{"id":1345,"date":"2007-08-07T17:02:31","date_gmt":"2007-08-07T22:02:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.discovermagazine.com\/cosmicvariance\/2007\/08\/07\/unusual-features-of-our-place-in-the-universe-that-have-obvious-anthropic-explanations\/"},"modified":"2007-08-07T17:02:31","modified_gmt":"2007-08-07T22:02:31","slug":"unusual-features-of-our-place-in-the-universe-that-have-obvious-anthropic-explanations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/2007\/08\/07\/unusual-features-of-our-place-in-the-universe-that-have-obvious-anthropic-explanations\/","title":{"rendered":"Unusual Features of Our Place In the Universe That Have Obvious Anthropic Explanations"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The &#8220;sensible anthropic principle&#8221; says that certain apparently unusual features of our environment might be explained by selection effects governing the viability of life within a plethora of diverse possibilities, rather than being derived uniquely from simple dynamical principles.   Here are some examples of that principle at work.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Most of the planetary mass in the Solar System is in the form of gas giants.  And yet, we live on a rocky planet.<\/li>\n<li>Most of the total mass in the Solar System is in the Sun.  And yet, we live on a planet.<\/li>\n<li>Most of the volume in the Solar System is in interplanetary space.  And yet, we live in an atmosphere.<\/li>\n<li>Most of the volume in the universe is in intergalactic space.  And yet, we live in a galaxy.<\/li>\n<li>Most of the ordinary matter in the universe (by mass) consists of hydrogen and helium.  And yet, we are made mostly of heavier elements.<\/li>\n<li>Most of the particles of ordinary matter in the universe are photons.  And yet, we are made of baryons and electrons.<\/li>\n<li>Most of the matter in the universe (by mass) is dark matter.  And yet, we are made of ordinary matter.<\/li>\n<li>Most of the energy in the universe is dark energy.  And yet, we are made of matter.<\/li>\n<li>The post-Big-Bang lifespan of the universe is very plausibly infinite.  And yet, we find ourselves living within the first few tens of billions of years (a finite interval) after the Bang.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>That last one deserves more attention, I think.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The &#8220;sensible anthropic principle&#8221; says that certain apparently unusual features of our environment might be explained by selection effects governing the viability of life within a plethora of diverse possibilities, rather than being derived uniquely from simple dynamical principles. Here are some examples of that principle at work. Most of the planetary mass in the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1345"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1345\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}