Final anthropic principle
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
This article does not cite any references or sources. (December 2007) Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed. |
The final anthropic principle (FAP) is defined by physicists John D. Barrow and Frank J. Tipler's 1986 book "The Anthropic Cosmological Principle" as a generalization of the anthropic principle as follows:
- Final anthropic principle (FAP): Intelligent information-processing must come into existence in the Universe, and, once it comes into existence, it will never die out.
Barrow and Tipler state that, although the FAP is a purely physical statement, the "validity of the FAP is the physical precondition for moral values to arise and so to continue to exist in the universe: no moral values of any sort can exist in a lifeless cosmology." Furthermore, the FAP seems to imply a melioristic cosmos (a tendency throughout nature toward improvement).
The FAP does not imply stability of the proton: it is possible to process information using the quantum number and spin state of positronium atoms (although the positronium half-life of 100 nanoseconds would require other, more stable, particles to also exist).
Barrow and Tipler make a "very tentative prediction" that the FAP appears to imply that the Universe is either flat or closed (and not open; see topology of the universe).
Critics of the Final Anthropic Principle claim that its arguments violate the Copernican Principle, that it incorrectly applies the laws of probability, and that it is really a theology or metaphysics principle made to sound plausible to laypeople by using the esoteric language of physics. Martin Gardner dubbed FAP the "completely ridiculous anthropic principle" (CRAP).
