The Non-trivial character of the Weak Anthropic Principle

Abstract

In contemporary debates on the status of the Anthropic Principle, the Weak Anthropic Principle (WAP) appears noncontroversial from the standpoint of the natural sciences. It states that the observed values of physical parameters belong to the small set of values required for genesis of carbon-based life [1, p. 15], WAP is evidently free of the strong metaphysical assumptions underlying either the Participatory or the Final variant of the Anthropic Principle. Its critics, however, when trying to question its philosophical significance, argue that WAP is trivial; the very fact of our existence implies that these parameters assume the values necessary for the emergence of carbon-based life. In this approach, stronger versions of the Anthropic Principle could by philosophically significant, but they are physically unfounded; WAP is physically justified but philosophically trivial.