ANCIENT ORIGINS OF A MODERN ANTHROPIC
COSMOLOGICAL ARGUMENT
Dr. Milan M. Ćirković
Astronomical Observatory Belgrade
Volgina 7
11000 Belgrade
YUGOSLAVIA
e-mail: arioch@eunet.yu
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ANCIENT ORIGINS OF A MODERN ANTHROPIC COSMOLOGICAL
ARGUMENT
Abstract. Ancient origins of a modern anthropic argument against cosmologies involving
infinite series of past events are considered. It is shown that this argument—which in modern
times has been put forward by distinguished cosmologists like Paul C. W. Davies and Frank J.
Tipler—originates in pre-Socratic times and is implicitly present in the cyclical cosmology of
Empedocles. There are traces of the same line of reasoning throughout the ancient history of
ideas, and the case of a provocative statement of Thucydides is briefly analyzed. Moreover,
the anthropic argument has been fully formulated in the epic of Lucretius, confirming it as the
summit of ancient cosmology. This is not only of historical significance but presents an
important topic for the philosophy of cosmology provided some of the contemporary
inflationary models, particularly Linde's chaotic inflation, turn out to be correct.
1. Introduction: Davies-Tipler argument
The simplest division of all cosmologies is into two broad classes: those postulating
the eternal universe and those which postulate some origin of the universe, or at least the part
of it that cosmologists are currently inhabiting. Eternal universes (and here by eternal I mean
either those with no temporal beginning or end or those with no beginning only) are the only
ones which could pretend to adopt some sort of stationarity, a condition which is of singular
importance in many branches of physics (among other issues because the law of energy
conservation is closely connected with a translational symmetry of time), and which is
certainly seen as greatly simplifying the solution of specific problems everywhere. For a long
period of time, after the religious dogma about Creation in 4004 BC (or any other specific
date) was abandoned, the universe has been considered eternal, although great minds, such as
Newton's, began to perceive some of the difficulties associated with such a proposition (e.g.
North 1965). The resistance to any opposing view (which eventually became what is today
dubbed the standard cosmology) was exceedingly strong during most of the nineteenth and
the early twentieth century. It is epitomized in the words of one of the pioneers of modern
astrophysics, Sir Arthur Eddington, who in his authoritative monograph The Nature of the
Physical World wrote: "As a scientist, I simply do not believe that the universe began with a
bang."1 From the end of the Middle Ages until Hubble’s observational revolution in the third
decade of the twentieth century, the stationary worldview has been in one way or another the
2
dominant one. This explains, among other issues, the dramatic reaction of most of the
scientific community, including Lord Kelvin, Holmes, Eddington, Crookes, Jeans and others,
to the discoveries of Clausius, Boltzmann and other thermodynamicists, implying a
unidirectional flow of time and physical change. Interestingly enough, even during this epoch
the idea—today one of most investigated issues in physics—that the thermodynamical arrow
of time originates in cosmology, has occasionally surfaced (Steckline 1983; Price 1996, and
references therein).
The power of a stationary alternative to the evolutionary models of the universe has
been reiterated in particularly colorful form during the great cosmological controversy in late
1940-ies, 1950-ies and early 1960-ies (Kragh 1996). Although during this period of conflict
between the Big Bang and the classical steady state theories numerous and very
heterogeneous arguments appeared on both sides of the controversy, the argument based on
the anthropic selection effect was only explicitly formulated a decade after the disagreements
ended. As it is well known, the debate ceased when empirical arguments persuaded by far the
largest part of the cosmological community that a universe of finite age is the only empirically
acceptable concept.2 However, the argument based on the anthropic principle has been further
developed during the 1980s and has gained relevance in a new and developing field of
quantum cosmology (together with other aspects of anthropic reasoning). This brief note is
dedicated to investigation of its origin in the ancient philosophy of nature, while the detailed
consideration of its range, scope and various versions is forthcoming (manuscript in
preparation).
The modern version of the anthropic argument against the past infinite series of events
(or the past temporal infinity in relationist terms; see the discussion below) has appeared in a
short notice by Paul C. W. Davies appearing in Nature in June 1978 (Davies 1978). In this
succinct critique of the Ellis et al. (1978) static cosmological model Davies points out that
there is also the curious problem of why, if the Universe is infinitely old and life is
concentrated in our particular corner of the cosmos, it is not inhabited by
technological communities of unlimited age.
The same idea has been further developed and put on a mathematical footing by Tipler
(1982). As claimed by Barrow and Tipler (1986) in their encyclopaedic monograph on
anthropic principles, this is historically the first instance in which an anthropic argument has
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been used against cosmology containing the past temporal infinity. As we shall see in the rest
of this study, this claim is only partially correct, since the thinkers in antiquity have been
aware of a similar argumentation. However, it is indeed fascinating that the same argument
had not been considered earlier in the course of XX century. The suprise is strengthened by
the fact that cosmologies postulating an infinite past in scientific or half-scientific form have
existed since the very dawn of science. In addition, since ancient times a belief in the
existence of other inhabited worlds has also been present, in one form or another.3 Today, the
scepticism sometimes encountered against this mode of thinking is even stranger, when
various (and, at least in some cases, not quite inexpensive) SETI projects testify to the
reasonable degree of belief in the existence of technological civilizations other than the
human one. Their technological nature (the same one which produces the problem Davies
wrote about) is a conditio sine qua non of any sensible SETI enterprise. In this short note, we
shall try to recall some of the instances this argument has surfaced in the ancient cosmological
thought, while leaving the deep tracing of its elements and possibly a wide survey to a
subsequent work.
2. Empedocles’ uniformitarianism and reductionism
An ancient echo of this type of argumentation can be recognized in the surviving
fragments of some of the most distinguished Hellenic philosophers of nature. From our point
of view especially interesting is the cyclic cosmology of Empedocles of Acragas (VI-V
century BC), in which the universe is eternal,4 consisting of the internally immutable four
classic elements, as well as two opposing forces (Love and Strife, i.e. attractive and repulsive
interactions). The cyclic motion of matter in the universe is governed by the change in relative
intensities of two interactions (see the excellent discussion in O'Brien 1969). It is interesting
to note that Empedocles' cosmology is uniformitarian, in the sense that all six basic
constituents (four elements and two forces between them) are present in each instant of time
in accordance with the eternal principles of mutual exchange. In some of the surviving
fragments, Empedocles implies that although this uniformitarianism may seem
counterintuitive, as we see things coming into being and vanishing, this is just our special
perspective (today we would say anthropocentrism) and not the inherent state of nature.5
This is strikingly similar to the uniformitarian notions present in some of the most
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authoritative cosmological models of the twentieth century, notably the classical steady state
theory (Balashov 1994). The connection is strikingly relevant when the fact that the classical
steady state theory entails an infinite past is taken into account.
However, the most interesting aspect of this cosmological picture is what occurs
within each individual great cosmic cycle. Probably the most lasting and controversial legacy
of Empedoclean cosmology is his assertion that biological and even anthropological evolution
are inherent, necessary and inseparable parts of the global cosmological evolution (Guthrie
1969). Thus, speaking on the four elements, he states
For out of these have sprung all things that were and are and shall be – trees and
men and women, beasts and birds and the fishes that dwell in the waters, yea, and
the gods that live long lives and are exalted in honor.
For these things are what they are; but, running through one another, they
take different shapes – so much does mixture change them.6
However, if we accept this view—which we shall call an “Empedoclean picture” in the
further text—that biological evolution and the appearance of consciousness and intelligence
are contingent upon cosmological processes, the eternal universe of Empedocles faces the
same kind of problem as that of modern stationary cosmologies like the classical steady state
theory or the one of Ellis et al. criticized by Davies. Why then, in the supposed infinity of
time, are “men and women, beasts and birds” of finite, and relatively small, age? Empedocles
may have perceived this himself (his mode of thinking, and even his theory of
metempsychosis, were closer to the modern anthropic mode of thinking than most of the later
physicists and philosophers), and he evades the problem in the only natural way he can: by
postulating two singular states in the beginning and in the middle of each of his great cycles.
These singular states are moments (in the absolute time!) of complete dominance of either
Love (an ancient equivalent of the modern initial and/or final singularities) or Strife (no true
equivalent, but similar to the modern version of heat death in the ever-expanding
cosmological models; see, for instance, Davies 1994). In these states the life, with its complex
organizational structure, is impossible and therefore they serve as termini for the duration of
any individual history of life and intelligence. The maximal duration of any form of life
and/or intelligence is determined exclusively by cosmological laws. Therefore, there are no
arbitrarily old beings, and anthropic argument is inapplicable.
5
It is worth noting that the Empedoclean reductionist picture of the relationship
between biological and psychological processes on one hand, and physical and cosmological
processes on the other, has become quite common in the ancient philosophical thought after
Empedocles. It is also present, for instance, in cosmologies postulating finite age of the
universe, or at least a finite duration of world histories, such as in Anaxagoras' system.
According to the testimony of Diodorus (I 7, 7), Euripides has, in his lost tragedy Melanippa,
described—clearly under the influence of his teacher Anaxagoras—the rise of plants, animals
and humans as an ultimate consequence of separation of the Heavens and the Earth from their
primordial unity; which is another suprisingly modern picture. With the rise of Socrates, and
subsequently Platonic and Aristotelian philosophy, and in particular during the age of faith,
this line of thinking became discontinued; in a sense it has only inherited worthy successors in
the modern thought contained in philosophical considerations of both quantum mechanics and
cosmology (e.g. Schrödinger 1944; Barrow and Tipler 1986; Smolin 1997). We can not treat
these reissues of the Empedoclean picture in the course of this study. However, it is worth
noticing that the problems facing such contingency of biological upon cosmological processes
have also been noted in antiquity by several famous authors.
3. Repetitions in antiquity
In the very first chapter of the immortal history of Thucydides, there is a famous
statement that before his time—i.e. about 450 BC—nothing of importance (συ μεγαλα
γευεσθαι) had happened in history. This startling statement has been correctly called
“outrageous” by Spengler, and used to demonstrate the essentially mythological character of
ancient Greek historiography (Spengler 1918; see also Cornford 1965). It may indeed be
outrageous from the modern perspective, but it does motivate a set of deeper questions,
ultimately dealing with cosmology. The fact that Thucydides did not know (or did not care to
know) previous historical events does not change the essential perception of finiteness of
human history inseparable from the Greek thought. This property starkly conflicts with the
notion of an eternal continuously existent world, as it was presented in both modern and
ancient cultures. Obviously, it is irrelevant which exact starting point we choose for unfolding
historical events. In any case, the number of these events is finite, and the timespan
considered small even compared to the specific astronomical timescales (some of which, like
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the precession period of equinoxes, were known in the classical antiquity, as is clear from the
discussion in Timaeus), not to mention anything about a past temporal infinity. Although
there was no scientific archaeology in the ancient world, it was as natural then as it is now to
expect hypothetical previous civilizations inhabiting Oikumene to leave some traces—in fact,
an infinite number of traces for an eternally existent Oikumene! There are indications that
pre-Socratic thinkers have been aware of the incompatibility of this “Thucydidean” finiteness
of historical past with the eternal nature of the world. We have already mentioned the solution
(periodic singular states) proposed by Empedocles himself. Even earlier, in the fragmentary
accounts of the cosmology of Anaximandros, one may note that he proposed an evolutionary
origin of humankind in some finite moment in the past, parallel with his basic postulate of
separation of different worlds from apeiron and their subsequent returning to it.7 In
Anaxagoras’ worldview, there is a famous tension between the eternity of the world’s
constituents and the finite duration of movement (and, therefore, relational time) in the world.
In the same time, it seems certain that Anaxagoras, together with Anaximandros and
Empedocles, was an early proponent of the evolutionary view, at least regarding the origin of
humankind (Guthrie 1969).
Finally, an almost modern formulation of the anthropic argument against the past
temporal infinity has been made in Roman times by Lucretius, who in Book V of his famous
poem De Rerum Natura wrote the following intriguing verses:
Besides all this,
If there had been no origin-in-birth
Of lands and sky, and they had ever been
The everlasting, why, ere Theban war
And obsequies of Troy, have other bards
Not also chanted other high affairs?
Whither have sunk so oft so many deeds
Of heroes? Why do those deeds live no more,
Ingrafted in eternal monuments
Of glory? Verily, I guess, because
The Sun is new, and of a recent date
The nature of our universe, and had
Not long ago its own exordium.8
7
For highly scientific-minded Lucretius, the shortness of human history is very strange on the
face of hypothesis of the eternal existence of the world. Although the references to “eternal
monuments” and “other bards” may sound naive, it is clear that he had in mind any form of
transmission of information from the past to the present; and an infinite amount of
information from an infinite past. His empirical assessment of the surrounding world clearly
shows the absence of such information. Therefore, an explanation is needed. The simplest
explanation, as Lucretius was highly aware, is to treat the argument as reductio ad absurdum
of the starting hypothesis (eternal nature of the world) and to assume that the world is of
finite—and relatively small—age.
The depth of Lucretius' thought in this passage is almost amazing, especially when the
historical blindness of subsequent generations to this same argumentation is taken into
account. The Lucretius' argument applies to the classical Newtonian universe of infinite age,
as well as to modern stationary alternatives to the evolutionary cosmology. It emphasizes the
technological nature of possible evidence (“ingrafted in… monuments”). This is exactly what
modern cosmologists Davies and Tipler have had in mind when constructing the anthropic
argument in order to refute the eternal cosmologies of our epoch. Lucretius' monuments play
essentially the same role as Tipler's von Neumann probes sent by advanced intelligent
communities (Tipler 1982). Thus, Lucretius undoubtedly presents a summit of ancient
philosophical discussion of the question of the age of the world.
4. Lessons
We have seen another instance surprising modernity of views and debates of the classical
world in respect to the issues of (i) the age of the universe, and (ii) the place of intelligent
observers in it. However, most of lessons of it seemed to be forgotten in the course of history,
and it is therefore not surprising to find many fallacies and misleading statements in the
modern sources on these same questions. Notably, the Empedoclean issue whether
cosmological evolution leads to intelligence and consciousness seem to be abused in what one
may term the cosmological double standard towards the conditions for existence of intelligent
observer. On the one hand, scientists do regard our presence (and presence of any other
intelligent observers which may exist in the universe) as purely incidental, and hesitate to
draw strong conclusions about nature from the facts of our existence (e.g. Pagels 1998). All
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resistance encountered by the anthropic principles testifies on that. On the other hand, we are
often asked to a priori assume that life, intelligence and consciousness are of natural origin,
and that we need not invoke any supranatural (or even just non-physical) causes in
explanation of their appearance in the universe. This double standard dealing with the
inference or non-inference from the emergence of intelligent observers is closely connected
with the temporal double standard, which is the source of many fallacious statements
concerning the temporal asymmetry of the physical world (Price 1996). The connection
becomes more visible when we take into account the almost trivial conclusion, explicitly
formulated and defended by Dyson in his classical paper, founding the young discipline of
physical eschatology (Dyson 1979):
It is impossible to calculate in detail the long-range future of the universe without
including the effects of life and intelligence. It is impossible to calculate the
capabilities of life and intelligence without touching, at least peripherally,
philosophical questions. If we are to examine how intelligent life may be able to
guide the physical development of the universe for its own purposes, we cannot
altogether avoid considering what the values and purposes of intelligent life may
be. But as soon as we mention the words value and purpose, we run into one of the
most firmly entrenched taboos of twentieth-century science.
Future of the universe containing life and intelligence is essentially different from the past of
the same universe in which there were no such forms of complex organization of matter.9 The
Empedoclean picture of continuity between physical and biological evolution implies a form
of temporal asymmetry and contradicts the crude atemporal interpretations based on
preserving the mind-matter dualism. This raises a host of issues dealing with the impact of
complexification, as manifested through biological and subsequent psychological evolution
on the universe as a whole, as well as issues in the philosophy of mind, which we cannot
discuss here. Whether a more sophisticated atemporal description is capable of accounting for
these anthropic restrictions, remains to be seen.
We have not traced the origination of the Davies-Tipler argument in depth, nor put it
in the wider context of ancient cosmologies. This represents an entirely different, vastly more
difficult enterprise. However, it is our modest hope that we have demonstrated freshness,
novelty and relevance of ideas of ancient thinkers in the interplay with some of the most
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active areas of modern scientific and philosophical research, such as theoretical cosmology
and philosophy of time.
The core lesson of the entire case of the anthropic argument against cosmologies
containing past temporal infinities is, however, located on a deep epistemological level. As a
side effect of both the Copernican revolution and the Cartesian dualism, the implicit rejection
of the pre-Socratic picture of the inseparability of the cosmological, biological and
anthropological domains led to an inevitable delay in noticing a powerful and specific
cosmological argument. Further discussions on this topic, as well as further discussions of the
future of physical universe, will have to explicitly take into account the existence and
activities of intelligent observers. This will manifest itself not only in retrodictions about the
cosmological past, as the original anthropic argument of Dicke and Carter has been
traditionally used, but also through the predictive aspect of cosmology. These physical
eschatological considerations will necessarily be of multidisciplinary character, so desirable in
this latest epoch of development of our picture of the universe. In this respect, reinvestigation
and reevaluation of the ancient sources of modern cosmology will certainly be seen as noble
and rewarding endevoar.
References
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Balashov, Yu. 1994, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 25B, 933.
Barrow, J. D. and Tipler, F. J. 1986, The Anthropic Cosmological Principle (Oxford
University Press, New York).
Burnet, J. 1908, Early Greek Philosophy (Adam and Charles Black, London).
Cornford, F. 1965, Thucydides Mythistoricus (Greenwood Press Publishers, New York).
Davies, P. C. W. 1978, Nature 273, 336.
Davies, P. C. W. 1994, The Last Three Minutes (Basic Books, New York).
Diels, H. 1983, Presocratic Fragments (Naprijed, Zagreb).
Dyson, F. 1979, Rev. Mod. Phys. 51, 447.
Eddington, A. S. 1928, The Nature of the Physical World (Cambridge University
Press, London).
Ellis, G. F. R., Maartens, R. and Nel, S. D. 1978, Mon. Not. R. astr. Soc. 184, 439.
10
Fairbanks, A. 1898, The First Philosophers of Greece (K. Paul, Trench & Trubner,
London).
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London).
Kragh, H. 1996, Cosmology and Controversy (Princeton University Press, Princeton).
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(Oxford University Press, London).
O'Brien, D. 1969, Empedocles' Cosmic Cycle (Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge).
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Books, New York), p. 180.
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Oxford).
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1 Eddingtom (1928), p. 85. It is interesting to note that these words of Eddington preceded for more than two
decades the coining of the expression “Big Bang”, so they should not be interpreted as a critique of a particular
model (after all, the first model which could, in a loose sense, be called a Big Bang model, was constructed by
Lemaître only in 1931), but as rejection of the general concept of originating of the world in a finite moment of
time.
2 The most complete review of modern cosmological paradigm may be found in the monograph of Peebles
(1993).
3 For a sketch from the pen of a “contact pessimist” see Tipler (1981).
4 It seems clear that Empedocles held a sort of the absolutist (substantivalist) theory of the nature of time. In
particular, the fragment B 16 of the Diels collection reads (according to the translation of Burnet 1908): “For of a
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truth they (Strife and Love) were aforetime and shall be; nor ever, methinks, will boundless time be emptied of
that pair.”
5 Another pioneering contribution of Empedocles lies exactly in separation (the earliest one in Western thought!)
of physical nature and artifacts of human cognizance. See, for instance, the Diels' fragment B8, reading (in
Burnet’s translation): “There is no coming into being of aught that perishes, nor any end for it in baneful death;
but only mingling and change of what has been mingled. Coming into being is but a name given to these by
men.” Even more telling along the same lines are fragments B11 and B15.
6 Fragment B 21 in Diels (1983), translation by Burnet (1908). Similar content can be found in B 20.
7 This is clear, for instance, from the fragment A 10 in Diels (1983), preserved by Plutarch, in which it is
explicitly asserted that formation and destruction of many worlds occurs within the global temporal infinity. In
the continuation of the very same excerpt from Stromateis, an evolutionary doctrine is attributed to
Anaximandros: “...Farther he says that at the beginning man was generated from all sorts of animals, since all the
rest can quickly get food for themselves, but man alone requires careful feeding for a long time; such a being at
the beginning could not have preserved his existence.” (Fairbanks 1898) Hyppolites quotes Anaximandros as
emphasizing the nature of apeiron as eternal (B 2), obviously in opposition to mankind, which has a fixed
beginning in time. Even more intriguing is the doctrine ascribed to Anaximandros by Cicero: “It was the opinion
of Anaximandros that gods have a beginning, at long intervals rising and setting, and that they are the
innumerable worlds. But who of us can think of god except as immortal?” Did he have in mind essentially what
we today denote as supercivilizations?
8 In translation of William E. Leonard, available via WWW Project Gutenberg (Lucretius 1997).
9 Of course this statement is not to be understood in the trivialized sense which is sometime ascribed to the
anthropic thinking as a whole. It is possible not only to imagine a counterfactual present universe with no life in
it (that is exactly the position usually taken in physical science where this counterfactual universe is identified
with the real one, and any discrepancy is discarded as anthropocentrism, a useful if not always recommendable
practice), but to imagine, and even calculate the properties of a future universe with no effects of life and
intelligence. This anti-Dysonian approach is still present in physical eschatology and it may as well lead to
useful and informative approximations (e.g. Adams and Laughlin 1997).