Re: poly: Anthropic => Aliens like us?

From: Robin Hanson <hanson@econ.berkeley.edu>
Date: Sun Mar 14 1999 - 09:23:32 PST

Nick Bostrom wrote:
>> Apparently various fundamental physics parameters look
>> suspiciously tuned to allow life like us. For
>> example, certain nuclear resonances and cross sections
>> look tuned to allow stars to produce lots of Carbon. ...
>> It occurs to me that this could be taken as evidence
>> *against* non-carbon based life where our physics
>> parameters apply. ...
>> And if most places are unfriendly to life we should
>> be very suprised to see our place happen to be tuned
>> for two different kinds of life.
>
>Unless the tuning-conditions for these two kinds of life are
>identical.

Agreed; one can explain "coincidences" via theories that
predict correlations due to common causes.
Received on Sun Mar 14 10:23:48 1999

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