Biocentrism: How Life and Consciousness Are the Keys to Understanding the True Nature of the Universe by ;Bob Berman MD Robert Lanza Page A
Authors: ;Bob Berman MD Robert Lanza
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powerfully influence modern cosmological thinking. After all, mustn’t cosmologists’ theories plausibly explain why we live in such a highly unlikely reality?
“Not at all,” said Princeton physicist Robert Dicke in papers written in the sixties and elaborated upon by Brandon Carter in 1974. This perspective was dubbed “the Anthropic Principle.” Carter explained that what we can expect to observe “must be restricted by the conditions necessary for our presence as observers.” Put another way, if gravity was a hair stronger or the Big Bang a sliver weaker, and therefore the universe’s lifespan significantly shorter, we couldn’t be here to think about it. Because we’re here, the universe has to be the way it is and therefore isn’t unlikely at all. Case closed.
By this reasoning, there’s no need for cosmological gratitude. Our seemingly fortuitous, suspiciously specific locale, temperature range, chemical and physical milieus are just what’s needed to produce life. If we’re here, then this is what we must find around us.
Such reasoning is now known as the “weak” version of the Anthropic Principle or WAP. The “strong” version, one that skirts the edges of philosophy even more closely but clearly supports biocentrism, says that the universe must have those properties that allow life to develop within it because it was obviously “designed” with the goal of generating and sustaining observers. But without biocentrism, the strong anthropic principle has no mechanism for
explaining why the universe must have life-sustaining properties. Going even further, the late physicist John Wheeler (1911-2008), who coined the term “black hole,” advocated what is now called the Participatory Anthropic Principle (PAP): observers are required to bring the universe into existence. Wheeler’s theory says that any pre-life Earth would have existed in an indeterminate state, like Schrödinger’s cat. Once an observer exists, the aspects of the universe under observation become forced to resolve into one state, a state that includes a seemingly pre-life Earth. This means that a pre-life universe can only exist retroactively after the fact of consciousness. (Because time is an illusion of consciousness, as we shall see shortly, this whole talk of before and after isn’t strictly correct but provides a way of visualizing things.)
If the universe is in a non-determined state until forced to resolve by an observer, and this non-determined state included the determination of the various fundamental constants, then the resolution would necessarily fall in such a way that allows for an observer, and therefore the constants would have to resolve in such a way as to allow life. Biocentrism therefore supports and builds upon John Wheeler’s conclusions about where quantum theory leads, and provides a solution to the anthropic problem that is unique and more reasonable than any alternative.
While the latter two versions of the Anthropic Principle, needless to say, strongly support biocentrism, many in the astronomical community seem to embrace the simplest anthropic version, at least guardingly. “I like the weak anthropic principle,” said astronomer Alex Filippenko of the University of California, when one of the authors asked his opinion. “Used appropriately, it has some predictive value.” After all, he added, “Small changes to seemingly boring properties of the universe could have easily produced a universe in which nobody would have been around to be bored.”
Ah, but the point is that it didn’t and couldn’t.
To be honest and present all views, however, it should be noted that some critics wonder whether the Weak Anthropic Principle is no more than a piece of circular reasoning or a facile way of squirming
out of explaining the enormous peculiarities of the physical universe. Philosopher John Leslie, in his 1989 book Universes (there is a 1996 reprint edition), says, “A man in front of a firing
“Not at all,” said Princeton physicist Robert Dicke in papers written in the sixties and elaborated upon by Brandon Carter in 1974. This perspective was dubbed “the Anthropic Principle.” Carter explained that what we can expect to observe “must be restricted by the conditions necessary for our presence as observers.” Put another way, if gravity was a hair stronger or the Big Bang a sliver weaker, and therefore the universe’s lifespan significantly shorter, we couldn’t be here to think about it. Because we’re here, the universe has to be the way it is and therefore isn’t unlikely at all. Case closed.
By this reasoning, there’s no need for cosmological gratitude. Our seemingly fortuitous, suspiciously specific locale, temperature range, chemical and physical milieus are just what’s needed to produce life. If we’re here, then this is what we must find around us.
Such reasoning is now known as the “weak” version of the Anthropic Principle or WAP. The “strong” version, one that skirts the edges of philosophy even more closely but clearly supports biocentrism, says that the universe must have those properties that allow life to develop within it because it was obviously “designed” with the goal of generating and sustaining observers. But without biocentrism, the strong anthropic principle has no mechanism for
explaining why the universe must have life-sustaining properties. Going even further, the late physicist John Wheeler (1911-2008), who coined the term “black hole,” advocated what is now called the Participatory Anthropic Principle (PAP): observers are required to bring the universe into existence. Wheeler’s theory says that any pre-life Earth would have existed in an indeterminate state, like Schrödinger’s cat. Once an observer exists, the aspects of the universe under observation become forced to resolve into one state, a state that includes a seemingly pre-life Earth. This means that a pre-life universe can only exist retroactively after the fact of consciousness. (Because time is an illusion of consciousness, as we shall see shortly, this whole talk of before and after isn’t strictly correct but provides a way of visualizing things.)
If the universe is in a non-determined state until forced to resolve by an observer, and this non-determined state included the determination of the various fundamental constants, then the resolution would necessarily fall in such a way that allows for an observer, and therefore the constants would have to resolve in such a way as to allow life. Biocentrism therefore supports and builds upon John Wheeler’s conclusions about where quantum theory leads, and provides a solution to the anthropic problem that is unique and more reasonable than any alternative.
While the latter two versions of the Anthropic Principle, needless to say, strongly support biocentrism, many in the astronomical community seem to embrace the simplest anthropic version, at least guardingly. “I like the weak anthropic principle,” said astronomer Alex Filippenko of the University of California, when one of the authors asked his opinion. “Used appropriately, it has some predictive value.” After all, he added, “Small changes to seemingly boring properties of the universe could have easily produced a universe in which nobody would have been around to be bored.”
Ah, but the point is that it didn’t and couldn’t.
To be honest and present all views, however, it should be noted that some critics wonder whether the Weak Anthropic Principle is no more than a piece of circular reasoning or a facile way of squirming
out of explaining the enormous peculiarities of the physical universe. Philosopher John Leslie, in his 1989 book Universes (there is a 1996 reprint edition), says, “A man in front of a firing
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