The Anthropic Principle and the Paradox of Purposiveness

With some surprise I discovered deep in the internet (on the site opentextnn.ru) an old work of mine written almost 20 years ago, around 1993. It was my thesis paper for the philosophy candidate minimum examination. There are fragments here that I later used elsewhere, but at least if this text resides here, it will be easier to cite... The Anthropic Principle and the Paradox of Purposiveness Dmitry Shabanov If man is explained on the basis of matter, he becomes an unknown member of an unsolvable function. Why not make him the known member of the Real? Man appears to be an exception. Why not make him the key to the Universe? Man does not submit to inclusion in a mechanical cosmogony. Why not create a Physics that proceeds from Spirit? I tried at my own risk to approach the problem in this way. And then it seemed to me that Reality, conquered and freed from its bonds, fell at my feet. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin As long as you feel the stars as something "above you," you do not yet possess the gaze of one who knows. Friedrich Nietzsche Modern cosmogony has encountered the so-called paradox of anthropicity, a problem that lies beyond its boundaries yet has much in common with a paradox that biology has been grappling with for more than two thousand years. A comparison of biological and cosmogonic solutions to analogous problems is of considerable interest, as it allows one to describe the diversity of possible approaches to the anthropic paradox. The paradox is such only from a particular methodological standpoint. Human culture as a whole, and each individual person, intuitively inclines toward a different mode of thinking, within which the "anthropicity" of the world surrounding us is the most natural of ideas. The anthropocentricity of the world is one of the most important archetypes of the human psyche. A vivid example of a worldview in which this idea is the cornerstone is found in the views of P. Teilhard de Chardin. Thus the anthropic paradox is not an independent problem; it is merely a consequence of the phenomenon of being, which cannot be explained by scientific instruments alone. Cosmic Coincidences Nasreddin said to his wife: "Every day I am more and more amazed at the purposiveness with which this world is arranged — it seems as though everything has been made for the benefit of man." "What do you mean?" "Take camels, for example. Why do you think they have no wings?" "I have no idea." "Very well. Imagine that camels suddenly grew wings. Then they would be able to constantly disturb our peace, landing on the roofs of houses and pestering us with their spitting from above!" Within the framework of the modern model of the Universe, unexpected results have been obtained. A study of the fundamental physical constants has shown that they are "fitted" to one another in a strictly defined manner, and that with any other combination of them the world would be entirely different and we would not exist in it. Following Davis [1985] in the main, and without going into the physical nature of the phenomena in detail, one may cite several examples of such coincidences. For a whole series of cosmic constants, the remarkably frequent recurring number turns out to be 1*10^40. For example, the force of gravity is smaller than the force of electrical interaction by that factor; the Hubble time exceeds the Compton time by that factor; and the Compton time exceeds the Planck time by that factor. Approximately that many protons exist in the Hubble region (the observable part of the Universe), and the number of all particles in a typical star is approximately equal to this number raised to the power 3/2. Crucially, a change in these characteristics could lead to a substantial alteration of the Universe. If the gravitational constant were slightly larger, the Universe would collapse; if slightly smaller, it would fly apart. If the number of protons were not 10^80 but, say, 10^86, the Universe would face collapse; and if 10^77, no galaxies would have formed. The ratio of the number of protons to the number of electrons — approximately 10^9 (this quantity can also serve as a measure of the entropy of the Universe) — has been fortunately chosen, since the existence of the Universe is possible only within a range of values from 10^3 to 10^11. The constraint is even stricter: small changes in the entropy of the Universe would affect the existing ratio of hydrogen to helium nuclei (and all other nuclei), which would prevent the formation of complex systems composed of heterogeneous atoms. The observed ratio of protons to electrons is the result of the ratio between matter and antimatter at the moment of the formation of the Universe (electrons are treated as traces of the annihilation of protons and antiprotons). There was no symmetry in the formation of matter and antimatter: matter was produced in excess by one part in a million, and the magnitude of this excess was very fortunate from the standpoint of creating a world with observable properties. The ratios of the quantity and mass of neutrinos are remarkably well chosen; importantly, the difference between the masses of the proton and the neutron is close to the mass of the electron. The favorable ratio of the number of protons to neutrons is regarded as the result of "numerical magic" in the ratios of the principal physical constants (the Boltzmann constant, the speed of light, etc.). Only a part of the list of suspicious coincidences among the constants fundamental to the structure of the world has been given here. The probability of the entire complex as a whole is apparently very low. It is worth considering one further example. Although according to modern quantum theory virtual particles must constantly arise in a vacuum (provided the product of their energy and the duration of their existence does not exceed the Heisenberg uncertainty value, they do not violate conservation laws by their existence), their contribution to gravitational interaction has not been detected. To interpret this, one uses the cosmological term introduced by Einstein into the equations describing gravity. Einstein needed a mechanism to prevent the Universe from collapsing at a single point as a result of gravitational attraction. He proposed that alongside attraction, which weakens in proportion to the square of distance, there also exists a gravitational repulsion — weaker, but independent of distance. At short distances this repulsion should not operate, but on the scale of the Universe it would act as a stabilizing factor. When the recession of galaxies was discovered and it became clear that the preservation of the Universe could be connected with the kinetic energy retained since the Big Bang, Einstein abandoned the cosmological term. New difficulties were posed by virtual particles, and in order to compensate for the increase in the universal gravitational force that their action should produce, it again became necessary to introduce the cosmological term. It turns out that the virtual attraction and the cosmological repulsion correspond to one another with extraordinary precision: they must differ by no more than 10^-53. It is difficult to conceive of the minuteness of this quantity, and hence the precision of the coincidence! Formulations of the Anthropic Principle Man — the crown of conscious organic life — could have developed here on Earth only in the presence of this monstrously vast material Universe that we see around us. Alfred Russel Wallace. The first feeling that people who discovered the strange harmony of physical laws in the universe must have experienced should have resembled the feeling of those who perceived the purposiveness of living beings: how well this has been made! It turns out that the World is arranged precisely so that complex systems of different scales are stable within it: diverse nuclei, molecules, planets, stars, galaxies, and metagalaxies. And had there been no such diversity, there would have been no man! Reflection upon what has been said led to the formulation of the anthropic principle (the anthropological principle), which states roughly as follows: "The properties of the Universe are such as they must be in order to ensure the existence of man." One may, however, avoid binding the principle specifically to man (so as not to appear immodest) and regard the cosmic coincidences as manifestations of the "profound purposiveness and harmony of physical laws" (I. L. Rozental). Conversely, one may sharpen the emphasis on human existence, as J. Wheeler did: "Here is man. What must the Universe be?" [Cited in: Kazyutinsky, 1988]. This approach, being explicitly teleological, sits uneasily with the accepted form of scientific knowledge. Even in biology it is customary to avoid teleological explanations, replacing them with "teleonomic" ones (the process proceeds as though it had some goal, although, naturally, it cannot have one). "On the basis of the most recent advances in cosmology, worldview conceptions long discarded by natural science as contrary to the spirit of scientific inquiry are being galvanized. Yet they are not necessary. The explanation of the nature of the interrelationship between the integral properties of our evolving Universe and the possibility of the appearance of man within it (a knowing subject, an observer) will, of course, be found without appeals to transcendent forces, within the framework of natural-scientific explanation." [Kazyutinsky, 1988, pp. 163–164]. On the basis of such faith in the omnipotence of natural-scientific explanations, the following solution is born [Davis, 1985; Kazyutinsky, 1988]. One may suppose that an infinite number of universes exist, in which all possible combinations of physical constants are realized. The overwhelming majority of these cease to exist immediately after arising. Most of those that remain do not develop a complex fine structure, and so forth. The state of a universe in which reason can arise is very rare, but there is nothing paradoxical in it: all variants are realized. If we suppose that the probability of the emergence of a universe capable of giving rise to man is 1/N (where N is an arbitrarily large number), but N different universes differing in their properties are created, then the expected number of instances of man arising in one of them equals unity. That is us. One may reformulate the anthropic principle, stripping it of its paradoxical content. Such formulations are called the "weak" anthropic principle (their authors understand that they are engaged in weakening the original, "strong" principle). Examples of these formulations: "We are witnesses to processes of a certain type because other processes proceed without witnesses" (A. L. Zelmanov). "What we can expect to observe must be restricted by the conditions necessary for our existence as observers" (B. Carter). Anthropic Character and Purposiveness Tyger Tyger, burning bright, In the forests of the night; What immortal hand or eye, Could frame thy fearful symmetry? William Blake Historians of science — for example Kazyutinsky [1988, pp. 155–156] — are struck by how Alfred Russel Wallace, even in the previous century, was able to formulate the anthropic principle in effect and to assert confidently the uniqueness of rational life on Earth (breaking with the commonly accepted, though unproven, tradition deriving from Giordano Bruno). Wallace even anticipated the suggestion that some would postulate the existence of innumerable universes! Although Wallace devised a way to weaken the paradox he had perceived, he nonetheless formulated it in a decidedly "strong" form: "there are strong grounds for thinking that man is the sole and highest product of this vast Universe... the whole Universe was in reality called forth for this purpose." For an explanation of this foresight, both the personality of Wallace and his specialization are important. It is well known that in a brief, rapidly written letter he was able to formulate the theory of evolution by natural selection in a form almost identical to that for which Darwin had to expend far greater effort and time. Since Darwin traveled the whole path step by step (rather than by a leap, as Wallace did), he was able to better substantiate his solution, and that is why Wallace himself later called the general theory Darwinism. Furthermore, the very fact that Wallace was a biologist and knew the history of biology is itself significant. Modern physics has encountered a problem analogous to one of the principal biological problems. I. L. Rozental formulated the anthropic principle as a principle of harmony and purposiveness of physical laws. This recalls the problem of purposiveness, first explicitly formulated by Aristotle but perceived even earlier by Empedocles. Empedocles explained the harmony in living beings by supposing that all possible combinations arose, and only the harmonious ones survived. The best exponent of the ideas of Empedocles was Lucretius. Verily the first bodies in all their combinations Were not governed by firm order and clear intelligence, Nor did they agree beforehand what movement each should take... And so it came about that from infinite time past, Trying all combinations and all kinds of movement, The primary bodies at last came together in such ways as to become The constant cause of many things: Of seas, lands, sky, and all kinds of living creatures. Titus Lucretius Carus [Cited in: Berg, 1977, p. 54]. The solution of the creators of the "weak" anthropic principle is almost identical to the attempt made more than two thousand years ago to solve the problem of biological purposiveness! To evaluate the accumulated experience of biology, it is worth turning to the analysis of the possible solutions to the problem of purposiveness undertaken by L. S. Berg. The possible solutions to the problem of purposiveness are as follows [Berg, 1977, pp. 99–101]: 1. Purposiveness is the result of chance. Although Berg does not do so, one may distinguish two variants of this solution: 1A. Purposiveness is the result of direct enumeration of all variants. This is the solution of Empedocles – Epicurus – Lucretius, and also of the weak anthropic principle. 1B. Purposiveness is the result of self-organization based on random perturbations. This is the solution of C. Darwin, I. Prigogine, and other thinkers of the modern era. Cosmogony has not yet reached this level. But is this solution truly independent? Could it be that a consistent examination of the presuppositions underlying it would reduce it to one of the other variants? This is at least what Berg himself believes. 2. Purposiveness is the result of the action of a special external force. In biology this solution corresponds to vitalism in its various forms (up to and including A. Bergson's doctrine of the vital impulse); in cosmogony (and in biology as well) — to creationism. A beautiful expression of this viewpoint is found in the words of God concerning Behemoth in the Book of Job. 3. Purposiveness is the result of striving toward a final goal. In evolutionary theory this corresponds to various forms of teleology deriving from Aristotle, the animistic views of Leibniz, the voluntarism of J. B. Lamarck, and a number of other conceptions. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin expressed this viewpoint vividly and sincerely, and his treatment is simultaneously cosmogonic and evolutionary-biological. 4. Purposiveness is a property immanent to life, the nature of which cannot be subjected to analysis. This viewpoint was characteristic of L. S. Berg himself; it is close to agnosticism in the spirit of T. H. Huxley. This solution is encountered relatively rarely in explicit form, but often implicitly pervades rationalistic arguments that rest on "self-evident" presuppositions that are therefore left unanalyzed. 5. The organism and its habitat constitute a single whole, the result of an interconnected process of coevolution (this variant is absent in Berg). Therefore both the organism is purposive (it corresponds to the environment) and the environment is purposive (it corresponds to the organism); their separation is artificial. The evolution of the environment and the evolution of organisms are regarded as components of the evolution of a system at a higher level. For example, this viewpoint corresponds to the Gaia hypothesis put forward by James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis. According to this hypothesis, many properties of the Earth are the result of directed influence on the part of the biosphere, which ensures suitable conditions for its own development. The emergence of life onto land became possible thanks to the development of the ozone layer, which appeared as a result of the activity of living organisms — the accumulation of oxygen in the atmosphere through photosynthesis. According to this viewpoint, the composition of the Earth's atmosphere (like many other environmental characteristics) is optimal for living organisms not only because they have adapted to it, but also because they actively regulate it. "To study the Earth from a cybernetic standpoint, one must ask: 'What function do the gases contained in the atmosphere, or the elements of seawater, perform?' Taken outside the context of Gaia, this question would seem illogical and imprecise, but within her context it will not be illogical to ask: 'What function does hemoglobin or insulin perform in the blood?'" (J. Lovelock). To this same category of views (only at a significantly lower level) one may also assign the "mechanistic Lamarckism" of T. D. Lysenko, which grew on the soil of dialectical-materialist rhetoric but was not devoid of interesting insights. Possible Alternatives in the Consideration of the Anthropic Paradox Not everyone has the spiritual strength of Tertullian, who not only openly reconciles himself to paradoxicality, but for whom it signifies the highest religious certainty. The gigantic number of the spiritually weak makes paradoxicality dangerous. Carl Gustav Jung. [1991, p. 107]. As is evident, the "weak" formulation of the anthropic principle corresponds to the most primitive solution — 1A. Developing the analogy, one should expect that at the next stage cosmology will proceed to solution 1B, finding interconnections among previously unconnected parameters. Any complication of the physical picture of the world that introduces into it the factor of self-organization will increase the probability of the present state of the Universe. In so doing, the statistical paradoxicality of our existence will disappear, but the existential paradoxicality will not. Suppose that physics, in a unified equation, connected all those constants and parameters that previously seemed unconnected, and showed that the observable structure of the world is the only possible one. Would the picture of the world become simpler from this? Would the paradoxicality of human existence disappear? Would it not be astonishing that the number of possible solutions is not a multitude but merely one? "Overturning barriers, science has substituted for us the world of quality and sensory perception — the world in which we live, love, and die — another world: the world of quantity, of embodied geometry, a world in which, though it contains everything, there is no place for man. Thus the world of science — the real world — became alienated and completely cut off from the world of life. Science is not only unable to explain this world, it cannot even justify itself by calling it 'subjective.'" A. Koyré. [Cited in: Prigogine, Stengers, 1986]. One of the most fantastic coincidences — that of the attraction of virtual particles and the cosmological repulsion — may also be the most vulnerable to criticism. It is perhaps simpler to allow that, by virtue of some mechanism, virtual particles do not interact gravitationally with ordinary matter, than to believe in the fantastic coincidence of unconnected parameters. Neither virtual attraction nor gravitational repulsion has been registered in experiment; they are merely consequences of our theories! Are qualitatively different solutions to the anthropic paradox possible? Solution 2 (creationist) raises no theoretical difficulties. To category 3 one must assign, among other things, Teilhardism, which is considered in the next section. One may decline to consider the causes of anthropicity, at least at the present stage of cognition. Awareness of the significance of this paradox compels one to examine it in connection with more general problems, with respect to which agnosticism may prove to be the most honest solution. It will correspond to No. 4 in the scheme presented. Finally, one may suppose that variant 5 of the solution to the problem of purposiveness is also applicable to the topic under consideration. In doing so, one must — overcoming the disparity in temporal and spatial scales — suppose that cosmogenesis and anthropogenesis are two aspects of some single process. A reflection of this view can also be found in Teilhardism, though by virtue of its explicit finalism it has been assigned by us to category 3. Teilhardism as an Example of an Anthropocentric Worldview Man, living in the most immediate present, stands at the summit or at the edge of the world: above him is the sky, beneath him all of humanity with its history vanishing into the mists of antiquity, before him the abyss of the future. Carl Gustav Jung [1993, p. 294]. An example of a doctrine that does not evade the anthropic paradox but rather makes it the foundation of its system is Teilhardism. Its creator — Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881–1955) — was one of the most brilliant figures of our century: a paleontologist, a participant in the discovery of Sinanthropus, a Jesuit, a religious reformer, an evolutionist, and a philosopher. In many of the key propositions of his doctrine Teilhard does not hold priority, but he is perhaps among the foremost by the personal character of his knowledge, by the beauty and proportion of his exposition. It is difficult to imagine a more subjective approach to philosophy than Teilhard's, for he seeks truth first and foremost in the depths of his own soul (following Augustine of Hippo, who wrote in the Confessions [1992, p. 335 et al.]: "Thou didst speak to me, O Lord, with a loud voice into my inward ear..."), but goes further, not explaining the inward by the divine but deriving the divine from the inward. This may well be the reason for the particular persuasiveness of Teilhard. The paradox that in modern physics is called the anthropic principle was not only perceived by Teilhard as early as the 1930s but became the point of departure for his views. "Strange indeed: man, the center and creator of all science, is the sole subject for which our science has not yet succeeded in elaborating a representation integrated with the rest of the Universe. We know the history of his bones, but for his thinking mind no fixed place in Nature has yet been found. In a cosmos where pride of place is still given to mechanics and chance, thought — that formidable phenomenon which has revolutionized the Earth and measures its forces against the World — still appears as an inexplicable anomaly. Man, in what is most human in him, remains a colossal and unfathomable piece of luck." [Teilhard de Chardin, 1992, p. 146]. As a result of the examination of the phenomenon of man, Teilhard creates an integral theory encompassing cosmogenesis, biogenesis, sociogenesis, and "Christogenesis" as parts of a single process. This process is finalistic; its driving force is the striving of the disparate elements of the universe toward integration in the Pleroma, elsewhere called by Teilhard the Omega Point. The paradoxes of anthropicity and purposiveness that concern us find a common solution in this picture of the world: they are necessary for the attainment of the ultimate goal of development. We are compelled to consider man as the key to the universe for two reasons that make him the center of the world. First, subjectively, for ourselves, we are inevitably the center of perspective. By naivety apparently inevitable in the first period, science at first imagined that it could observe phenomena in themselves as they unfold independently of us. Instinctively, physicists and naturalists at first acted as though their gaze fell from above upon the world, and their consciousness penetrated it without being affected by it or altering it. Now they are beginning to recognize that even their most objective observations are entirely saturated with the accepted initial premises, and with the forms or habits of thought elaborated in the course of the historical development of scientific research. ... Object and subject mingle and mutually transform each other in the act of cognition. Willy-nilly, man arrives at himself, and in all that he sees he contemplates himself. ... One need not be a man to notice how objects and forces arrange themselves "in a circle" around oneself. All animals perceive this just as we do. But only man occupies such a position in nature that this convergence of lines is not merely apparent but structural. ... By virtue of the quality and biological properties of thought, we find ourselves at a unique point, at a node dominating a whole section of the cosmos currently open to our experience. The center of perspective — man — is simultaneously the center of construction of the universe. ... "From the very beginning of his existence man has been a spectacle to himself. In fact, for tens of centuries he has looked only at himself. Yet he has barely begun to acquire a scientific view of his significance in the physics of the world. ... I think that there can scarcely be a greater moment for a thinking being than when the scales fall from his eyes and he discovers that he is not a particle lost in the cosmic silence, but rather a point of concentration and hominization of the universal striving toward life. Man is not the static center of the world, as he long believed, but the axis and the apex of evolution, which is far more beautiful." [Teilhard de Chardin, 1987, pp. 37–40]. Teilhard supports his thought with natural-scientific arguments as well as with the results of inquiries into his own soul. From the standpoint of modern science, this is the introduction of extraneous evidence, merely reflecting the author's bias. But precisely when considering the question of man's place in the world, one cannot neglect that by virtue of which we are able to pose this problem to ourselves at all. In this light, the existence of each individual person and of the Universe turn out to be mutually interconnected. "Starting from facts discovered in the very depths of my consciousness, I come to the thought that by virtue of his 'being-in-the-world' man possesses a special sense by which he more or less dimly apprehends the One of which he is a part. After all, there is nothing surprising in the existence of this 'cosmic sense.' As a sexual being, man possesses the intuition of love. Since he is an element, why should he not dimly feel the attraction of the Universe? ... Once the feeling of the One is awakened in oneself, the at first vague contours of a universal Reality begin to take shape as we grope our way. ... The first thing that presents itself to me with a clarity I have no thought of contesting is that the unity of the world is of a dynamic, or evolutionary, nature. ... Formerly we regarded ourselves and the objects around us as closed 'points.' Now living beings appear before us like equal threads being spun in the world process. Behind, everything plunges into the abyss of the past. And ahead, everything rushes into the abyss of the future. Through its history, every living being partakes of the entire temporal extension, and its ontogenesis is but an infinitely small particle of the cosmogenesis in which, ultimately, the individuality and, as it were, the physiognomy of the Universe find their expression." [Teilhard de Chardin, 1992, pp. 143–145]. Anthropocentricity as the Most Important Archetype Alongside my consciousness the course of planets is fulfilled, and if God is not in me, there is no God above. Igor Guberman We have examined the analogy between the cosmogonic and the biological problems. Stepping outside the bounds of a single science is capable of opening new dimensions of the question under consideration. It may be possible to examine our topic even more broadly, by attempting to step outside the bounds of natural-scientific analysis. The example of the problem of purposiveness shows that the degree of its paradoxicality depends on the general worldview of the investigator. Is it possible, while remaining within some science, to raise the question of the existence of its subject matter, of the external — for that science — meaning of its objects? By widening the scope of our inquiry, we shall discover that the ideas of man's key position in the world, of his connectedness and unity with the entire Universe, pervade the whole of world culture. "Contemporary applied biology, and medicine in particular, has in practice largely taken the path of 'bashful anthropocentrism': the effects of a range of natural substances and a considerable number of toxins are studied from the consideration that all of them to one degree or another may prove useful to man. This is a path that has already borne not insignificant fruit, but one must not close one's eyes: this is merely old folk medicine, revived on a more elevated foundation, based on an anthropocentric worldview." [Lyubishchev, 1982, p. 160]. In order to see that anthropocentrism is not simply one of those ideas that come and go in their own time, one may follow Heidegger. Heidegger provides an example of modern philosophy that dispenses with the subject–object opposition, placing the concept of existential Being at the forefront. He emphasizes that "...the almost absurd but fundamental process of modern European history... [consists in the fact that] the more widely and radically man disposes of the subjugated world, the more objective the object becomes, the more subjectively — that is, in an ever more assertive manner — the subject advances itself, the more irresistibly does the contemplation of the world and the science of the world transform themselves into the science of man, into anthropology." [Heidegger, 1993, p. 56] In giving a historical explanation of the development of this new form of humanism, Heidegger emphasizes that it could not have appeared, for example, in antiquity. And immediately, in a remarkable way, he quotes Protagoras: "Of all things the measure is man — of things that are, that they are; of things that are not, that they are not." May one suppose that this idea "floats in the air," being natural to human nature? One may turn to the approach developed by C. G. Jung. We are wrong to distrust the lawful manifestation of facts of a psychic nature, considering them not to meet our criteria of objectivity. Where a contradiction arises — even an apparent one — between facts of a physical and psychic nature, the psychic facts are customarily considered subjective and disregarded. Priority is thereby given to the secondary over the primary; the self-apprehending psychic reality denies itself the right to exist. According to Jung, for the researcher of man the primary possibility of cognition consists in the analysis of primary material — psychic phenomena. When this viewpoint is accepted, stable complexes of ideas are discovered, subjective in their nature yet not confined to the limits of a single personality either in their appearance or their existence — archetypes. "...the rationalistic mind of the West has advanced... and has come to a complete standstill — inevitably, on account of the absurd assumption that all psychology is subjective and personal." Jung. [1991, p. 84]. Apparently, the unity of man and the world, the connection of the meanings of their being, is a powerful and ancient archetype. This is not the place to cite examples of its reflections in culture — there are too many. Here one may appeal only to ordinary experience. There exists a kind of conspiracy among educated people. Each of them in his daily activity scarcely ever steps outside the anthropocentric model of the World. People take an umbrella so that it will not rain; they say "I knew it," upon meeting someone they had been thinking of; they fear tempting fate by speaking of something anticipated — in short, they behave as though they consider themselves the center of the universe. But when the discussion concerns not everyday experience but scientific truths, they turn 180 degrees, accepting the existence of a special, objective point of view, relative to which every individual human being is an insignificant particular. Man looks at everyday experience subjectively. On the contrary, when the discussion concerns one's conception of the world, it is customary to move one's point of view to an "objective" position — that is, to attempt to examine the problem from the standpoint of a dehumanized world or of God. Both are illusions. The "Very Strong" Anthropic Principle One night on a deserted road, Hodja Nasreddin saw a group of horsemen. Frightened, he leaped over a cemetery wall, fell into a grave, and lay motionless. The horsemen, who were peaceful travelers, became alarmed for his safety, stopped, found him, and asked: "Why are you lying here, good sir? We are here to help you!" Lying motionless in the grave, Nasreddin answered: "The matter is far more complicated than it appears to you. You see, I am here because of you, and you are here because of me!" We have established that the problems of anthropicity and purposiveness are to a large extent isomorphic. They may be parts of a more general problem of harmony, and the problem of harmony is not a purely scientific problem. Its solution depends on the worldview one adopts. "Science is never a worldview; it is merely its instrument. Whether this instrument falls into anyone's hands depends on the counter-question: what worldview does the given person already possess, for there exists no person who does not possess a worldview. In the extreme case, he has the worldview that has been imposed on him by upbringing and environment." Jung [1993, p. 241]. For example, if one regards the existence of the Universe as something that has meaning or purpose, then the problem of harmony will thereby be resolved as well (as happens with Teilhard). But what if there is no meaning? Even in that case, harmony can be accidental only if it pertains to two processes that are unconnected with each other. It is easy to see the dependence of anthropogenesis on cosmogenesis; the reverse dependence is much harder to perceive. The disparity in spatial and temporal scales is an obstacle. But here too one may draw an analogy from biology. For a very long time, the individual living organism seemed something negligible in comparison with the spatial and temporal immensity of the planet. The situation changed when V. I. Vernadsky showed that every organism is part of a process that is the leading factor in the evolution of the Earth. On the basis of what has been said, one may attempt to formulate a "very strong" anthropic principle, which might be stated as follows: "The existence of the Universe, of humanity, and of each individual human being are inextricably connected parts of a single process, coordinated with one another." References Augustine of Hippo. Confessions. Moscow: 1992. Berg L. S. Works on the Theory of Evolution. Leningrad: 1977. P. Davis. The Accidental Universe. Moscow: Mir, 1985. Kazyutinsky V. V. The Anthropic Principle and Problems of Worldview. // Natural Science in the Struggle against the Religious Worldview. Moscow: 1988. Lyubishchev A. A. Problems of Form, Systematics, and the Evolution of Organisms. Moscow: Nauka, 1982. Ogurtsov A. P. The Anthropicity of Biology and Images of Man. // Biology in the Cognition of Man. Moscow: 1989. Prigogine I., Stengers I. Order Out of Chaos. Moscow: Progress, 1986. Teilhard de Chardin, P. The Phenomenon of Man. Moscow: 1987. Teilhard de Chardin, P. The Divine Milieu. Moscow: Renaissance, 1992. Heidegger M. Being and Time. Moscow: 1993. Jung C. G. Archetype and Symbol. Moscow: 1991. Jung C. G. Problems of the Soul of Our Time. Moscow: 1993.