Wandering Idiot wrote:
I just wanted to add that if you take into account the Everett-DeWitt interpretation of quantum mechanics, and throw in the weak anthropic principle ...
The Everett-DeWitt interpretation is very suspect; it injects metaphysics into physics, which is a crazy bad idea. There is no need for any of these "interpretations": just do the math. The math works, irrespective of any "interpretation".
I suppose I am intellectually hostile to almost any metaphysical suggestion: with very few exceptions, metaphysical statements are absolutely insupportable by observation or demonstration. An example of a metaphysical statement that
is observable is a performative, such as "I marry you"; but statements like "there are many parallel worlds" are statements of belief, not of fact or necessity.
As far as odds are concerned:
Chaos_Descending wrote:
The theory goes "The random chances of evolution are so small that a higher force MUST have guided it."
You are falling victim to an error known as the "gambler's fallacy". It matters not what the odds that a state of affairs should arise if that state of affairs has in fact come to be. If yesterday I flipped a particular fair coin a thousand times and on each flip it came up heads, I still will not bet for or against whether the
next flip of that coin I make will come up heads.
If it is in fact very unlikely that intelligent life should arise in the universe, well, sobeit; though personally I am not so sure of that. Insofar as humans are intelligent, however, then that chance has come up. It does not mean anything save that the universe is lucky. (Or unlucky, if you happen to despise humanity.) It does not mean that we should expect other unlikely events to occur, e.g. the events described in the
Revelation of St John the Divine.
The casinos of Las Vegas make very literally
billions of dollars from people who play the slot machines thinking, "well, it hasn't paid off yet, so it's much more likely to pay off on the next quarter". No, it isn't.