Starship Asterisk*

http://insti.physics.sunysb.edu/~siegel/parodies/misanthrope.html wrote:

The Misanthropic Principle
V. Gates, M. Roachcock, E. Kangaroo, and W.C. Gall
Anthropillogical Institute of New York

ABSTRACT: Recently the Anthropic Principle has been misapplied, telling more about the people who try to apply it than its supposed application to the rest of the world.
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Contents

This paper is very short, yet not as short as some people's attention spans, so we include a Table of Contents to take you directly to whatever section you're interested in. It also allows us to make the paper a little longer.

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    1. Contents		you're already there
    2. Introduction		look down a little
    3. Misdirection		just a page away
    4. String theory		OK, click on the link, lazy
    5. Cosmology		the link is on the left
    6. Concussions		no, your other left
    7. Glossary		at the end, obviously

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This paper is so famous, it needs no

Introduction

There is some confusion¹ about the definition of the Anthropic Principle. Basically, it's the observation that certain properties of our "immediate" environment follow from our very existence.² The most primitive example would be Descartes' famous

I think, therefore I am.³

Recently this principle has been applied to astronomy. A proper example is

• 1. There's lots of water on Earth.
  2. There isn't a whole lot of water on any other planet I've seen (or star, for that matter).
  3. Therefore, the fact that I see water on Earth is just because I wouldn't want to live here otherwise, as the real estate values would be too low.

An inappropriate use of this principle would be

• 1. Water is wet on Earth.
  2. On some planet I can't possibly ever see, water is not wet.
  3. Therefore, the fact that I find water on Earth to be wet is just because I wouldn't be able to wash otherwise.

Or as Descartes might put it,

I think, therefore I am wet.

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• * ¹ Generally, there is a lot of confusion. This makes it hard to distinguish the present confusion from the rest. Of course, this just leads to more confusion. In that regard, this footnote hasn't really helped very much. Sorry.
  * ² This should not be confused with
  • o the Anthropoid Principle: the statement that the nature of the world as we know it is due to the existence of monkeys,
    o the Arthropod Principle: the same but for bugs,
    o the Anthophilous Principle: for flowers.
  * ³ A corollary is "I think I am thinking, therefore I think I am."

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Misdirection

Of course, the latter type of argument carries a hidden assumption. Much worse than that, it actually carries a hidden argument. This hidden argument we call⁴ the Misanthropic Principle. It goes something like this⁵:

• 1. I can't solve this problem.
  2. Therefore, you can't solve this problem.
  3. Hence, this problem can't be solved.
  4. So, it's got to be just dumb luck.

The basic idea is clearly, "How dare you try to tell me that my theory has been unsuccessful in predicting this experimental result, when the fact that my theory doesn't imply this result obviously proves it can't be predicted!" Some time in the past, a similar widely accepted idea was the Anthropocentric Principle, which led to the idea that the Earth must be the center of the Universe (geocentrism), since that's where people are. Eventually this was disproven by monkeys living on the Sun.

Interestingly, the Misanthropic Principle can be applied to experiment as well as to theory:

• 1. I can't see anything reasonable, just this highly unlikely coincidence.
  2. We couldn't have made any systematic errors, we just made the same assumptions everybody's been making all along.
  3. So, it's got to be just dumb luck.
  For example, astronomers once concluded that the Milky Way was the center of the Universe, since it was 10 times larger than all the other galaxies, until Hubble realized he was missing a "0".

........................................................................................................................

• * ⁴ We call a lot of things, as you may have noticed from other articles in this series.
  * ⁵ The step that relates the first 2 statements is actually a corollary of the Sour Grapes argument. The argument encompassing the first 3 statements is often used independently, generally by referees for journals.

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String theory

Originally⁶ it was thought that there were 5 string theories. Then it was realized that there is only 1 M theory. However, there appeared to be an infinite number of compactifications to 4 dimensions. Later, a more careful estimate gave only 10⁵⁰⁰. Recently it was realized, based on the (mis)anthropic principle, that only 1 billionth of these can accomodate the Standard SuperModel. This reduces the number of relevant compactifications to a mere 10⁴⁹¹.

This application of the misanthropic principle is called the Landscape. The landscape is almost infinite, but it is also rather barren (except for a few gerbes), so if you are nearsighted enough it may seem that there are not too many possibilities around.
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• * ⁶ "Originally" means around the time of the Heterotic String Revolution, not to be confused with the slightly earlier Superstring Revolution.
  * ⁵⁰⁰ No, it's really an exponent, not a footnote. You don't seriously think there could realistically be 500 footnotes, do you?
  * ⁴⁹¹ Still an exponent, though 491 seems a much more reasonable number of footnotes.

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Cosmology

Cosmology is the opposite of string theory: Instead of starting with 10 or 11 dimensions, and compactifying most of them, you start with no dimensions (except time), and the Big Bang uncompactifies 3 of them. The major problems are then:

1. When are the other 6 or 7 going to come out, too?
2. If they aren't, then why did the original 3 in the first place?

Of course, string theory has the same problem, but at least in string theory, when you compactify a dimension, it stays compactified. So you can try combining string theory with cosmology, hoping their problems will cancel each other out. But instead they combine into one big problem, namely,

What made me think this was a good idea in the first place?

Now it's time to apply the misanthropic principle. There has been some work in this area⁷, trying to prove people can't exist in 2 spatial dimensions; unfortunately, it seems they can, even if they are a bit disgusting⁸. And there is no proof people can't exist in more than 3 spatial dimensions.
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• * ⁷ A. Square, Flatland (1884)
  * ⁸ 2 spatial dimensions could thus be eliminated on the basis of the Anthropomorphic Principle.

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Concussions

Finally, we would like to summarize our results, but all of this⁹ has given us a headache¹⁰. We'll come back to it after we finish teaching:

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Schedule

1st Chern class	9:35-10:30
2nd Chern class	10:40-11:35

• * 9 discuss, from Latin dis- ‘apart’ + quatere ‘shake’
  * 10 concuss, from Latin con- ‘together’ + quatere ‘shake’

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Glossary

Most of these terms have already been defined in the text, but we provide all their homographic definitions here for purposes of variety.

• * Anthophilous Principle: something that appears in the dictionary next to "anthropic"
  * Anthropic Principle: principle of last resort
  * Anthropocentric Principle: what that principle really stands for
  * Anthropoid Principle: invented by monkeys on typewriters
  * Anthropomorphic Principle: looks like a principle
  * Arthropod Principle: I always get those confused
  * geocentrism: theory that the Earth has a creamy center
  * gerbe: a sheaf of categories that burrows in arid areas
  * Landscape: the orientation of your monitor
  * Misanthropic Principle: the title of this paper!
  * Standard SuperModel (SSM): prettiest generalization of accepted particle theory

bystander wrote: I don't think, therefore I am not.

owlice wrote:

bystander wrote: I don't think, therefore I am not.

Heh. Around here, some might rephrase that as

I don't think, therefore I work on the Hill.

http://www.capitolhillhistory.org/library/04/Jenkins%20Hill.html wrote:
The Mysterious Mr. Jenkins of Jenkins Hill:
The Early History of the Capitol Site

John Michael Vlach
THE CAPITOL DOME, SPRING 2004

<<The ground on which the United State Capitol now stands was from the earliest moments of English settlement known as the New Troy tract. Granted in 1663 by the Second Lord Baltimore to George Thompson, it was one of three substantial parcels that Thompson would own within the bounds of the future District of Columbia. His holdings encompassed some 1800 acres or slightly more than one-fourth of all the land that would be allotted for the site of the capital city. While the 500 acres that constituted New Troy would change hands six times, it was until 1791 never known by any other name (see Fig. 1). When Daniel Carroll of Duddington finally conveyed this property to the Federal Government, the site for Capitol was still indicated on the official deed as New Troy. The classical allusion encountered in this name was consistent with other names that other early settlers had assigned to their farms. Thompson's neighbor Francis Pope called his 400-acre farm "Rome" and the stream that flowed along its eastern edge the "Tiber." It was, he must have thought, a much better and more imaginative name than its earlier and more prosaic designation of "Goose Creek." Classical allusions signaled lofty goals and they would prove to be very appealing all across the nation well into the nineteenth century.

Fig. 1: [b][color=#0000FF]A much better & more imaginative name than 'Goose Creek'[/color][/b]

---

[img3="Figure 4. Map showing the location of Thomas Jenkins' 54-acre tract on Capitol Hill and the probable path of the old " Ferry Road" across Capitol Hill. (Base contour map with locations of various property holdings and public roadways are from Don A. Hawkins, “Topography of the federal city, 1791”, Geography and Map Division, Library of Congress; boundaries of Thomas Jenkins' property as determined by Priscilla McNeil [see Fig. 1] were added by John Michael Vlach."]http://www.capitolhillhistory.org/libra ... chfig4.jpg[/img3]

Today most guidebooks for Washington, DC describe Capitol Hill as a neighborhood comprising about four square miles with the Capitol building standing at its western edge. In their attempts to be clear about the Capitol's location, the authors of these guides will often add that the site of building is actually called Jenkins Hill. This claim is also encountered on websites posted by various members of Congress, the Library of Congress, the Architect of the Capitol, and the National Park Service. Not one of these authorities specifies who Jenkins was and why his name is so prominently associated with such an important site. Seemingly, the habit of continued repetition and the eminence of those who repeat the claim have combined to make the label credible. A few writers suggest that a Thomas Jenkins once leased a portion of Daniel Carroll's estate near the future location of Capitol in order to pasture his cows and as consequence of this transaction, Jenkins's name became associated with the site. Given that Christian Hines, the nineteenth-century memorist commonly cited as the authority for the existence of this lease, places two men named Jenkins in the northwestern section of the city between Rhode Island Avenue and New York Avenues, the case for the simultaneous presence of one of these men the site of the Capitol seems rather feeble. Further, John Trumbull, painter of several murals in the Capitol rotunda, reported in 1791 that he found the site to be a "thick woods." It was thus an unlikely place for pasturing livestock of any sort. After almost a century of speculation on the identity of the Jenkins of Jenkins Hill, the judgment made by local historian Margaret Brent Downing back in 1918 still holds: "the exact reason that the name Jenkins is continually associated with this hallowed spot remains to be explained."

It is Pierre Charles L'Enfant who first uses the name Jenkins Hill. Offered the commission to design a seat of government for the fledgling American republic in the spring of 1790, he began to search out the best locations for a meeting place for the Congress, a presidential residence, and several other public offices in January of 1791. Stymied at first by poor weather, on March 11, 1791 he wrote to George Washington that he had at last been able to inspect the "gradual rising ground from Carrollsburg toward the ferry road," the land we recognize today as the southern half of Capitol Hill. Nine days later he wrote again to report that he had mapped out more of the territory between the Anacostia River and Tiber Creek "so much as included Jenkin's Hill and all the water course from round Carroll point up to the Ferry landing." By June 22, 1791, L'Enfants' vision of a future capital city had matured considerably with respect both to building locations and the potent vista that they might collectively present. About the future site of the Capitol, he brags to Washington "for other eligible situations . . . I could not discover one in all respects so advantageous . . . for erecting the Federal Hse. [as] the western end of Jenkin's Heights [which] stands really as a pedestal waiting for a superstructure."

After L'Enfant fixes the name Jenkin's Hill on the Capitol site, both Washington and Jefferson follow his lead. However, because L'Enfant offered alternate renderings of the name -- sometimes as "hill" and other times as "heights" -- it would seem that he was not entirely sure just what the prominent ridge at the western end of Capitol Hill should be called. Further, he was apparently unaware that the site, which had belonged to a branch of the prominent Carroll family since 1758, was already known as New Troy. In the midst of the public enthusiasm for the emerging capital city only a brief mention that appeared in the Maryland Journal and Baltimore Advertiser on July 5, 1791 recalled the deeper history of the Capitol site: "It appears that the buildings of the Legislature are to be placed on Jenkin's Hill on the land of Daniel Carroll, esq. of Duddington . . .." This was the last time the name of the property owner who conveyed his land to the federal government would be publicly linked with the Capitol site. While Carroll would serve with distinction as City Commissioner and gain a reputation as both a successful businessman and a committed supporter of Washington City, his connection to the Capitol has been almost completely forgotten. There is today little public awareness that the ground appropriated as the site for one of our most celebrated symbols of liberty was, in the last analysis, actually Carroll's gift to the nation.

Beyond recognizing a certain irony in the fact that the land that once belonged to Daniel Carroll is now assigned to a mysterious man named Jenkins, one also wonders just how it was that L'Enfant came to choose this particular name. While L'Enfant supplies no explanation, for eight months -- from October 17, 1790 to June 1, 1791 -- a Thomas Jenkins did own fifty-four acres on Capitol Hill. His parcel was located about seven blocks to the east of the Capitol building (See Fig. 1), roughly a mile from the site that is now regularly called Jenkins Hill. Since this was most likely the same Thomas Jenkins who also owned an apple orchard in the northwestern quadrant of Washington, his brief acquisition of an additional small plot in the more sparsely settled part of the District suggests his plan to cut down trees either for building timbers or for firewood.

In the Federal Census of 1800 the household of Thomas Jenkins was recorded as consisting of a white male and four male slaves, a crew sufficient to turn a quick profit on a fifty-four-acre plot. The presence of such a gang of hands is important to the naming of Capitol Hill because the path of the ferry road mentioned by L'Enfant in his letters to Washington ran right over Jenkin's parcel (Fig. 4). Given that there was no other way, at that time, to travel across Capitol Hill, L'Enfant almost certainly encountered Jenkins or one of his slaves. While such a meeting can only be conjectured, it does suggest why, of all the possible labels that one might assign to a relatively untamed wooded plateau, L'Enfant would fasten on the name Jenkins.>>

owlice wrote:
I know Goose Creek. I have a map of Goose Creek. There is nothing wrong with Goose Creek!

~ Boo-Boo Burnes

neufer wrote: Why is there a large smooth area around her middle?

neufer wrote:

http://insti.physics.sunysb.edu/~siegel/parodies/misanthrope.html wrote:
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String theory

Originally⁶ it was thought that there were 5 string theories. Then it was realized that there is only 1 M theory. However, there appeared to be an infinite number of compactifications to 4 dimensions. Later, a more careful estimate gave only 10⁵⁰⁰. Recently it was realized, based on the (mis)anthropic principle, that only 1 billionth of these can accomodate the Standard SuperModel. This reduces the number of relevant compactifications to a mere 10⁴⁹¹.