First, there ain’t no such philosophical critter called mono-anthropism. Second, there should be one just for your sake.
If you read cosmologists, you see in their work a struggle with the anthropic principle. According to that principle, the world seems to be “fine-tuned” for human existence because slight changes in any of the fundamental forces in the early universe would have made the universe a very unfriendly place. Stronger gravity would crush everything; weaker gravity would prevent things from coming together. The balance of strengths among gravity, electromagnetism, and the two nuclear forces is just right, isn’t it? You get to be. The universe gets to be. The Big Bang got everything right from subatomic particles to energy. And you, a thinking part of the universe, get to think about your own being in a fortuitous cosmological home.
Fine-tuned for human existence, you say? Surely, there’s a counter argument, and there is. Basically, the struggle with the anthropic principle runs up ladders on the sides of ivory towers. That’s where the siege occurs. That’s where arrows fly from narrow windows cut in thick, almost impenetrable walls. The defenders of those walls have changed over the centuries, but anyone behind the walls is seemingly obligated to defend them. Whereas all the professors in Bologna, where the university started in 1088, would have argued for the anthropic principle without any modern physics to support their views, in today’s more secular universities proponents of any anthropic principle find themselves in the minority, outsiders trying to breach the towers.
In practical terms, arguing for or against an anthropic principle runs from simple faith to complex mathematics on both sides. Maybe the universe is not fine-tuned for human existence. Some would skip the “maybe.” Happy circumstance that the universe is, we just fit in by the chance balance of forces, and it just seems that the universe was made for us. The argument is destined to be unresolvable among opponents. What can we think? Well, we can think that the universe is fine-tuned for thinking without making it personal.
For me, I prefer not an overriding anthropic principle, not the one that includes every conscious being. Rather, I prefer a principle that is mono-anthropic. The universe was fine-tuned just for you. Everything balances on the fulcrum of your life. You are both really and figuratively the universe’s center. Remember that all there is was once in the unimaginably small singularity before the Big Bang. You were in that center; you were part of it. All the subatomic particles in your body, all the forces by which you function, and all the particles and forces by which the entire cosmos functions were in that singularity. And single means “one.” So, yes, I’m for mono-anthropism. The universe, as far as you are concerned, was and is just right for you. You’re the one. And whether or not the fine-tuning took place before the Big Bang, during it, or after, are all irrelevant to the principle of mono-anthropism. A whole universe supports what you are and allows you to be who you are.
If you read cosmologists, you see in their work a struggle with the anthropic principle. According to that principle, the world seems to be “fine-tuned” for human existence because slight changes in any of the fundamental forces in the early universe would have made the universe a very unfriendly place. Stronger gravity would crush everything; weaker gravity would prevent things from coming together. The balance of strengths among gravity, electromagnetism, and the two nuclear forces is just right, isn’t it? You get to be. The universe gets to be. The Big Bang got everything right from subatomic particles to energy. And you, a thinking part of the universe, get to think about your own being in a fortuitous cosmological home.
Fine-tuned for human existence, you say? Surely, there’s a counter argument, and there is. Basically, the struggle with the anthropic principle runs up ladders on the sides of ivory towers. That’s where the siege occurs. That’s where arrows fly from narrow windows cut in thick, almost impenetrable walls. The defenders of those walls have changed over the centuries, but anyone behind the walls is seemingly obligated to defend them. Whereas all the professors in Bologna, where the university started in 1088, would have argued for the anthropic principle without any modern physics to support their views, in today’s more secular universities proponents of any anthropic principle find themselves in the minority, outsiders trying to breach the towers.
In practical terms, arguing for or against an anthropic principle runs from simple faith to complex mathematics on both sides. Maybe the universe is not fine-tuned for human existence. Some would skip the “maybe.” Happy circumstance that the universe is, we just fit in by the chance balance of forces, and it just seems that the universe was made for us. The argument is destined to be unresolvable among opponents. What can we think? Well, we can think that the universe is fine-tuned for thinking without making it personal.
For me, I prefer not an overriding anthropic principle, not the one that includes every conscious being. Rather, I prefer a principle that is mono-anthropic. The universe was fine-tuned just for you. Everything balances on the fulcrum of your life. You are both really and figuratively the universe’s center. Remember that all there is was once in the unimaginably small singularity before the Big Bang. You were in that center; you were part of it. All the subatomic particles in your body, all the forces by which you function, and all the particles and forces by which the entire cosmos functions were in that singularity. And single means “one.” So, yes, I’m for mono-anthropism. The universe, as far as you are concerned, was and is just right for you. You’re the one. And whether or not the fine-tuning took place before the Big Bang, during it, or after, are all irrelevant to the principle of mono-anthropism. A whole universe supports what you are and allows you to be who you are.
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