tuning. I deduce that the universe is fine-tuned not for life, but against it. I call this the Misanthropic Principle.

San Francisco, California, US

To me, the Misanthropic Principle argues against religious conceptions of the cosmos. Smith, though, says that it can have both secular and sacred interpretations.

The implications for religion are serious: We are blessed (or lucky, if you are an atheist). As I argued at the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s annual meeting, from my Jewish perspective of the Bible, being blessed means that we therefore have responsibilities: to act with humility and charity toward each other and the whole Earth and its inhabitants. As a religious person, I think it is not completely sensible to imagine that our blessed condition is just the result of inevitable chemical reactions.

Well, maybe not completely. But mostly. That's the prevailing scientific view, at least, which I share. So call me a believer in the non-blessed Misanthropic Principle.

Comments

[Willie R.]

The Misanthropic Principle would be in full alignment with the oft-noted slogan: misery loves company. Must be the reason why so much screwing goes on!

[yo]

It's comforting to know that the universe doesn't give a shit and that we all will be dead and obliterated for all eternity. No more difficulties, illnesses, taxes and bad neighbors. No rebirth into an indifferent universe of suffering. Just eternal oblivion. This will happen to all of us very soon regardless of age because relative to the time we will be dead our moment to be alive is practically nothing.

Further, since the universe doesn't give a shit, the odds are good that our deaths will be painful, horrific and agonizing. We can only hope (not pray since that is futile) that we will be one of the lucky few to die quickly of a stroke or heart attack or have our necks snapped in an auto accident.

Oh sure, there are fun and beautiful things to see, do, experience while we are here, but all the shit and impending suffering and death somehow mutes all that.

[777]

This kind of talk and conclusions comes forth from a total misunderstanding of the structure of the universe

Try for once to adapt at the "incomprehensible" quantum physics conclusion that nothing exists without an observer

People translate that in a necessaty to look at something and if you do It would not vanish

NO
When I said in other comments : "Brian , YOU are the Creator of the universes,
this is the same subject

We ( Jeevas are much more profound than atoms/molecules :
the chakra structure
at a primordial state ( before this universe even was )
the chakra-jeeva-entity consist of a 'say' energy-ball of imagination.
The best for gross minds understandable translation of this power which is totally Giant
and omnipresent is the word used by the Saints : D H Y A N .

An unhelpfull semantic of this idea is in the word "IMAGINATION", . . unhelpful because of the saying : " Hé, this is just your imagination", bringing back this great power to a sheer phantasy.

Actually we are seemingly shut off totally of this universal source of creative power

That is because we created hardly any positive with it
We created, indeed a universe with vast negative impacts, described in your posting,
allowing not very much the development of Love

When I say WE or YOU it is not really You
but a kind of social network of common Dhyan results un-professionally constructed in eons from the past

I use the same reasoning here as when I said :
Heaven, The 7th, or rssb's Sach Kand or Anami, . . this is not a place , neither a time,
it is a construct , a result of Our State of Consciousness at it's 'purest', the finest, the most lovable.

Next when in a network with other entities, ( at that level called SAINTS ), that is a very laudable kind of time_space event
isn't it ?

In this same way
actually our time_space was and is each nanosecond constructed by WHAT WE ARE
By what we really are.

From the upside seen , it's not at all a static observation - It a totally boiling and freezing for many Jeevas ( Soul+Ego) Gordian knot-like often diabolic or completely paralyzed whirlpools of entangled Jeevas
Trillions of it to the power of Billion.
.

Hence the necessary for the willing when in a form with the 7th chakra present , to cling to the upstream sound current and dive in it
detaching ourselves from this idiot icy, full of diverting sounds of fury

In my case Beautiful Charan's Help was so much appreciated -

777