A general Friedmann big-bang cosmology can be specified by fixing a
half-dozen cosmological parameters such as the photon-to-baryon ratio Eta, the
cosmological constant Lambda, the curvature scale R, and the amplitude Q of
(assumed scale-invariant) primordial density fluctuations. There is currently
no established theory as to why these parameters take the particular values we
deduce from observations. This has led to proposed `anthropic' explanations for
the observed value of each parameter, as the only value capable of generating a
universe that can host intelligent life. In this paper, I explicitly show that
the requirement that the universe generates sun-like stars with planets does
not fix these parameters, by developing a class of cosmologies (based on the
classical `cold big-bang' model) in which some or all of the cosmological
parameters differ by orders of magnitude from the values they assume in the
standard hot big-bang cosmology, without precluding in any obvious way the
existence of intelligent life. I also give a careful discussion of the
structure and context of anthropic arguments in cosmology, and point out some
implications of the cold big-bang model's existence for anthropic arguments
concerning specific parameters.Comment: 13 PRD-style pages, 2 postscript figures. Reference 26 corrected.
Accepted to Phys. Rev.
