![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=jamefmcgrshom-20&l=as2&o=1&a=B0002E34C0\")
, and also finished reading Paul Davies\u2019 latest book Cosmic Jackpot: Why Our Universe Is Just Right for Life<\/a>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=jamefmcgrshom-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0618592261\")
. To the credit of the Discovery Institute, who produced the documentary, they did little more than argue that our place in the universe is special, in a vague sense, and that this indicates that our existence has a purpose. Paul Davies, in his book, makes perfectly clear that he feels simply appealing to a deity to solve the mystery of our existence is intellectually unsatisfying \u2013 rather than say there are \u201cturtles all the way down<\/a>\u201d (to recall one famous and amusing anecdote), this view introduces a \u201csuperturtle\u201d that is supposedly self-explanatory. But a simple God does not have a choice about creation, and so an argument about the \u2018first cause\u2019 cannot get one to the God of the Bible, by any means.<\/p>\nBe that as it may, I do feel that criticism of the so-called \u201cCopernican Principle<\/a>\u201d is appropriate. Humans are scarcely typical of life on earth in our quest to understand the workings of the universe. Nor is Earth typical of the planets of the solar system. Too much has been made of the strong anthropic principle<\/a>, since the weak one is self-evident. Any sentient species, looking at the universe, would inevitably wonder why we are so fortunate as to be in this place. But the answer is as simple and correct as it is unsatisfying: if the conditions for life were not \u2018just right\u2019 here (the Goldilocks principle<\/a>) we wouldn\u2019t be here. I think it was the book The Probability of God that made a comparison to finding ourselves before a map at a shopping mall and finding that its words \u201cYou Are Here\u201d with accompanying arrow designated precisely our position! But the effect is illusory \u2013 if we weren\u2019t here<\/em>, we would not be observing it.<\/p>\n Last night I watched the documentary The Privileged Planet, and also finished reading Paul Davies\u2019 latest book Cosmic Jackpot: Why Our Universe Is Just Right for Life. To the credit of the Discovery Institute, who produced the documentary, they did little more than argue that our place in the universe is special, in a vague […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/tracker\/7622297540113836091-3966859472493038575?l=exploringourmatrix.blogspot.com\")