[MD] Value and the Anthropic Principle

[Ham Priday]

[Mark]:
> ...bountiful empirical evidence to support the postulation
> that value pre-exists:
> 1. Existence.
> 2. Therefore, humans to aesthetically appreciate values
> because they are values.
> 3. Therefore humans are values resonating with other values.
>
> Axiarcism places value before existence. That anything
> exists at all is due to a principle of ethical requirement.
> In other words, existence IS value.  Humans are part of
> that which exists, so humans ARE value also.  When
> humans observe that which may be distinguished from
> them (like a far galaxy for example), and as galaxies are
> also value (because they too exist due to the principle
> of ethical requirement), humans resonate with other value.

I don't understand the proposition "humans are value...galaxies are value".
Value is a measure of worth or quality, and man is the measure of all
things.  Aesthetic appreciation is the individual's response to value, and
is always relative to some objective referent.  There is no such thing as
unappreciated (unrealized) value.  I accept the idea of Teleology as what
"pushes or pulls" the cosmos through evolution, but I believe it's a mistake
to call this "value", whether or not human beings are part of it.

The problem, as I see it, stems from Pirsig's refusal to acknowledge a
primary metaphysical reality -- the uncreated Source.  Empirical reality is
divided so that a subject can sense value (e.g., goodness, quality, beauty,
freedom, etc.) from which to objectivize a differentiated universe.

[Mark]:
> The principle of ethical requirement in Leslie's Axiarcism
> is drawn from Plato.  Its application is Neo-Spinozist
> so Leslie is advocating Pantheism, which boils down to
> a form of Idealism the way he describes it.

You see, I believe that morality and ethics are human inventions designed to
preserve civilized cultures by establishing standards of behavior.  It would
be difficult to apply such standards to lesser creatures who behave
instinctively, or to natural processes that behave according to physical
principles.  For example, can the laws of thermo-dynamics, gravity,
relativity, or entropy  logically be considered "good" or "bad"?
Efficacious, consistent, predictable, empirically verifiable, perhaps -- but
not moral or ethical.  Such concepts apply only to people.  As awe-inspiring
as the design of the universe may be, its "rightness" or "goodness' can only
be determined relative to its ultimate goal or purpose, and this is beyond
human measurement.

[Mark]:
> Leslie is happy to deal with a multiplicity of Universes
> of which ours is as we experience it.
> This undercuts the Anthropic principle because if there
> are an infinite number of Universes it should come as
> no surprise that one was like ours - finely tuned to be
> as we experience it.

This sounds very much like the singularity principle operating in chaos:
Given sufficient time, the dynamics of energy and matter will eventually
produce a self-sustaining universe with intelligent life.  Extend the law of
probability to infinity, and a monkey sitting at a word processor will
eventually come up with the complete works of Shakespeare.  If your
description of Leslie's philosophy is correct, he's apparently as averse as
Pirsig is to the idea of a transcendent primary source.

Also, you're begging the question when you say that Leslie's willingness to
deal with an infinite number of universes "undercuts the Anthropic
principle."  What if this is the only universe?  I'm sorry, Mark, but I put
more value than you do on  human sensibility.  The only cosmology that makes
sense to me is a universe differentiated so that finite beings can realize
the value of their essential source.  Accordingly, I remain on the side of
Anthropism in the good company of John Witherall, Paul Davies, and
(probably) Nicholas Rescher.

(If you learn anything more about Rescher, I'd appreciate the information.)

Thanks, again, for your clarification.

Essentially yours,
Ham