Online research in philosophy

When it is suggested that the fine-tuning of the universe for life provides evidence for a cosmic designer, the multiple-universe hypothesis is often presented as an alternative. Some philosophers object that the multipleuniverse hypothesis fails to explain why this universe is fine-tuned for life. We suggest the “This Universe” objection is no better than the “This Planet” objection. We also fault proponents of the “This Universe” objection for presupposing that we could not have existed in any other universe and that the values of the free parameters of the Universe could have been different. Lastly, we reflect on why fine-tuning for life needs explaining.

The fundamental constants that are involved in the laws of physics which describe our universe are finely tuned for life, in the sense that if some of the constants had slightly different values life could not exist. Some people hold that this provides evidence for the existence of God. I will present a probabilistic version of this fine-tuning argument which is stronger than all other versions in the literature. Nevertheless, I will show that one can have reasonable opinions such that the fine-tuning argument doesn't lead to an increase in one's probability for the existence of God. The fine-tuning argument Objective versus subjective probability Observational selection effects The problem of old evidence Against the fine-tuning argument Many universes.

ports the thesis that there exist very many universes. The view has found favor with a number of philosophers such as Derek Parfit ~1998!, J. J. C. Smart ~1989! and Peter van Inwagen ~1993!.1 My purpose is to argue that this is a mistake. First let me set out the issue in more detail.

It is shown that, for certain classes of cosmological model which either postulate or give rise to infinitely many universes, only a measure zero subset of the set of possible universes above a given size can in fact be physically realized. It follows that claims to explain the fine tuning of our universe on the basis of such models by appeal to the existence of all possible universes fail.

In this paper, we discuss three probabilistic arguments for the existence of multiple universes. First, we provide an analysis of total evidence and use that analysis to defend Roger White's "this universe" objection to a standard fine-tuning argument for multiple universes. Second, we explain why Rodney Holder's recent cosmological argument for multiple universes is unconvincing. Third, we develop a "Cartesian argument" for multiple universes. While this argument is not open to the objections previously noted, we show that, given certain highly plausible assumptions about evidence and epistemic probability, the proposition which it treats as evidence cannot coherently be regarded as evidence for anything. This raises the question of whether to reject the assumptions or accept that such a proposition cannot be evidence.

Many theists regard the claim that certain fundamental constants of nature are fine-tuned for life as the best scientific argument for the existence of God since Paley’s watch. Even atheist physicists find these so-called “anthropic coincidences” difficult to explain naturally and many think they need to invoke multiple universes and the so-called “anthropic principle” to do so. Certainly if there are many universes, fine-tuning is simple. Our universe is not fine-tuned for life. Life is fine-tuned to our universe. While multiple universes are expected from modern cosmological theories, theists and some scientists object that invoking the unobservable is not science. Of course, God is unobservable too, so the best theists can claim is a standoff.

The most common objection to fine tuning arguments for theism is that there are, or might be, multiple universes among which the fundamental physicalconstants and parameters vary. This essays describes the two main variants of this objection and argues that they both fail.

The Fine-Tuning Argument (FTA) is a variant of the Design Argument for the existence of God. In this paper the evidence of fine-tuning is explained and the Fine-Tuning Design Argument for God is presented. Then two objections are covered. The first objection is that fine-tuning can be explained in terms of the existence of multiple universes (the 'multiverse') plus the operation of the anthropic principle. The second objection is the 'normalizability problem'– the objection that the Fine-Tuning Argument fails because fine-tuning is not actually improbable.

In this article I examine a common objection to the fine-tuning argument (an objection which may be referred to as the atheistic many universes (AMU) objection). A reply to this objection due to Roger White has been the subject of much controversy; White's reply has been criticized by Rodney Holder, on the one hand, and Neil Manson and Michael Thrush on the other. In this paper I analyze Holder's work in an effort to determine whether the AMU objection successfully defeats the fine-tuning argument. I conclude that the fine-tuning argument can be reformulated so as to avoid the AMU objection.