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Perhaps more than any other of the physical sciences, cosmology exemplifies the inevitable contact between science and philosophy, including the problem of the demarcation criteria that distinguish science from non-science. Although modern…
We propose an alternative anthropic probability for calculating the probabilities in eternal inflation. This anthropic probability follows naturally from the weak anthropic principle, and does not suffer the freak observer or the typicality…
The logic of abduction involves a collision between deduction and induction, where empirical surprises violate expectations and scientists innovate to resolve them. Here we reformulate abduction as a social process, occurring not only…
The anthropic principle is one of the possible explanations for the cosmological constant ($\Lambda$) problem. In previous studies, a dark halo mass threshold comparable with our Galaxy must be assumed in galaxy formation to get a…
Anthropic models can give testable predictions, which can be confirmed or falsified at a specified confidence level. This is illustrated using the successful prediction of the cosmological constant as an example. The history and the nature…
The fact that life has evolved in our universe constrains the laws of physics. The anthropic principle proposes that these constraints are sometimes very tight and can be used to explain in a sense the corresponding laws. Recently a…
The influence of recent detections of a finite vacuum energy ("cosmological constant") on our formulation of anthropic conjectures, particularly the so-called Final Anthropic Principle is investigated. It is shown that non-zero vacuum…
Dalai Lama suggested a healthy dose of skepticism toward religious pronouncements
Despite the extraordinary successes the two great bastions of $20^{th}$ century science (Quantum Theory and General Relativity) are troubled with serious conceptual and mathematical difficulties. As a result, further growth of fundamental…
We discuss the Carter's formula about the mankind evolution probability following the derivation proposed by Barrow and Tipler. We stress the relation between the existence of billions of galaxies and the evolution of at least one…
In the {\em Many Worlds Interpretation} of quantum mechanics, the range of possible worlds (or histories) provides variation, and the Anthropic Principle is a selective principle analogous to natural selection. When looked on in this way,…
For four decades it has been argued that we need to adopt a new conception of science called aim-oriented empiricism. This has far-reaching implications and repercussions for science, the philosophy of science, academic inquiry in general,…
Prediction in quantum cosmology requires a specification of the universe's quantum dynamics and its quantum state. We expect only a few general features of the universe to be predicted with probabilities near unity conditioned on the…
A well-known topic within the philosophy of physics is the problem of fine-tuning: the fact that the universal constants seem to take non-arbitrary values in order for live to thrive in our Universe. In this paper we will talk about this…
It is argued that selection criteria usually referred to as "anthropic conditions" for the existence of intelligent (typical) observers widely adopted in cosmology amount only to preconditions for primitive life. The existence of life does…
We re-examine claims that anthropic arguments provide an explanation for the observed smallness of the cosmological constant, and argue that correlations between the cosmological constant value and the existence of life can be demonstrated…
The paper discusses the problem of demarcation between the dimensions of natural and the human sciences in contemporary cosmology. In spite of a common presumption that cosmology is a natural science, the specificity of its alleged subject…
Unprecedented imbalances and growing human impacts characterize the Anthropocene. It highlights the urgency of better choices, and the perspectives outlined here can inform our decision-making process. The Biocentric-Technological way…
The original formulation of the (weak) anthropic principle was prompted by a question about objective time at a macroscopic level, namely the age of the universe when ``anthropic'' observers such as ourselves would be most likely to emerge.…
From an anthropological point of view, the whole concept of a "path of progress" in astronomical discovery is anathema, since it implicitly downgrades other cultural perspectives, such as the many "indigenous cosmologies" that still exist…