No? What is a hypothesis for then if not benefitting our understanding of the world?

I still don’t get what the appeal of this thought experiment is. In the Wikipedia article one cited common critique is the truism of AP, because it only tells us, well, how the world is and how unlikely it is that it is just this way. And even if we go so far to say that it would be so unlikely to find other life out there because of the fine tuning, what so we gain? We already know the chances are super low for life to emerge and we have our ways to figure out how likely that is. I still don’t see how we can benefit from AP apart from being in awe of the cheer vastness of the world and how unlikely everything seems.

Hm, I would handle it like I handle religion. Sure we don’t know everything, but why believe in something like a god when there is no strong reason to? I haven’t seen these good arguments for AP though, maybe they could give a compelling argument? In the end it is probably not necessarily a philosophical but a personal question what you need for yourself as a meaning of life/everything. I’m very much fine with the universe not having a creator and it not having an intention. Many people seem to get distressed by that thought and apparently prefer to believe in something intentional though.

Haha, I’m not a native speaker either so I can relate ;)

I read some of the Wikipedia article on AP and well, I still don’t know what to make of it. It either tells me nothing (yeah, the universe is at it is) or it feels like a false deduction (why would the universe have an intention in producing intelligent observers?).

Well, it is always easy to say afterwards that everything added up to this moment. Hadn’t person X said this and wouldn’t have event Y happened at exactly that time, we wouldn’t be talking here. Yeah, but what’s the point? Sure, it is definitely mesmerizing that all albeit chances very near impossible to create this universe, what does this actually tell us? It might be a hint that there are a multitude of universes out there. But there might just be this one. Only by observing that the chances were so slim doesn’t give us any information. The article has a similar reasoning as some religious texts arguing for the existing of a higher order because of how unlikely it was for evolution to create complex life forms etc…

I didn’t find the text on the anthropic principle or rather the principle itself very convincing. But nonetheless, I think you might have misunderstood what the article you linked is arguing for. They say that “the idea that physical laws must be the way they are because otherwise we could not be here to measure them is called the anthropic principle”. However, you talked about a universe that is “tuned” to us? Isn’t the anthropic principle actually more likely to cause life in general, not only life on earth? That is, if the conditions are just right to cause us, why wouldn’t this significantly increase the chances of creating life somewhere else?

Anyways, I liked the thought experiment on intelligent species destroying their home before being able to expand into space. I think you might have a point there. However, it also depends very much on the chance of new life emerging. In a gazillion times of life emerging, at least some will make it, even if chances are near impossible. So the question remains, how often does life emerge in our universe?

Regarding your “worst case”, I don’t really take it as a worst case. Why is life better than no life? I mean, let’s make the most of it while we’re here. But I don’t think life itself in itself adds any value to a future universe without humans.

Ah OK, so mass is important but surface isn’t, right?

Weird comment. Lookism isn’t cool, even if targeted at horrible and powerful people like Elon Musk. Also, how would more mass/larger surface slow anything down in space where there is no air resistance/drag??