Question: do you think there is advanced life in another part of the universe?

Matt Bawn answered on 5 Mar 2018:

I like this question a lot. There is a famous equation to try and estimate the number of advanced civilisations called the Drake equation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation. I think I came across it when I was studying physics and even if all the numbers are wrong its a nice thought experiment. A few years ago however, I was doing a coursera course https://www.coursera.org/learn/philosophy-physical-sciences and was introduced to something called the anthropic principle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle. The Anthropic Principle was proposed by Brandon Carter in 1974. The principle states that context-sensitive observers will tend to be found more in places whose conditions favor their development. The principle was formulated in response to a series of observations that many physical constants have values that are consistent with conditions for life as we know it rather than a set of values that would not be consistent with life as seen Earth. The anthropic principle states that this is a necessity, because if life were impossible, no living entity would be there to observe it, and thus would not be known. Although the name of the principle suggests an application solely to the human species the authors contend it should be generalized to all context sensitive observers. I immediately had problems with this “principle” but, as with many philosophical examples I think it is useful to generate ideas. For example I would suggest we could re-interperate the principle assuggesting that as context sensitive observers human beings on Earth have been conditioned by the nature of the physical environment or series of physical constants in which they evolved to only recognize as life something that has evolved through the same set of processes. So a short answer to your question could be that yes but would we recognise it as being “life”.