While
Carter's concepts of the
anthropic principle are readily accepted by many
philosophers, humorist
Terry Pratchett has come up with his own
extension of this kind of thought:
The
Special and Inevitable Anthropic Principle appears in the book
Hogfather:
Many people are aware of the Weak and Strong Anthropic Principles. The Weak One says, basically, that it was jolly amazing of the universe to be constructed in such a way that humans could evolve to a point where they make a living in, for example, universities, while the Strong One says that, on the contrary, the whole point of the universe was that humans should not only work in universities but also write for huge sums books with words like "Cosmic" and "Chaos" in the titles.
...
The UU Professor of Anthropics had developed the Special and Inevitable Anthropic Principle, which was that the entire reason for the existence of the universe was the eventual evolution of the UU Professor of Anthropics. But this was only a formal statement of the theory which absolutely everyone, with only some minor details of a "Fill in name here" nature, secretly believes to be true.
He then applies this
theory to himself, in one of his jacket liners:
Terry Pratchett lives in England, an island off the coast of France, where he spends his time writing Discworld novels in accordance with the Very Strong Anthropic Principle, which holds that the entire Purpose of the Universe is to make possible a being that will live in England, an island off the coast of France, and spend his time writing Discworld novels. Which is exactly what he does. Which proves the whole business true. Any questions?
http://www.digiserve.com/eescape/closet/pratchett/Hogfather.html
http://www.dreamhavenbooks.com/pratchett.html