e-ISSN 2289-6023 International Journal of Islamic Thought ISSN 2232-1314 Vol. 15: (Dec.) 2019 2019 ly ly Ju Purpose of the Creation of Man: Quran’s True Version of 17 August 2019 August Anthropic Principle 6 1 JAVED JAMIL Received: 2 Accepted: ABSTRACT Scientists, especially theoretical physicists and cosmological philosophers have always wondered the beauty of the universe, especially how it has led to the creation or evolution of intelligent beings like us. There is a certain, wondrous beauty in the underlying plan. This question has become the topic of an interesting debate: What is our place in the Universe and was the Universe made for us? These debates have more often than not been influenced by the dominant philosophies of life in the contemporary world, often pushed by the dominant political and economic forces. As the last few centuries have been dominated by the atheistic or agnostic philosophies, Anthropic Principle has been defined in a way suitable for the forces. Quran, the Holy Book of Islam, on the other hand, presents a different version of the questions related to Anthropic Principle, which describes a specific purpose of the creation of man, his relationship with God and the Universe. This has been named “True Anthropic Principle” by the author of this paper. Keywords: anthropic principle, creation of man, Islam, purpose of creation, the Quran It appears that there is a set of fundamental physical constants that are such that had they been very slightly different, the universe would have been void of intelligent life. This led to the beginning of the debate on what became known as Anthropic Principle. In the major part of the Twentieth Century, the success of science in understanding the macroscopic, microscopic and cosmological worlds led to the strong belief that it is possible to form an entirely scientific explanation of any feature of the Universe. The dominant principle was the Copernican Principle, the idea that no scientific theory should invoke a special place or aspect to humans (Gingerich 1985). Things started changing when our understanding of physics and biology started unveiling a unique specialness to our Universe, regarding the existence of intelligent life (abysss.uoregon.edu). There are several constants associated with the Laws of Nature. These include the gravitational constant, the speed of light, the electric charge, the mass of the electron, and Planck's constant. If these constants even slightly change, there will be a radical change in the resulting universe. These have been summed up in an article, entitled, The Anthropic Principle as follows: 1. “Gravitational constant: If lower, then stars would have insufficient pressure to overcome Coulomb barrier to start thermonuclear fusion (i.e. stars would not shine). If higher, stars burn too fast, use up fuel before life has a chance to evolve. (The Coulomb barrier is the energy barrier due to electrostatic interaction that two nuclei need to overcome so they can get close enough to undergo a nuclear reaction.) 1 Javed Jamil, Ph.D., is Head of Chair in Islamic Studies & Research, Yenepoya University, Mangaluru, KARNTAKA, India, email: [email protected]. https://doi.org/10.24035/ijit.16.2019.005 51 Purpose of the Creation of Man: Quran’s True Version of Anthropic Principle Javed Jamil 2. Strong force coupling constant: Holds particles together in nucleus of atom. If weaker then multi-proton particles would not hold together, hydrogen would be the only element in the Universe. If stronger, all elements lighter than iron would be rare. Also, radioactive decay would be less, which heats core of Earth. 3. Electromagnetic coupling constant: Determines strength of electromagnetic force that couples’ electrons to nucleus. If less, then no electrons held in orbit. If stronger, electrons will not bond with other atoms. Either way, no molecules.” All the above constants are critical to the formation of the basic building blocks of life. The range of possible values for these constants is only about 1 to 5%. Outside this range, life (in particular, intelligent life) would be impossible to emerge.” The writer has asked three important questions: 1. Why is there any structure at all to the Universe; 2. Why does this structure lead to the capability for life to exist, and 3. Why does life lead too intelligence to understand this structure?”. So, the fact emerges that the universe is fine-tuned to allow the emergence of the intelligent beings. If this is so, there are three possibilities: 1. There exists one possible Universe `designed' with the goal of generating and sustaining `observers'; or, 2. The Universe is a fluke, a random object and we are just lucky it turned out with the right conditions. 3. The Universe is not fine-tuned; quite the opposite is the case, life conditions are very rare, but life is robust. Plus, there can be other forms of life besides carbon-based life. 4. An ensemble of other different universes is necessary for the existence of our Universe (multiple universes) (abysss.uoregon.edu). So, the writer concludes, “the philosophical dilemma is that the constants of the Universe on a microscopic (atomic constants), macroscopic (electromagnetic forces) and cosmological levels all appear to be extremely fine-tuned in order for life and intelligence to evolve.” (abysss.uoregon.edu). Types of Anthropic Principle Let us try to understand more about the various versions of Anthropic Principle. John D. Barrow and Frank Tipler, explained the Strong Anthropic Principle (SAP) stating that the universe is in some sense compelled to eventually have conscious and sapient life emerge within it. Brandon Carter argued in favour of a Weak Anthropic Principle (WAP) which states that the universe's ostensible fine tuning is the result of a type of selection for universes that are habitable by life: i.e., only in a universe capable of eventually supporting life will there be living beings capable of observing and reflecting on the matter (Merriam Webster Online Dictionary). The Weak rather than Strong principle earned more favour from the Scientific community because the Strong Principle can ultimately convince people about the inevitability of God as the Creator and the Lord of the Universe, something which is contrary to the philosophy of the current World Order dominated by the forces of politics and economics; that cannot tolerate God in Sciences because it could lose their grip on the minds of the people and the change in their attitudes could cause huge loss to their economic and political designs. Dicke (1961) argued that the age of the universe, as seen by the living observers, cannot be random. Instead, he argued that we are living in a "golden age", because biological factors constrain the universe to be more or less in an age which is neither too young nor too old. Dicke (1961) later reasoned that the density of matter in the universe must be almost exactly the critical density needed https://doi.org/10.24035/ijit.16.2019.005 52 e-ISSN 2289-6023 International Journal of Islamic Thought ISSN 2232-1314 Vol. 16: (Dec.) 2019 to prevent the Big Crunch. (The Big Crunch is a hypothetical concept about the ultimate fate of the universe, which means that instead of continuing to expand, expansion being the most believed concept, the reverse will happen leading to the collapse of the entire universe to a point). The scientists have calculated that the observed density of baryonic matter, and some theoretical predictions of the amount of dark matter, account for about 30% of this critical density, with the rest contributed by a cosmological constant. According to Weinberg (1987), the cosmological constant has a remarkably low value, some 120 orders of magnitude smaller than the value particle physics predicts and according to him this is the "worst prediction in physics" . If the cosmological constant were only several orders of magnitude larger than its observed value, the universe would suffer catastrophic inflation. This would have precluded the formation of star systems and life would not have emerged. Strong Anthropic principle (SAP) has been defined differently by different people. Barrow and Tipler (1997) defined it as follows: "The Universe must have those properties which allow life to develop within it at some stage in its history." Unlike the case with Carter's SAP, the "must" is an imperative in this definition. Barrow and Tipler (1986) give three possible elaborations: 1. There exists one possible Universe 'designed' with the goal of generating and sustaining 'observers'. 2. Observers are necessary to bring the Universe into being. 3. An ensemble of other different universes is necessary for the existence of our Universe. The first one can be seen as simply the classic design argument restated in the garb of contemporary cosmology. It implies that to give rise to intelligent life is the very purpose of the universe, with the laws of nature and their fundamental physical constants set to ensure that a specific form of life like ours will emerge and evolve. According to Barrow and Tipler the second is a valid conclusion from quantum mechanics. On the other hand, Carter merely says that an ensemble of universes is necessary for the Strong Anthropic Principle to count as an explanation. Quran’s Position: True Anthropic Principle Anthropic Principle, especially the Strong Anthropic Principle has come closer to what has been the established position of Islam since the time of Prophet Muhammad. There is a significant difference though. As scientists have vowed to keep God out of the arena of Sciences, they have given an atheistic definition of Anthropic Principles. It will be explained below in detail as to why there has been such an antagonism towards accepting the role of a Designer behind the wonderful Design and the Planner behind the Grand Plan that the Universe obviously is.