12/30/2024
When one first encounters cosmology, the words most often heard in a philosophical context are the Anthropic Principle and the Copernican Revolution. To put it simply, the anthropic principle is a human-centered theory: it claims that humanity is special, and that Earth is finely tuned in such a way that our existence was inevitable. The Copernican revolution, on the other hand, asserts that neither Earth nor humanity holds a privileged position, but rather that we are merely one of countless possible planets and intelligent species in the universe. In short, the anthropic principle is subjective and absolute, while the Copernican revolution is objective and relative. One could describe this as an irreconcilable clash between geocentrism and heliocentrism.
And yet, in science, the two can coexist. As mentioned earlier, because of the property of emergence, both perspectives can be valid at different scales. Newtonian mechanics, for example, is based on the absoluteness of time and space, whereas Einstein’s relativity is built upon the relativity (or the deeper invariance) of spacetime. Both, however, remain useful in their own domains: Newtonian mechanics, though less accurate, is widely and practically applied, while Einstein’s relativity, closer to physical truth, is indispensable only in advanced technologies such as GPS. By analogy, Newtonian mechanics may be likened to the anthropic principle, and Einsteinian relativity to the Copernican revolution. Thus, what appears to be an irreconcilable conflict may in fact become a reconciliation of extremes, much like geocentrism and heliocentrism.
From the standpoint of the anthropic principle, even the slightest variation in the ratios of the four fundamental forces of physics (gravity, electromagnetism, the weak force, and the strong force), or a change in the value of the cosmological constant, would make the existence of Earth-like planets impossible—thereby underscoring humanity’s uniqueness. From the perspective of the Copernican revolution, however, our existence is inevitable, rooted in the infinite expanse of the universe and the possibility of the multiverse. Yet subjectivity and objectivity have always complemented one another in shaping human life and judgment. If imagination is grounded in scientific verification, I am confident that even such seemingly opposing principles can achieve harmony within science.
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