Sounds like this is about using the anthropic principle in situations of logical uncertainty. You say, “what if there’s a new theory where most possible values of basic physical properties favor life”, but you don’t know whether there’s any such theory, and whether there is such a theory is a logical (mathematical) fact.
This debate exists in string theory. People used to expect that string theory would predict a single unique ground state for the universe, which would lead to predictions about particle masses and so forth, and this would make string theory falsifiable. Now very large numbers of apparently stable or metastable string vacua have been constructed, and there’s a view that some combination of anthropic and statistical thinking will be required to get predictions.
However, the real story is simply that string theory is still a work in progress, and we still don’t know the right way to think about cosmology in string theory, and cosmology is half the necessary context for this problem. The other half is the dynamics of the “geometric moduli”, the parameters describing the Calabi-Yau spaces and so forth, and that isn’t solved either. String theorists still haven’t even constructed a vacuum which provably gives you back the standard model—because the particle masses depend on the moduli dynamics, and the moduli dynamics are very difficult, though progress is occurring.
The next level of progress beyond moduli dynamics is the cosmological level, and that’s where we’ll find out whether eternal inflation or Hawking’s no-boundary proposal or something else is the right way to think about the very big picture. And incidentally, the whole history of string theory suggests that there will be a specific right way to approach the problem.
We aren’t at that level yet, and so meanwhile people speculate about the degree to which the anthropic principle might be relevant in string theory. But perhaps you can see that these speculations are not like empirical speculations; they are speculations about a logical fact. Whether or not the anthropic principle plays a role in getting predictions out of string theory is a question which “platonically” already has an answer. We only have an anthropic debate in string theory because the theory is unfinished and we don’t know its answer to that question yet. So it’s exactly an example of what you’re talking about.
Sounds like this is about using the anthropic principle in situations of logical uncertainty. You say, “what if there’s a new theory where most possible values of basic physical properties favor life”, but you don’t know whether there’s any such theory, and whether there is such a theory is a logical (mathematical) fact.
This debate exists in string theory. People used to expect that string theory would predict a single unique ground state for the universe, which would lead to predictions about particle masses and so forth, and this would make string theory falsifiable. Now very large numbers of apparently stable or metastable string vacua have been constructed, and there’s a view that some combination of anthropic and statistical thinking will be required to get predictions.
However, the real story is simply that string theory is still a work in progress, and we still don’t know the right way to think about cosmology in string theory, and cosmology is half the necessary context for this problem. The other half is the dynamics of the “geometric moduli”, the parameters describing the Calabi-Yau spaces and so forth, and that isn’t solved either. String theorists still haven’t even constructed a vacuum which provably gives you back the standard model—because the particle masses depend on the moduli dynamics, and the moduli dynamics are very difficult, though progress is occurring.
The next level of progress beyond moduli dynamics is the cosmological level, and that’s where we’ll find out whether eternal inflation or Hawking’s no-boundary proposal or something else is the right way to think about the very big picture. And incidentally, the whole history of string theory suggests that there will be a specific right way to approach the problem.
We aren’t at that level yet, and so meanwhile people speculate about the degree to which the anthropic principle might be relevant in string theory. But perhaps you can see that these speculations are not like empirical speculations; they are speculations about a logical fact. Whether or not the anthropic principle plays a role in getting predictions out of string theory is a question which “platonically” already has an answer. We only have an anthropic debate in string theory because the theory is unfinished and we don’t know its answer to that question yet. So it’s exactly an example of what you’re talking about.
Assuming string theory is actually correct. As opposed to say loop quantum gravity or something we haven’t even thought of.