When should you engage with difficult arguments against your cherished controversial beliefs? The primary conclusion of this book is that your obligations to engage with counterarguments are more limited than is often thought. In some standard situations, you shouldn't engage with difficult counterarguments and, if you do, you shouldn't engage with them open-mindedly. This conclusion runs counter to aspects of the Millian political tradition and political liberalism, as well as what people working in informal logic tend to say about argumentation. (...) -/- Not all misleading arguments wear their flaws on their sleeve. Each step of a misleading argument might seem compelling and you might not be able to figure out what's wrong with it. Still, even if you can't figure out what's wrong with an argument, you can know that it's misleading. One way to know that an argument is misleading is, counterintuitively, to lack expertise in the methods and evidence-types employed by the argument. When you know that a counterargument is misleading, you shouldn't engage with it open-mindedly and sometimes shouldn't engage with it at all. You shouldn't engage open-mindedly because you shouldn't be willing to reduce your confidence in response to arguments you know are misleading. And you sometimes shouldn't engage closed-mindedly, because to do so can be manipulative or ineffective. -/- In making this case, Jeremy Fantl discusses echo chambers and group polarization, the importance in academic writing of a sympathetic case for the opposition, the epistemology of disagreement, the account of open-mindedness, and invitations to problematic academic speakers. (shrink)

Within the Cognitive Science of Religion, Justin Barrett has proposed that humans possess a hyperactive agency detection device that was selected for in our evolutionary past because ‘over detecting’ (as opposed to ‘under detecting’) the existence of a predator conferred a survival advantage. Within the Intelligent Design debate, William Dembski has proposed the law of small probability, which states that specified events of small probability do not occur by chance. Within the Fine-Tuning debate, John Leslie has asserted a tidiness principle (...) such that, if we can think of a good explanation for some state of affairs, then an explanation is needed for that state of affairs. In this paper I examine similarities between these three proposals and suggest that they can all be explained with reference to the existence of an explanation attribution module in the human mind. The forgoing analysis is considered with reference to a contrast between classical rationality and what Gerd Gigerenzer and others have called ecological rationality. (shrink)

One version of the argument for design relies on the assumption that the apparent fine-tuning of the universe for the existence of life requires an explanation. I argue that the assumption is false. Philosophers who argue for the assumption usually appeal to analogies, such as the one in which a person was to draw a particular straw among a very large number of straws in order not to be killed. Philosophers on the other side appeal to analogies like the case (...) of winning a lottery. I analyze the two analogies and explain why the lottery analogy is the right one to use. In the light of such an analysis, we can see that although the cosmic feature of being life-permitting is rare, it does not allow life-permitting possible universes to stand out because there are other rare cosmic features that other possible universes have. (shrink)

This disagreement extends to the fundamental details of physical and biochemical theories. On the other hand, (2) There is almostuniversal agreementthatlife did notfirstcome aboutmerely by chance. This is not to say that all scientists think that life’s existence was inevitable. The common view is that given a fuller understanding of the physical and biological conditions and processes involved, the emergence of life should be seen to be quite likely, or at least not very surprising. The view which is almost universally (...) rejected by researchers in the field is that the numerous and prima facie improbable physical and biological requirements for life all fell together just by a fluke, like so many dice tumbling out of a bag and landing all sixes. Most importantly, for the purposes of the following discussion, (3) The conviction that life did not arise largely by chance is treated as epistem- ically prior to the development of alternative theories. C 2007, Copyright the Authors Journal compilation C 2007, Blackwell Publishing, Inc. (shrink)

If God is morally perfect then He must perform the morally best actions, but creating humans is not the morally best action. If this line of reasoning can be maintained then the mere fact that humans exist contradicts the claim that God exists. This is the ‘anthropic argument’. The anthropic argument, is related to, but distinct from, the traditional argument from evil. The anthropic argument forces us to consider the ‘creation question’: why did God not create other gods rather than (...) humans? That is, if God is omniscient, omnipotent, and morally perfect then why didn’t He create a world populated exclusively by beings that are perfect in the same way that He is—ontological equivalents— rather than choosing to create humans with finite natures and all the suffering that this entails? (shrink)

Evidence for instances of astrophysical ‘fine tuning’ (or ‘coincidences’) is thought by some to lend support to the design argument (i.e. the argument that our universe has been designed by some deity). We assess some of the relevant empirical and conceptual issues. We argue that astrophysical fine tuning calls for some explanation, but this explanation need not appeal to the design argument. A clear and strict separation of the issue of anthropic fine tuning on one hand and any form of (...) Eddingtonian numerology and teleology on the other, may help clarify arguably the most significant issue in the philosophy of cosmology. (shrink)

“Absence of evidence isn’t evidence of absence” is a slogan that is popular among scientists and nonscientists alike. This article assesses its truth by using a probabilistic tool, the Law of Likelihood. Qualitative questions (“Is E evidence about H ?”) and quantitative questions (“How much evidence does E provide about H ?”) are both considered. The article discusses the example of fossil intermediates. If finding a fossil that is phenotypically intermediate between two extant species provides evidence that those species have (...) a common ancestor, does failing to find such a fossil constitute evidence that there was no common ancestor? Or should the failure merely be chalked up to the imperfection of the fossil record? The transitivity of the evidence relation in simple causal chains provides a broader context, which leads to discussion of the fine-tuning argument, the anthropic principle, and observation selection effects. (shrink)

GRW theory offers precise laws for the collapse of the wave function. These collapses are characterized by two new constants, \ and \ . Recent work has put experimental upper bounds on the collapse rate, \ . Lower bounds on \ have been more controversial since GRW begins to take on a many-worlds character for small values of \ . Here I examine GRW in this odd region of parameter space where collapse events act as natural disasters that destroy branches (...) of the wave function along with their occupants. Our continued survival provides evidence that we don’t live in a universe like that. I offer a quantitative analysis of how such evidence can be used to assess versions of GRW with small collapse rates in an effort to move towards more principled and experimentally-informed lower bounds for \. (shrink)

I argue that the standard way of formalizing the fine-tuning argument for design is flawed, and I present an alternative formalization. On the alternative formalization, the existence of life is not treated as the evidence that confirms design; instead it is treated as part of the background knowledge, while the fact that fine tuning is required for life serves as the evidence. I argue that the alternative better captures the informal line of thought that gives the fine-tuning argument its intuitive (...) plausibility, and I show that the alternative formalization avoids all of the most prominent objections to the fine-tuning argument, including the objection from observation selection effects, the problem of old evidence, the problem of non-normalizable probability measures and a further objection due to Monton. I conclude that the alternative formalization is the one that attention should be focused on. (shrink)

This paper articulates a way to ground a relatively high prior probability for grand explanatory theories apart from an appeal to simplicity. I explore the possibility of enumerating the space of plausible grand theories of the universe by using the explanatory properties of possible views to limit the number of plausible theories. I motivate this alternative grounding by showing that Swinburne’s appeal to simplicity is problematic along several dimensions. I then argue that there are three plausible grand views—theism, atheism, and (...) axiarchism—which satisfy explanatory requirements for plausibility. Other possible views lack the explanatory virtue of these three theories. Consequently, this explanatory grounding provides a way of securing a nontrivial prior probability for theism, atheism, and axiarchism. An important upshot of my approach is that a modest amount of empirical evidence can bear significantly on the posterior probability of grand theories of the universe. (shrink)

By the end of the twentieth century, many prominent cosmologists were fascinated by the questions why is the universe the way it is, and why does the universe appear to be just right for life to emerge.1 Indeed, the shift to posing questions beginning with why rather than what or how is a relatively recent development in modern cosmology. This paper begins by looking at the emergence of why questions in cosmological discourse by tracing affiliated anthropic reasoning and fine-tuning arguments (...) in cosmology. I also consider recent suggestions that the laws of physics may themselves evolve. In response to the why questions, this paper then examines the proliferation of multiverse discourse in the late twentieth... (shrink)

The most common objection to the Fine-Tuning Argument for the Multiverse is that the argument commits the Inverse Gambler’s Fallacy. Simon Friederich has recently composed an interesting version of this fine-tuning argument that avoids this fallacy and better-matches important scientific instances of anthropic reasoning. My thesis in this paper is that this new argument, while it may avoid the fallacy, contains a disputable premise concerning the prior probabilities of the hypotheses at issue. I consider various ways to modify the argument (...) to avoid this problem, but I argue that plausible replacements render other lines unjustified. I also briefly compare ‘indexical’ fine-tuning arguments such as Friederich’s, according to which our universe permits life, to ‘existential’ fine-tuning arguments, according to which some universe or other permits life. I conclude that while Friederich is correct that the new fine-tuning argument avoids the Inverse Gambler’s Fallacy, the argument nevertheless depends on an unjustified premise, and this is further reason for proponents of fine-tuning arguments for the multiverse to employ existential arguments rather than indexical arguments. (shrink)

I offer an account of ad hocness that explains why the adoption of an ad hoc auxiliary is accompanied by the disconfirmation of a hypothesis H. H must be conjoined with an auxiliary a′, which is improbable antecedently given H, while ~H does not have this disability. This account renders it unnecessary to require, for identifying ad hocness, that either a′ or H have a posterior probability less than or equal to 0.5; there are also other reasons for abandoning that (...) condition. I distinguish between formal ad hocness, which is bad in the probabilistic sense that it results in disconfirmation of H, and argumentative ad hocness, which actually involves bad reasoning on the part of a subject. The latter is what I call “not counting the cost.” This distinction allows us to see why the 0.5 condition appeared attractive in the first place. The concept of not counting the cost also has implications for other areas of research, including both a Bayesian concept of unfalsifiability and the classic epistemological question of the problem of the external world. (shrink)

The pressure to individuate propositions more finely than intensionally—that is, hyper-intensionally—has two distinct sources. One source is the philosophy of mind: one can believe a proposition without believing an intensionally equivalent proposition. The second source is metaphysics: there are intensionally equivalent propositions, such that one proposition is true in virtue of the other but not vice versa. I focus on what our theory of propositions should look like when it's guided by metaphysical concerns about what is true in virtue of (...) what. In this paper I articulate and defend a metaphysical theory of the individuation of propositions, according to which two propositions are identical just in case they occupy the same nodes in a network of invirtuation relations. Invirtuation is here taken to be a primitive relation of metaphysical explanation exemplified by propositions that, in conjunction with truth, defines the notion of true in virtue of. After formulating the theory, I compare it with a view.. (shrink)

The discovery that the universe is fine-tuned for life ? a discovery to which the phrase ?the anthropic principle? is often applied ? has prompted much extra-cosmic speculation by philosophers, theologians, and theoretical physicists. Such speculation is referred to as extra-cosmic because an inference is made to the existence either of one unobservable entity that is distinct from the cosmos and any of its parts (God) or of many such entities (multiple universes). In this article a case is mounted for (...) the sceptical position that cosmic fine-tuning does not support an inference to anything extra-cosmic. To that end three definitions of ?fine-tuned for life? are proposed: the ?slight difference? definition, the (unconditional) probability definition, and John Leslie?s conditional probability definition. These three definitions are the only ones suggested by the relevant literature on fine-tuning and the anthropic principle. Since on none of them do claims of fine-tuning warrant an inference to something extracosmic, it is concluded that there is no definition of ?fine-tuned for life? serving this function. (shrink)

As Plato suggested, the cosmos may exist because this is ethically necessary. It then might well consist of infinitely many minds, each itself infinite through eternally knowing all that was worth knowing. Our universe would exist inside one of them, as a pattern in its thought. But intrinsic value could be a fiction, making Plato’s suggestion a non-starter. Again, indeterministic free will might have immense value. Those infinite minds could then differ from one another in constantly changing ways through the (...) free decisions of beings who lived, moved and had their being inside them. (shrink)

God is traditionally taken to be a perfect being, and the creator and sustainer of all that is. So, if theism is true, what sort of world should we expect? To answer this question, we need an account of the array of possible worlds from which God is said to choose. It seems that either there is (a) exactly one best possible world; or (b) more than one unsurpassable world; or (c) an infinite hierarchy of increasingly better worlds. Influential arguments (...) for atheism have been advanced on each hierarchy, and these jointly comprise a daunting trilemma for theism. In this paper, I argue that if theism is true, we should expect the actual world to be a multiverse comprised of all and only those universes which are worthy of creation and sustenance. I further argue that this multiverse is the unique best of all possible worlds. Finally, I explain how his unconventional view bears on the trilemma for theism. (shrink)

Methodological naturalism, the exclusion of the supernatural from the natural sciences, has drawn critique from both proponents of Intelligent Design and some philosophical naturalists who argue that the methods of science can also be used to evaluate supernatural claims. One principal objection to methodological naturalism has been what I call the truth seeking objection. In this article I develop an understanding of methodological naturalism capable of answering the truth seeking objection. I further also argue that methodological naturalism as a convention (...) of science can be best defended by abandoning scientism. In this way methodological naturalism can be reconnected to the original theistic context in which it was first developed. (shrink)

Several theistic arguments are formulated as arguments for the best explanation. This article discusses how one can determine that some phenomenon actually needs an explanation. One way to demonstrate that an explanation is needed is by providing one. The proposed explanation ought to either make the occurrence of the phenomenon in question more probable than it occurring by chance, or it has to sufficiently increase our understanding of the phenomenon. A second way to demonstrate that an explanation is needed is (...) to show that the phenomenon in question both violates our expectations and is particularly noticeable. (shrink)

The judgment that a given event is epistemically improbable is necessary but insufficient for us to conclude that the event is surprising. Paul Horwich has argued that surprising events are, in addition, more probable given alternative background assumptions that are not themselves extremely improbable. I argue that Horwich’s definition fails to capture important features of surprises and offer an alternative definition that accords better with intuition. An important application of Horwich’s analysis has arisen in discussions of fine-tuning arguments. In the (...) second part of the paper I consider the implications for this argument of employing my definition of surprise. I argue that advocates of fine-tuning arguments are not justified in attaching significance to the fact that we are surprised by examples of fine-tuning. (shrink)

This paper characterizes various responses to the question, 'Why does our universe exist?' Some responses- that the question is senseless, that the existence of our universe is logically necessary- are implausible. Adjudication between more plausible responses requires us to evaluate the argument from the 'fine-tuning' of the universe, a refurbished version of the argument from design that appeals to cosmology rather than biology. The evidence of fine-tuning should lead us to adopt, albeit provisionally, cosmological fecundity, the hypothesis that there exist (...) many universes of varying characters. The existence of our universe is thereby rendered less surprising. This is to be preferred both to the theistic hypothesis and to the view that the existence of our universe requires no explanation. (shrink)

Does the claimed fine-tuning of the constants of nature for life give reason to think that there are many other universes in which the constants have different values? Or does the inference from fine-tuning to a multiverse commit what Hacking calls the inverse gambler’s fallacy? The present paper considers two fine-tuning problems that seem promising to consider because they are in many respects analogous to the problem of the fine-tuned constants. Reasoning that parallels the inference from fine-tuning to a multiverse (...) seems prima facie adequate in these problems. However, it turns out that in both cases there are independent empirical reasons to believe the hypotheses that are analogous to the multiverse hypothesis. In the absence of such evidence, it would be coherent to raise the inverse gambler’s fallacy charge against the inference from fine-tuning to these multiverse-type hypotheses. In response to this finding, I suggest taking the possibility seriously that established standards of rationality may not allow us to decide whether the inference from fine-tuning to a multiverse is fallacious or not. The paper concludes by sceptically assessing the prospects for obtaining independent empirical evidence for concrete multiverse theories. (shrink)

The idea that there might be multiple universes with different parameters of nature is often considered an attractive response to the finding that various parameters appear to be delicately fine-tuned for life. The present paper investigates whether the appeal to fine-tuning can legitimately be combined with an appeal to independent empirical evidence for other universes or whether, as suggested by Cory Juhl, combining such appeals inevitably results in illegitimate double counting of the finding that the parameters are right for life. (...) In doing so, the paper takes into account the fact that the parameters' life-friendliness is old evidence for us, which makes Bayesianism's problem of old evidence relevant to Bayesian analysis of its evidential impact. Ultimately, the verdict reached is that the warning of double counting is helpful, but that double counting can in principle be avoided. The paper highlights remaining independent challenges against the fine-tuning argument for the multiverse. (shrink)

This paper has two aims. First, it points out a crucial difference between the standard argument from fine-tuning for the multiverse and paradigmatic instances of anthropic reasoning. The former treats the life-friendliness of our universe as the evidence whose impact is assessed, whereas the latter treat the life-friendliness of our universe as background information. Second, the paper develops a new fine-tuning argument for the multiverse which, unlike the old one, parallels the structure of paradigmatic instances of anthropic reasoning. The main (...) advantage of the new argument is that it is not susceptible to the inverse gambler’s fallacy charge. (shrink)

Many theists have argued that contemporary physics provides evidence for the existence of God, insofar as the fundamental laws of nature display evidence of having been fine-tuned to allow for the emergence of biological life. But some have objected that this evidence needs to be weighed against the conflicting evidence that biological life is a relatively late phenomenon in the universe. For if God really wanted the universe to contain life, such that He specifically designed its laws with this in (...) mind, why would He have set things up in such a way that it took billions of years for life to appear? One can employ this general concern to formulate an argument against intelligent design. In this paper I critically evaluate some existing theistic solutions to this sort of argument, and also propose several new lines of reply. (shrink)

Neil Sinhababu :89–98, 2017) has recently argued against the fine-tuning argument for God. They claim that the question of the universe’s fine-tuning ought not be ‘why is the universe so hospitable to life?’ but rather ‘why is the universe so hospitable to morally valuable minds?’ and that, moreover, the universe isn’t so hospitable. For it is metaphysically possible that psychophysical laws be substantially more permissive than they in fact are, allowing for the realisation of morally valuable consciousness by exceptionally simple (...) physical states and systems, rather than the complex states of brains. I reply that Sinhababu’s argument rests upon unsupported claims and that we have reason to doubt that an omnibenevolent God would make the psychophysical laws more permissive than they in fact are. (shrink)

This article defends the Doomsday Argument, the Halfer Position in Sleeping Beauty, the Fine-Tuning Argument, and the applicability of Bayesian confirmation theory to the Everett interpretation of quantum mechanics. It will argue that all four problems have the same structure, and it gives a unified treatment that uses simple models of the cases and no controversial assumptions about confirmation or self-locating evidence. The article will argue that the troublesome feature of all these cases is not self-location but selection effects.

The Doomsday argument purports to show that the risk of the human species going extinct soon has been systematically underestimated. This argument has something in common with controversial forms of reasoning in other areas, including: game theoretic problems with imperfect recall, the methodology of cosmology, the epistemology of indexical belief, and the debate over so-called fine-tuning arguments for the design hypothesis. The common denominator is a certain premiss: the Self-Sampling Assumption. We present two strands of argument in favor of this (...) assumption. Through a series of thought experiments we then investigate some bizarre prima facie consequences – backward causation, psychic powers, and an apparent conflict with the Principal Principle. (shrink)

John Leslie presents a thought experiment to show that chances are sometimes observer-relative in a paradoxical way. The pivotal assumption in his argument – a version of the weak anthropic principle – is the same as the one used to get the disturbing Doomsday argument off the ground. I show that Leslie's thought experiment trades on the sense/reference ambiguity and is fallacious. I then describe a related case where chances are observer-relative in an interesting way. But not in a paradoxical (...) way. The result can be generalized: At least for a very wide range of cases, the weak anthropic principle does not giverise to paradoxical observer-relative chances. This finding could be taken to give new indirect support to the doomsday argument. (shrink)

Analytical philosophers of religion widely assume that God is a person, albeit immaterial and of unique status, and the divine attributes are thus understood as attributes of this supreme personal being. Our main aim is to consider how traditional divine attributes may be understood on a non-personal conception of God. We propose that foundational theist claims make an all-of-Reality reference, yet retain God’s status as transcendent Creator. We flesh out this proposal by outlining a specific non-personal, monist and ‘naturalist’ conception (...) of God, which we call the ‘euteleological’ conception of God, and then considering euteleological interpretations of omnipotence, omniscience and divine goodness. (shrink)

On the assumption that theistic religious commitment takes place in the face of evidential ambiguity, the question arises under what conditions it is permissible to make a doxastic venture beyond one’s evidence in favour of a religious proposition. In this paper I explore the implications for orthodox theistic commitment of adopting, in answer to that question, a modest, moral coherentist, fideism. This extended Jamesian fideism crucially requires positive ethical evaluation of both the motivation and content of religious doxastic ventures. I (...) suggest that, even though the existence of horrendous evil does not resolve evidential ambiguity in favour of atheism, there are reasonable value commitments that would preclude those who hold them from satisfying extended Jamesian fideist conditions for committing themselves to classical theism. I then begin a discussion of a possible revisionary theistic alternative (in the Christian tradition) which – one might hope – may meet those conditions. An earlier, shorter, version of this paper was delivered as a keynote address at the APA Pacific 2007 Mini-Conference on Models of God. (shrink)

While there has been much discussion about what makes some mathematical proofs more explanatory than others, and what are mathematical coincidences, in this article I explore the distinct phenomenon of mathematical facts that call for explanation. The existence of mathematical facts that call for explanation stands in tension with virtually all existing accounts of “calling for explanation”, which imply that necessary facts cannot call for explanation. In this paper I explore what theoretical revisions are needed in order to accommodate this (...) phenomenon. One of the important upshots is that, contrary to the current consensus, low prior probability is not a necessary condition for calling for explanation. In the final section I explain how the results of this inquiry help us make progress in assessing Hartry Field’s style of reliability argument against mathematical Platonism and against robust realism in other domains of necessary facts, such as ethics. (shrink)

Philosophers of physics have long debated whether the Past State of low entropy of our universe calls for explanation. What is meant by “calls for explanation”? In this article we analyze this notion, distinguishing between several possible meanings that may be attached to it. Taking the debate around the Past State as a case study, we show how our analysis of what “calling for explanation” might mean can contribute to clarifying the debate and perhaps to settling it, thus demonstrating the (...) fruitfulness of this analysis. Applying our analysis, we show that two main opponents in this debate, Huw Price and Craig Callender, are, for the most part, talking past each other rather than disagreeing, as they employ different notions of “calling for explanation”. We then proceed to show how answering the different questions that arise out of the different meanings of “calling for explanation” can result in clarifying the problems at hand and thus, hopefully, to solving them. (shrink)

A new formulation of the Fine-Tuning Argument (FTA) for the existence of God is offered, which avoids a number of commonly raised objections. I argue that we can and should focus on the fundamental constants and initial conditions of the universe, and show how physics itself provides the probabilities that are needed by the argument. I explain how this formulation avoids a number of common objections, specifically the possibility of deeper physical laws, the multiverse, normalisability, whether God would fine-tune at (...) all, whether the universe is too fine-tuned, and whether the likelihood of God creating a life-permitting universe is inscrutable. (shrink)

In this article, I undertake the tasks: (i) of reconsidering Feigl’s notion of a ‘nomological dangler’ in light of recent discussion about the viability of accommodating phenomenal properties, or qualia, within a physicalist picture of reality; and (ii) of constructing an argument to the effect that nomological danglers, including the way qualia are understood to be related to brain states by contemporary dualists, are extremely unlikely. I offer a probabilistic argument to the effect that merely nomological danglers are extremely unlikely, (...) the only probabilistically coherent candidates being ‘anomic danglers’ (not even nomically correlated) and ‘necessary danglers’ (more than merely nomically correlated). After I show, based on similar probabilistic reasoning, that the first disjunct (anomic danglers) is very unlikely, I conclude that the identity thesis is the only remaining candidate for the mental–physical connection. The novelty of the argument is that it brings probabilistic considerations in favor of physicalism, a move that has been neglected in the recent burgeoning literature on the subject. (shrink)

NOTE TO READERS: My current research program is firmly grounded in the technical aspects of this dissertation. That said, my views have evolved significantly since writing it, e.g. I've flipped my views on the best working definition of 'determinism', and I no longer defend the viability of incompatibilist-impossibilism (I still grant the superficial logical consistency of the two views, but now contend that there is no way to defend one without rejecting the other). I have also given up on the (...) general project of rehabilitating the terms 'compatibilism' and 'incompatibilism', as I now see them as unhelpful hangovers from a degenerated research program. (shrink)

Principles of expert deference say that you should align your credences with those of an expert. This expert could be your doctor, the objective chances, or your future self, after you've learnt something new. These kinds of principles face difficulties in cases in which you are uncertain of the truth-conditions of the thoughts in which you invest credence, as well as cases in which the thoughts have different truth-conditions for you and the expert. For instance, you shouldn't defer to your (...) doctor by aligning your credence in the de se thought 'I am sick' with the doctor's credence in that same de se thought. Here, I generalise principles of expert deference to handle these kinds of problem cases. (shrink)

This paper develops a new argument from consciousness to theism: the argument from psychophysical harmony. Roughly, psychophysical harmony consists in the fact that phenomenal states are correlated with physical states and with one another in strikingly fortunate ways. For example, phenomenal states are correlated with behavior and functioning that is justified or rationalized by those very phenomenal states, and phenomenal states are correlated with verbal reports and judgments that are made true by those very phenomenal states. We argue that psychophysical (...) harmony is strong evidence for theism (or, at least, strong evidence against atheism in its standard naturalistic form). (shrink)

It is well known that de se (or ‘self-locating’) propositions complicate the standard picture of how we should respond to evidence. This has given rise to a substantial literature centered around puzzles like Sleeping Beauty, Dr. Evil, and Doomsday—and it has also sparked controversy over a style of argument that has recently been adopted by theoretical cosmologists. These discussions often dwell on intuitions about a single kind of case, but it’s worth seeking a rule that can unify our treatment of (...) all evidence, whether de dicto or de se. -/- This paper is about three candidates for such a rule, presented as replacements for the standard updating rule. Each rule stems from the idea that we should treat ourselves as a random sample, a heuristic that underlies many of the intuitions that have been pumped in treatments of the standard puzzles. But each rule also yields some strange results when applied across the board. This leaves us with some difficult options. We can seek another way to refine the random-sample heuristic, e.g. by restricting one of our rules. We can try to live with the strange results, perhaps granting that useful principles can fail at the margins. Or we can reject the random-sample heuristic as fatally flawed—which means rethinking its influence in even the simplest cases. (shrink)

Our examination of universal origins and fine-tuning will begin with a discussion of infl ationary scenarios grafted onto Big Bang cosmology and the proof that all infl ationary spacetimes are past-incomplete. After diverting into a lengthy critical examination of the “different physics” offered by quantum cosmologists at the past-boundary of the universe, we will proceed to dissect the inadequacies of infl ationary explanations and string-theoretic constructs in the context of three cosmological models that have received much attention: the Steinhardt-Turok cyclic (...) ekpyrotic model (which does not invoke inflation), the Gasperini-Veneziano pre-Big Bang infl ationary model, and the inflationary string landscape model advanced by Susskind, Polchinski, Bousso, and Linde. We will argue that none of these highly speculative string cosmologies removes the necessity of a beginning to the process of universe generation, and we will emphasize the implications of this fact. Then, since the inflationary “mechanism” only really addresses the fi ne-tuning of the initial conditions of the universe and not the conditions embodied in its finely tuned laws and constants, we will analyze the adequacy of the string multiverse in its three versions (cyclic ekpyrotic, pre-Big Bang, and landscape) for explaining the nomological structure and values of these precisely tuned life-compatible universal parameters. When all is said and done, it will be clear that transcendent intelligent agency is not just the only causally suffi cient and therefore metaphysically sound explanation for universal origins and fine-tuning, but it is also much more parsimonious, elegant, and resonant with meaning than all of the ad hoc machinations of multiverse cosmology. (shrink)

Anthropic reasoning has lately been strongly associated with the string theory landscape and some theories of particle cosmology, such as cosmological inflation. The association is not, contrary to multiple statements by physicists and philosophers alike, necessary. On the contrary, there are clear reasons and instances in which the anthropic reasoning is useful in a diverse range of fields such as planetary sciences, geophysics, future studies, risk analysis, origin of life studies, evolutionary theory, astrobiology and SETI studies, ecology, or even strategic (...) studies and global policy. The association of anthropic reasoning with string theory and particle cosmology has not only become the standard wisdom, but has been often construed in a negative way, in order to demonstrate or insinuate that such reasoning is too abstract or even belongs to 'fringe science', remote from run-of-the-mill research practices in any other more 'mundane' and less theoretical scientific discipline. The purpose of this paper is to (i) analyse some of the counter-examples to the standard wisdom, (ii) suggest that the anthropic reasoning is more flexible, more general, and less fashion-driven than the detractors state. In addition, we consider some historical and/or extrascientific motivation for this persistent prejudice. (shrink)

My objective in this article is to question whether the problem of free will can, within our current conceptual system, be framed coherently. It is already widely recognized that a mental faculty, the will, needed to initiate action, no longer fits with current thought. However, we can still ask whether human decisions and actions are determined by something other than the agent. So the important question is whether we still have a cogent concept of determinism. The two prevalent alternatives are (...) a closed set of deterministic laws of nature, and a simple distillation of the principle of sufficient reason: all events must have a cause. I first provide examples showing that philosophical concepts come and go as categorial frameworks change. The modern concept of deterministic laws of nature was developed during the latter half of the modern period and is now being called seriously into question. G. W. Leibniz’s principle of sufficient reason could only be justified in theological terms, which most contemporary Western scholars reject. I end with an inadequate account of a dawning worldview based on complex adaptive systems theory, in which most human actions are best described in terms of non-necessitating propensities. (shrink)

Anthropic reasoning has lately been strongly associated with the string theory landscape and some theories of particle cosmology, such as cosmological inflation. The association is not, contrary to multiple statements by physicists and philosophers alike, necessary. On the contrary, there are clear reasons and instances in which the anthropic reasoning is useful in a diverse range of fields such as planetary sciences, geophysics, future studies, risk analysis, origin of life studies, evolutionary theory, astrobiology and SETI studies, ecology, or even strategic (...) studies and global policy. The association of anthropic reasoning with string theory and particle cosmology has not only become the standard wisdom, but has been often construed in a negative way, in order to demonstrate or insinuate that such reasoning is too abstract or even belongs to “fringe science”, remote from run-of-the-mill research practices in any other more “mundane” and less theoretical scientific discipline. The purpose of this paper is to analyse some of the counter-examples to the standard wisdom, suggest that the anthropic reasoning is more flexible, more general, and less fashion-driven than the detractors state. In addition, we consider some historical and/or extrascientific motivation for this persistent prejudice. (shrink)

The fine-tuning argument can be used to support the Many Universe hypothesis. The Inverse Gambler’s Fallacy objection seeks to undercut the support for the Many Universe hypothesis. The objection is that although the evidence that there is life somewhere confirms Many Universes, the specific evidence that there is life in this universe does not. I will argue that the Inverse Gambler’s Fallacy is not committed by the fine-tuning argument. The key issue is the procedure by which the universe with life (...) is selected for observation. Once we take account of the procedure, we find that the support for the Many Universe hypothesis remains. (shrink)

This paper examines probabilistic versions of the fine-tuning argument for design (FTA), with an emphasis on the interpretation of the probability statements involved in such arguments. Three categories of probability are considered: physical, epistemic, and logical. Of the three possibilities, I argue that only logical probability could possibly support a cogent probabilistic FTA. However, within that framework, the premises of the argument require a level of justification that has not been met, and, it is reasonable to believe, will not be (...) met anytime soon. (shrink)