We live in a very special universe. All sorts of things about our universe (like the strength of gravity) are perfectly tuned for the existence of life. If any of these universal qualities were even slightly changed life could not have arisen. Surely that suggests that the universe was tailored for the purpose of allowing life – presumably by some God?

The short answer is: No.

The Anthropic Principle
The more detailed answer is the Anthropic Principle. The Anthropic Principle is pretty cool and I plan on using it in some future posts so I thought I would explain it.

In short, the anthropic principle says that you shouldn’t read too much into a seemingly rare event if the only reason that you noticed the event is that it is rare.

Huh? – let’s have an example
Yeah, that did sound a little circular so lets have an example. Say you are flipping coins all day long. Eventually you’ll get 10 tails in a row – an event that in isolation has very low probability. The anthropic principle says that you shouldn’t read too much into it because the only reason you noticed was that it is rare. Most of the time nothing special was happening.

The chances of eventually getting 10 in a row are actually very high – don’t get excited when it eventually happens.

I had some friends who used to infer probabilities on the roulette table based on improbable strings of results. If they saw 5 reds in a row they inferred that black had to come up soon and bet black. The anthropic principle shows why this is madness (sorry guys). If you wait long enough you are guaranteed to eventually get a string of 5 reds, and when you do it has no bearing on the next spin.

It seems simple now, but I have had plenty of debates about this and I always find it tricky to get the point across.

So why isn’t our universe special?
The whole idea has it’s roots in cosmology. Cosmologists noticed that the universe appears to be finely tuned to creating an environment in which life can exist. It is easy to infer that God must have created it that way specially for us. However, the anthropic principle says that we shouldn’t read too much into the universe being so finely tuned. If the universe wasn’t “just right” for life then we wouldn’t be around to notice it!

The universe is special for other reasons – but it’s random luck that everything is set up to allow life.

Cogito ergo sum – I think, therefore I am.

Basically, that is the popular answer to the question: can we really ever know something. Can we ever know that something is true without any doubt?

You might say that you know your name is Frank. But in fact you don’t really know that – you just think your name is Frank. You might in fact be completely insane.

There is no absolute proof of that truth without making some serious assumptions. If you are making assumptions, then you don’t know that you are right. Your assumptions might be wrong.

So what can you really know without making assumptions? René Descartes came up with the answer above. He reckons that he knows that he is thinking, therefore he knows that he exists.

Thing is, that he has made the assumption that if he thinks then he exists. I reckon that’s, not quite right. All you can really know is that there are thoughts. You think that they are your thoughts, but you don’t even know that. Everything else could be an illusion – including the fact that in order to have thoughts something must exist.

This blog could be an illusion.

I recently read a 1932 essay by the philosopher Bertrand Russell called “In Praise of Idleness”. Basically he is arguing that as we become more efficient and productive workers we should be working less and less.

His argument (although he doesn’t make it this clear) is that when we become more efficient workers we have two choices:

1. Work the same hours and produce more;
2. Work fewer hours and produce the same amount.

Russell argues that we shouldn’t be obsessed with growth, and should rather take more time for leisure. Not really a sustainable idea because there would always be incentives more people to produce more while others settle for the same. And as Jack Sparrow told us – when there are incentives people will take them.

My favorite part of the essay however is pretty cool. Mr Russell says that there are only two types of work:

1. Altering the position of matter at or near the earth’s surface;
2. Telling other people to do so.

He goes on to say that the second group can be indefinitely expanded – “there are not only those who give orders, but those who give advice as to what orders should be given.” Very cool way of looking at things – and largely true.

There is a great line from the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie – one of my favorite movie lines. A sneaky pirate (Johnny Depp) is having a mad sword fight when he pulls a sneaky move and is accused of cheating. His reply is:

“The only rules that really matter are these: what a man can do and what a man can’t do”

A surprisingly good line for a movie like Pirates of the Caribbean. I like it because it reveals a truth about life that people don’t often think about. We live in a society of rules, laws and cultural norms. What Depp’s character is saying is that these rules mean nothing. There is nothing that makes it impossible to break the “rules”.

Unfortunately criminals teach us every day that our rules will be broken if the incentives are right. All of life is about people balancing incentives.

Incentive = Benefit – Cost
Or more accurately:
Incentive = Perceived benefit – (Risk of getting caught x Cost of getting caught)

The values in these equations change according to person and situation but if the incentive is right, the rules will be broken. For the pirate in the movie, the benefit was clear and the cost non-existent – easy choice…

People cheat all the time – it’s a fact of life even, if we like to ignore it.

I am often frustrated when clear, logical ideas with plenty of evidence are rejected out-of-hand. Why do people fail to properly understand and process so much of the information available to them?

I recently read a brief description of a model (called the elaboration likelihood model) explaining how people process and evaluate new information. Basically the model says that people use a combination of two basic routes to understanding and evaluating an argument:

1. The central route – the thinking route. When processing information centrally people think carefully about the message and evaluate the arguments and implications. This is the way I wish everyone would process my ideas.
2. The peripheral route – using heuristics. Rather than carefully assessing all the information, people will often use simple cues and rules-of-thumb (heuristics) to evaluate arguments. Things like the communicator’s physical appeal and charm become important. Does the information look professional or do we regard the communicator as an expert?

In most cases we would use a combination of the two approaches to evaluate new information. I got to wondering why people so often lean heavily to the peripheral route. I reckon the reason is that the central route is ‘expensive’ in it’s requirements:

• Time – Is there enough time to properly evaluate the information.
• Information – Is there enough information available.
• Ability – Does the recipient have the ability and knowledge to evaluate the message. Background knowledge might be missing.
• Motivation – This is a biggy. Does the recipient want to invest the time and effort needed to process and evaluate the message centrally?

Because of these requirements/costs people seldom use the central route properly. It would be completely impossible to fully process all of the information that we get bombarded with on a daily basis, so we ‘cheat’ and use the peripheral route.

That makes sense and it’s something that I need to take into account when trying to get ideas across. I need to remember that:

1. People are definitely going to, at least partially, judge my ideas on their presentation. Presentation is rightfully very important – I need to stop resenting that fact.
2. I also need to tailor my communications according to the 4 factors in order to make the central route more likely. Keep things short, easy to understand, and interesting. Motivation is what I find the toughest – almost nobody cares (or wants to know) what Alistair Pott thinks!

I suppose if you read this far I must have gotten things right. Although, I’d bet that the motivation was handled by the fact that you know me!