Untitled Document

The Anthropic principle

and the Maximization of Existence

Introduction

The anthropic principle sets humanity as the measure of all things, and the strong anthropic principle goes even further and sees free-willed consciousness as being that which brings the universe into full physical existence. If such is the case, then both the design of the big bang and the very existence of the universe itself are specified by the requirement that it be capable of eventually producing a free-willed conscious being.

Therefore, according to the anthropic principles, the existence of free willed conscious biological beings is both a necessary and sufficient condition for the specification of the universe and also for its initiation into full physical reality.

Similarly, in Biblical philosophy God is both the necessary and sufficient agent for the existence of the universe and of free willed conscious beings. The anthropic principles therefore provide an extension to man of the idea of God as creator and ground of being, which is highly appropriate for the being created in the image of its creator.

A created universe in which the big bang is designed so as to eventually produce free willed beings is here termed 'a teleoderived universe', that is, derived from the teleologically-prior stage of the emergence of a moral being, the 'moral stage' of universal development. In such a universe, all entities and life-forms which eventually evolve from the big bang owe their existence to the fact that a big bang designed to produce moral beings also produced them. This idea can shed some light on traditional Jewish views regarding the purpose of existence of the universe and of its constituent elements.

Rambam's Views on Existence

According to Rambam, the Torah teaches that the universe was designed so as to specifically include man. He then points out that many people, feeling that this teaching implies that all was created for man, ask why spiders detrimental to man were created, and why Gd created the distant stars if they are out of man's reach .

In response, Rambam states that it is simply not true that all was created for Man. Rather, existence is a good in of itself, and the reason that harmful and useless entities were created is that it is Gd's Will that these entities exist, and because Gd wanted to grant the good of existence to all possible beings.

As stated previously, according to the anthropic principle, and from the Biblical perspective, the conditions of the big-bang are determined by the teleological consideration that it must eventually develop into a universe containing a moral being. A big bang which is designed to give rise to human beings will need to be of a very specific type.

This type of teleologically derived big bang, on the way to producing moral beings as it is designed to, will produce many other species - from amoebas through amphibians to apes. All these other beings - animals, insects and so on - which derive from the resultant teleoderived big-bang, can be seen as the "possible" beings Rambam speaks of. They are then given actual existence through Gd's creation of a big bang.

As Rambam pointed out, Adam could have been created without the rest of the universe (Guide III:13):

"We who believe in the creation must admit that God coud have created the universe in a different manner...the principal object, man, could have been brought into existence without the rest of the creation."

However, in order to give the good of existence to the maximum amount of beings within the context of a moral universe, the initial state was teleoderived from the moral stage to form a big bang which would produce all the beings inherent in the design of the moral being rather than simply the moral being itself.

There is thus not only a deep link between the physical characteristics of man and the fundamental physical structure of the universe, but the universe also contains virtually all that is implied by this interconnection - specifically, the physical and biological links between a big bang which would produce a human, and the human himself.

A Big-Bang-Emergent Universe: Maximizing the Amount of Existence

According to the Midrash, all was created in potentia in one act of creation, and the entire universe developed from this one state. We are also told by the Midrash that Adam was first a shapeless mass of clay, and was shaped into Man during a certain period, finally receiving the Divine "image" on the sixth "day". One can then say that the initial creation contained the rudiments of Adam, and the passing of time brought closer the development of this entity to being "Adam".

On the basis of this one can construct the following image: All beings which were links in the evolutionary chain leading to man can be considered as one continuously existent being, taking on various transient shapes, each one more complex than the last, until the final shape is achieved - that of man .

Since the big bang was teleoderived from the design of the moral-being, it of necessity contains within it the potential development of man's evolutionary predecessors, including of course his near 'ancestor' the monkey/ape.

The sole raison d'etre of the monkeys and apes in a teleological sense are as the logically necessary evolutionary predecessors of man. The monkey is a transient being in the evolutionary sense since it eventually mutates to become man, and in the teleological sense because after the appearance of man, its existence no longer serves a teleological purpose - thus both the species and its teleological importance are transient.

Even more so, all species which developed along branches of the evolutionary chain unrelated to man - species unnecessary as steps towards the eventual emergence of man - are not only teleologically purposeless now that man exists, but always were so; nevertheless, their existence is guaranteed by the fact that they are inherent in the big bang which is designed to produce moral beings.

As outlined previously, Rambam provides us with a reason for why rather than creating Adam alone, instead God created the universe in a big-bang-emergent state, containing the full variety of beings inherent in the big bang. According to Rambam, existence in itself is a great good . As a result, Gd wished to give existence to all beings whose existence is possible . In our context, this would mean not only to give existence to man, as the purpose of the evolutionary process, but also to all those other beings who would exist as a result of that process.

Thus it was Gd's Will to create the moral universe not with only moral man inhabiting it, but also with all the creatures implied in the form of Man. That is , Gd wished to give the benefit of existence to all the creatures which would exist in a universe designed to produce a moral being, all the creatures which would develop from a big bang-emergent universe teleoderived from the design of a moral being.

This then sheds light on the fact that in the creation account although after virtually every stage of the creation it is commented that "and God saw that it was good", after the creation of man there is no such comment, whereas immediately after the creation of mankind, which heralded the completion of creation as a whole, it is said that "God saw all that He had done and it was very good". In our terms, the whole was derived from the design of man, and therefore the maximal good came not simply from the creation of man, but rather from the creation as a whole, with all that was inherent in the design of man.

Existence is a good in of itself

According to the Rambam it is wrong to assume that if a being exists, it does so to serve man, or for man's benefit. Instead, they exist because Gd wanted to give existence to all that could exist, including and especially the transiently-purposeful transient being which evolved into man - the monkey. In the words of Rambam :

"no notice need be taken of the nonsensical idea that monkeys were created for our pastime [i.e. for man's benefit]. Such opinions originate only in man's ignorance of the nature of transient beings , and in his overlooking the principle that it was intended by the Creator to produce in its present form everything whose existence is possible" .

Conclusion

From the Traditional perspective existence is good, and therefore creation proceded in a manner designed to produce maximal rather than minimal existent entities. Thus, rather than a universe containing only humanity and a minimum of other entities, the universe was instead created with all that is implied in the existence of a human being - all that follows logically from a self-consistent system designed to eventually produce a moral being.

This is the metaphysical teleological motivation for creation to have resulted in the big-bang-emergent universe we inhabit.

That there exist parts of the universe which are seemingly useless to man - for example the distant stars or some of the millions of insect species, and so on - indicates that they do not exist because of man, that is, to serve him. However, since all these parts exist only because the big bang is teleoderived from the state containing moral man, then all that exists does exist because of man, that is, because man exists .

As the Mishna in Sanhedrin states, man must say "Bishvili nivra ha'olam" - 'because of me was the world created'. So, the universe is designed for Man, and any being living in it exists only because they are part of the chain of being which stretches from the first creation to the first moral people. However, they were not created for the purpose of serving man, but rather they were created because Gd wished to give the Goodness of existence to all those possible beings whose existence was implied in the chain. That is, they exist because of man, not for man.

From the traditional Biblical perspective, the universe is designed to produce moral beings, while all other entities no matter how vast or numerous, if they are not free-willed conscious beings, exist because they are inherent in the teleologically designed big bang.

Mankind is therefore told in the creation account that the sun moon and stars, lofty and huge though they may be, will be convenient time-pieces; mankind is enjoined by the Bible to make use of the resources of the world, to harness the power of the animals and of the forces of nature, to channel all towards the purpose of moral action for the betterment of self, of the lot of others, and the worship of God. However, there are limits to the exploitation of nature - cutting down fruit trees, causing unneeded pain to animals, wanton destruction - since the universe and all it contains were not created simply to serve mankind's needs.

Humanity is instead to face the challenges inherent in its ability to discern the moral aspect of events and situations, and to utilize its free will to make the proper choices - that very free-willed consciousness which sets the tone for the design of the universe, which gives it full physical reality, and whose parameters define the extent of all possible existent beings.

Appendix: Possible Beings and Rambam

When we say that Gd wished to give existence to all possible beings, it is obviously not meant all beings which can possibly be imagined since that would be an infinite number, and since in any case it is clear that many imaginable beings were not created. Clearly then "all possible beings" means 'all beings possible which fulfil a certain criterion' - the criterion being logical self-consistency and consistency with the rest of creation. As Rambam says: (adapted to our interpretation) 'All beings which would arise along all the possible branches of evolution' (rather than just the existence of their teleological end, man).

"Possible beings" are those which are present in the big-bang-emergent universe, and the big-bang-emergent universe arises from a big bang teleoderived from the moral stage. Thus it is the characteristics of the moral stage, and particularly of the moral being, which determine the forms of all "possible being". In contrast, the existence of any form of being not derived in this way from the moral stage is "impossible". Since the moral stage is that which is directly designed according to the purpose which Gd's Wisdom has decreed for the universe, one can say that the existence and form of all possible beings is dependent on the original decree of the Divine Wisdom.

We can now read the whole passage as written by the Rambam (translated):

"...no notice need be taken of the nonsensical idea that monkeys were created for our pastime [i.e. for man's benefit]. Such opinions originate only in man's ignorance of the nature of transient beings, and in his overlooking the principle that it was intended by the Creator to produce in its present form everything whose existence is possible; a different form was not decreed by the Divine Wisdom, and the existence [of objects of a different form] is therefore impossible, because the existence of all things depends on the decree of Gd's Wisdom".

Thus, the universe exists in a big bang-emergent state because existence is a good in of itself, and Gd wished to bestow the intrinsic good of existence on all "possible beings". This truth is not obvious to man only because man erroneously believes that the whole universe exists only to serve his purposes, and that all created entities achieve their purpose only through their being of use to him . Because of this delusion, when they find no use for some of creation, they erroneously assume that these creations resulted from trivial, purposeless, or vain action on the part of Gd: as the Rambam says (translation):

"Know that the difficulties which lead to confusion in the question what is the purpose of the universe or of any of its parts, arise from two causes; first, man has an erroneous idea of himself, and believes that the whole world exists only for his sake; secondly he is ignorant both about the nature of the sublunary world, and about the Creator's intention to give existence to all beings whose existence is possible, because existence is undoubtedly good. The consequences of that error and of the ignorance about the two things named, are doubts and confusions, which lead many to imagine that some of Gd's works are trivial, others purposeless, and others in vain."

Ironically , today many have the reverse belief - that nothing was created to serve man, and that in fact man is a product of chance development.

A universe which upon scientific analysis is found to follow logically from a big bang state.

"the great chain of being".

On the connection betweeen good and existence: in the Torah Gd says: “I have laid before you the good and the bad, life and death - choose life!” ["Hinei na'tati lachem et hatov ve'et ha'ra et ha'chaim ve'et ha'mavet ubacharta bechaim."] That is, choosing good is equated with choosing existence.

Further, as we have seen, man's awareness of the distinction between good and evil brought existence from non-existence. In addition, according to Rambam:

"All the great evil which men cause to each other ... are ... due to non-existence; because they originate in ignorance, which is absence of wisdom", Guide III:XI. That is, all evil is nonexistence: and all existence is good: [ Guide: III:X]

"Guide" III:10, III:12, III:25. See also R. Sa'adya Gaon, "Emunot Ve'de'ot" [very beginning of Part III]. According to Ramban (Nachmanides), the phrase "and Gd saw that it was good", means "and Gd gave permanent existence to that which was created according to the Divine Will, because this existence was good". [Ramban Gen.1:4. See also 2:18 (very end), and 1:10 (beginning of "Vayar Ki Tov")].

The apparent lack of necessity for the existence of much of creation was used as a point against the emanation theory of creation, and likely supported the contention that they were created because of the intrinsic good of existence. However this loses force in the light of the origin theory and anthropic principle. Our application therefore reinvests this approach with meaning.

"Guide" III:25. A drash on Rambam, applying his translated words to the context of our thesis here.

Hebrew version: "Teva ha'havayah veha'hefsed"