amennen

Why are there monks? The Catholic church supports them, right? What does the church get from the monks, or accomplish through the monks? What do they do? Sorry if the question seems a little pointed; I don't mean any offense to your former life, I'm just trying to understand what it even is.

Two questions: first, I know that if you start randomly changing physical constants, you get a dead universe, but might there be other configurations of the physical constants distant from ours that would also allow for life to evolve? If so, what might living in such a universe be like?

Also, do you have opinions on what the correct way to interpret anthropic evidence is (the self-sampling assumption, the self-indication assumption, or something else)?