It is most improbable a priori that laws of nature should have a form, and their constants have values, and the variables of the boundary conditions of our universe should have values, of such a kind as to lead to the evolution of human bodies. If there is a God it is quite probable that there would be human bodies. Our only grounds for believing that there are other universes, are grounds for believing that those universes are governed by the (...) same laws and have the same boundary conditions as our own. Hence, the existence of our universe is evidence for the existence of God. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: * Fine-Tuning * Notes.

The argument from fine tuning is supposed to establish the existence of God from the fact that the evolution of carbon-based life requires the laws of physics and the boundary conditions of the universe to be more or less as they are. We demonstrate that this argument fails. In particular, we focus on problems associated with the role probabilities play in the argument. We show that, even granting the fine tuning of (...) the universe, it does not follow that the universe is improbable, thus no explanation of the fine tuning, theistic or otherwise, is required. (shrink)

If the physical constants, initial conditions, or laws of nature in our universe had been even slightly different, then the evolution of life would have been impossible. This observation has led many philosophers and scientists to ask the natural next question: why is our universe so "fine-tuned" for life? The debates around this question are wide-ranging, multi-disciplinary, complicated, technical, and heated. This study is a comprehensive investigation of these debates and the many metaphysical and epistemological questions raised by cosmological (...) fine-tuning. Waller's study reaches two significant and controversial conclusions. First, he concludes that the criticisms directed at the "multiverse hypothesis" by theists and at the "theistic hypothesis" by naturalists are largely unsuccessful. Neither of these options can plausibly be excluded. Choosing between them seems to turn on primitive metaphysical intuitions. Second, in order to break the philosophical deadlock, Waller moves the debate from the level of universes to the level of possible worlds. Arguing that possible worlds are also "fine-tuned" in an important and interesting sense, Waller concludes that the only plausible explanation for the fine-tuning of the actual world is to posit the existence of some kind of "God-like-thing.". (shrink)

Many physics parameters need to be precisely set in order for life to exist in our universe. Or so says the fine-tuning argument. That the actual values are just right for life, the argument concludes, is a fact in need of deep physical or metaphysical explanation. Perhaps, the story goes, the parameter values settings are a matter of divine design. Or perhaps they result from a selection effect given our place in the “multiverse”. However, a (...) very different approach to the problem is possible. One may argue that the fine-tuning is an artefact of theorizing: it is explicable as the precise balancing act necessary for compact, systematic representation in science. Given such an explanation and drawing on earlier work from a number of sources, this essay shows how fine-tuning is best understood as evidence for a non-governing conception of laws rather than for design or multiverse. (shrink)

Theism is a far simpler hypothesis, and so a priori more probably true, than naturalism, understood as the hypothesis that the existence of this law-governeduniverse has no explanation. Theism postulates only one entity (God) with very simple properties, whereas naturalism has to postulate either innumerableentities all having the same properties, or one very complicated entity with the power to produce the former. If theism is true, it is moderately probable that God would create humanoid beings and so humanoid bodies; but (...) laws of nature would have to have very special properties if they are to bring about the existencne of humaoid bodies. Given laws of the present form (quantum theory with the Pauli principle and the four forces), the constants of the laws and variables of the boundary conditions of the universe would need to be extremely fine-tuned; and no simpler set of laws would allow the existence of humanoid bodies at all. So the evidence of the existence of humanoid bodies adds further to the probability of theismas against naturalism. (shrink)

My purpose, in this paper, is to defend the claim that the fine-tuning argument suffers from the poor design worry. Simply put, the worry is this: if God created the universe, specifically with the purpose of bringing about moral agents, we would antecedently predict that the universe and the laws of nature, taken as a whole, would be well-equipped to do just that. However, in light of how rare a life-permitting universe is, compared to all the (...) ways the universe might be have been life-prohibiting given the laws of physics, strongly suggests that the universe was poorly designed for that purpose. This casts doubt on the claim that God has much to do with designing the universe. First, I introduce the fine-tuning argument, and second, I explain and defend the poor design worry against objections that, while apparently compelling, I argue are misleading. (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)

Critics of the Fine-Tuning Argument for Theism have recently argued that even if the universe is fine-tuned for life, certain features of the universe are still surprising given theism, because God should be indifferent between those features and their contraries. In the first section of this paper, I summarize this sort of Indifference Objection to the Fine-Tuning Argument. In the second section, I explain why contrary to initial appearances, these objections fail. In the (...) third section, I present the Argument from Compatibility, which attempts to turn the tables by arguing that the paradigmatic features are more surprising given atheism than they are given theism. (shrink)

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 (...) class='Hi'>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. (shrink)

I argue that the aesthetic theoretical virtues of beauty, simplicity, and unification, as well as the evidential virtue of explanatory depth, can transform theistic-friendly personal cause (PC) arguments—like the kalām cosmological argument (KCA) and the fine-tuning argument—into stand-alone arguments for monotheism. The aesthetic virtues allow this by providing us with the grounds to rationally accept a perfect personal cause (i.e., God) as the best PC to believe in given the success of some PC argument. Using (...) the KCA as an example, I argue that, once the KCA is accepted and a PC believed in, then a theory that posits a perfect PC as the cause of the universe is more beautiful, simpler, and has more unification and explanatory depth than the imperfect PC normally posited by the KCA’s standard conceptual analysis. And the same would hold true for any imperfect PC. Thus, once a PC argument has been accepted, the perfect PC theory is preferable to hold over any other PC theory. Finally, I address various objections to this reasoning. (shrink)

The claim that certain fundamental constants of nature are fine tuned for life and that this provides strong evidence for supernatural design is perhaps 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 and need to invoke the Weak Anthropic Principle and multiple universes to do so. Certainly if there are many universes, fine tuning is simple. Our form of life was (...) fined tuned to our universe by evolution. 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. This is the first in a series of columns based on a book in the works that attempts to show that the apparent fine tuning of fundamental constants can be understood from basic physics without invoking multiple universes. In some cases the explanation is provable. In other cases, it is not provable but plausible. Fine tuning by design is a God of the Gaps argument. The proponent has the burden if proving that no possible natural explanation can be found. Thus a plausible natural explanation is sufficient to defeat the argument. A list of thirty four parameters that seem to be fine tuned has been assembled by Rich Deem on the God and Science website. Several of Deem’s constants, such as the speed of light in a vacuum, c, Newton’s constant of gravity, G, and Planck’s constant, h, are just arbitrary numbers that are determined simply by the unit system you are using. They can be set equal to any number you want, except zero, with no impact on the physics. So no fine tuning can possibly be involved, just as the number p is not fine tuned. I will focus first on the five parameters that have the most significance because, if interpreted correctly, they seem to pretty much rule out almost any conceivable kind of life without fine tuning: · Ratio of electrons to protons · Ratio of electromagnetic force to gravity Expansion rate of the universe · Mass density of the universe · Cosmological constant I will admit that the features a universe would have for slightly different values of these parameters, all other parameters remaining the same, would render unlikely any form of life even remotely like ours, that is, one that is based on a lengthy process, chemical or otherwise, by which complex matter evolved from simpler matter. Let me discuss each in turn, with the last, the most difficult, reserved for a future column.. (shrink)

Fine-tuning arguments attempt to infer God’s existence from the empirical fact that life would not be possible if any of approximately two-dozen fundamental laws and properties of the universe had been even slightly different. In this essay, I consider a version that relies on the following principle: if an observation O is more likely to occur under hypothesis H1 than under hypothesis H2, then O supports accepting H1 over H2. I argue that this particular application of this (...) principle is vulnerable to straightforward counterexamples and attempt to explain the proper application conditions for this principle. (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)

In this paper, I propose that, in addition to the multiverse hypothesis, which is commonly taken to be an alternative explanation for fine-tuning, other than the design hypothesis, the simulation hypothesis is another explanation for fine-tuning. I then argue that the simulation hypothesis undercuts the alleged evidential connection between ‘designer’ and ‘supernatural designer of immense power and knowledge’ in much the same way that the multiverse hypothesis undercuts the alleged evidential connection between ‘fine-tuning’ and (...) ‘fine-tuner’ (or ‘designer’). If this is correct, then the fine-tuning argument is a weak argument for the existence of God. (shrink)

Fine-tuning arguments are a frequent find in the literature on quantum field theory. They are based on naturalness—an aesthetic criterion that was given a precise definition in the debates on the Higgs mechanism. We follow the history of such definitions and of their application at the scale of electroweak symmetry breaking. They give rise to a special interpretation of probability, which we call Gedankenfrequency. Finally, we show that the argument from naturalness has been extended to comparing (...) different models of the physics beyond the Standard Model and that naturalness in this case can at best be understood a socio-historic heuristic. (shrink)

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. (shrink)

-/- Some phenomena within nature exhibit such exquisiteness of structure, function or interconnectedness that many people have found it natural—if not inescapable—to see a deliberative and directive mind behind those phenomena. The mind in question, being prior to nature itself, is typically taken to be supernatural. Philosophically inclined thinkers have both historically and at present labored to shape the relevant intuition into a more formal, logically rigorous inference. The resultant theistic arguments, in their various logical forms, share a focus on (...) plan, purpose, intention and design, and are thus classified as teleological arguments (or, frequently, as arguments from or to design). -/- Although enjoying some prominent defenders over the centuries, such arguments have also attracted serious criticisms from a number of major historical and contemporary thinkers. Both critics and advocates are found not only among philosophers, but come from scientific and other disciplines as well. In the following discussion, major variant forms of teleological arguments will be distinguished and explored, traditional philosophical and other criticisms will be discussed, and the most prominent contemporary turns (cosmic fine tuning arguments, many-worlds theories, and the present Intelligent Design debate) will be tracked. Discussion will conclude with a brief look at one historically important non-inferential approach to the issue. (shrink)

Let us consider that version of the Argument from Design which appeals to the so called "fine tuning" of the physical constants of the universe. Call it "the Fine tuning Argument." It has many advocates, both on the Internet and in print. For some of the Internet articles, see the following web site: http://www.reasons.org/resources/papers/>. One of the argument's "print" advocates is George Schlesinger, who says the following: In the last few decades a (...) tantalizingly great number of exceedingly rare coincidences, vital for the existence of a minimally stable universe and without which no form of life could exist anywhere, have been discovered. . . . [G]iven any one of infinitely many universes, some conjunction or other of physical magnitudes will have to obtain. However, the prevailing conjunction is not merely one of indefinitely many; it is also an instance of a virtually infinitesimally rare kind of universe: the kind capable of sustaining life. The hypothesis that it was produced by a Being interested in sentient organic systems adequately explains this otherwise inexplicably astonishing fact. NEW PERSPECTIVES ON OLD TIME RELIGION, Oxford U.P., 1988, pp. 130,133] A more precise formulation of the argument is the following, with premises indicated by "P" and conclusions indicated by "C": (P1) The combination of physical constants that we observe in our universe is the only one capable of sustaining life as we know it. (P2) Other combinations of physical constants are conceivable. (shrink)

The fine-tuning argument purports to show that particular aspects of fundamental physics provide evidence for the existence of God. This argument is legitimate, yet there are numerous doubts about its legitimacy. There are various misgivings about the fine-tuning argument which are based on misunderstandings. In this paper we will go over several major misapprehensions, and explain why they do not undermine the basic cogency of the fine-tuning argument.

The Myopic Anthropic Principle: an attempt to show that the popular anthropic reasoning of our time — often taken to show that laws of nature are fine-tuned by a god for us — should be seen merely as an indication of fine-tuning by us. This preference for short-sightedness in this case is shown (shown?) to support the best-system account of scientific law.

It is commonly argued that an undesirable feature of a theoretical or phenomenological model is that salient observables are sensitive to values of parameters in the model. But in what sense is it undesirable to have such ‘fine-tuning’ of observables? In this paper, we argue that the fine-tuning can be interpreted as a shortcoming of the explanatory capacity of the model: in particular it signals a lack of a particular type of explanatory depth. The aspect of (...) depth that we probe relates most closely to a lack of sensitivity to changes in parameters associated with such models. In support of this argument, we develop a schema—for models that arise broadly in physical settings—that quantitatively relates fine-tuning of observables to a lack of depth of explanations based on these models. We apply our schema in two different settings in which, within each setting, we compare the depth of two competing explanations. The first setting involves explanations for the Euclidean nature of spatial slices of the universe today: in particular, we compare an explanation provided by the big-bang model of the early 1970s with an explanation provided by a general model of cosmic inflation. The second setting has a more phenomenological character, where the goal is to infer from a limited sequence of data points, using maximum entropy techniques, the underlying probability distribution from which these data are drawn. In both of these settings we find that our analysis favors the model that intuitively provides the deeper explanation of the observable of interest. We thus provide an account that relates two ‘theoretical virtues’ of models used broadly in physical settings—namely, a lack of fine-tuning and explanatory depth—and argue that finely tuned models sacrifice explanatory depth. (shrink)

Collins (The Blackwell companion to natural theology, 2009) presents an argument he calls the ‘core fine-tuning argument’. In this paper, I show that Collins’ argument is flawed in at least two ways. First, the structure, depending on likelihoods, fails to establish anything about the posterior probability of God’s existence given fine-tuning. As an argument for God’s existence, this is a serious failing. Second, his analysis of what is appropriately restricted background knowledge, combined (...) with the credences of a specially chosen ‘alien’, do not allow him to establish the premise \( \Pr (LPU \mid NSU~ \& ~k') \ll 1\). (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)

Both proponents and opponents of the argument for the deliberate fine-tuning, by an intelligent agent, of the fundamental constants of the universe have accepted certain assumptions about how the argument will go. These include both treating the fine-tuning of the constants as constitutive of the nature of the universe itself and conditioning on the fact that the constants actually do fall into the life-permitting range, rather than on the narrowness of the range. It is (...) also generally assumed that the fine-tuning argument should precede biological arguments for design from, e.g., the origin of life. I suggest four new arguments, two of which are different orderings of the same data. Each of these abandons one or more of the common assumptions about how the fine-tuning argument should go, and they provide new possibilities for answering or avoiding objections to the fine-tuning argument. (shrink)

After briefly outlining the fine-tuning argument (FTA), I explain how it relies crucially on the claim that it is not improbable that God would design a fine-tuned universe. Against this premise stands the divine psychology objection: the contention that the probability that God would design a fine-tuned universe is inscrutable. I explore three strategies for meeting this objection: (i) denying that the FTA requires any claims about divine psychology in the first place, (ii) defining the (...) motivation and intention to design a fine-tuned universe into the theistic hypothesis, and (iii) providing arguments that the relevant probability is not terribly low. While I reject the first two, I conclude, in line with the third, that considerations about life's objective value establish that it is not absurdly improbable that God would design a fine-tuned universe, whether one regards the FTA as an inference merely to a cosmic designer, or to theism proper. Accordingly, the divine psychology objection fails. (shrink)

The multiverse hypothesis is the leading alternative to the competing fine-tuning hypothesis. The multiverse dispels many aspects of the fine-tuning argument by suggesting that there are different initial conditions in each universe, varying constants of physics, and the laws of nature lose their known arbitrary values; thus, making the previous single-universe argument from fine- tuning incredibly weak. The position that will be advocated will be that a form of multiverse could exist (...) and that any level of Tegmark's multiverse does not circumvent the fine-tuning argument for the existence of a fine-tuner. An argument will be presented suggesting that the multiverse could strengthen the fine-tuning argument by narrowing down the parameters of the data to a more fundamental description needed for the multiverse to function as it does since it may be the case that some physical descriptions are not the same in every universe. That is, the task of explaining how the multiverse mechanism functions cannot be accounted for by the multiverse itself. Fine-tuning by a mind serves as a sufficient and best explanation for the data. (shrink)

This paper seeks to explicate and analyze an alternative response to fine-tuning arguments from those that are typically given—namely, design or brute contingency. The response I explore is based on necessity, the necessitarian response. After showing how necessity blocks the argument, I explicate the reply I claim necessitarians can give and suggest how its three requirements can be met: firstly, that laws are metaphysically necessary; secondly, that constants are metaphysically necessary; and thirdly, that the fundamental properties (...) that determine the laws and constants are necessary. After discussing each in turn, I end the paper by assessing how the response fares when running the fine-tuning argument in two ways, as an inference to best explanation and as a Bayesian argument. (shrink)

According to the premises of the fine-tuning argument, most nomologically possible universes lack intelligent life; and the fact that ours has intelligent life is best explained by supposing it was created. However, if our universe was created, then the creator chose the laws of nature, and hence chose in favor of lifeless universes. In other words, the fine-tuning argument shows that God prefers universes without intelligent life; and the fact that our universe has intelligent (...) life provides no new evidence for God's existence. (shrink)

I present a novel objection to fine-tuning arguments for God's existence. On any values of the physical constants, the psychophysical laws could be set to permit intelligent and happy beings, so the specific values of the physical constants in our world provide little evidence for God's existence. For example, even if the physical constants didn't allow carbon or any atoms larger than hydrogen, the psychophysical laws could be set so that charge is sufficient to realize romantic desire. Then (...) every hydrogen atom would be a proton and electron in love. (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)

I present and defend an “indexical” version of the Fine-Tuning Argument. I begin by outlining the dialectic between the Fine-Tuning Argument, the Multiverse Objection, and the This-Universe Reply. Next, I sketch an indexical fine-tuning argument and defend it from two new objections. Then, I show that such an argument is immune to the Multiverse Objection. I explain how a further augmentation to the argument allows it to avoid an (...) objection I call the “Indifference Objection.” I conclude that my indexical version of the Fine-Tuning Argument is no less cogent than the standard version, and yet it is immune to the Multiverse Objection. (shrink)

This paper deals with two different problems in which infinity plays a central role. I first respond to a claim that infinity renders counting knowledge-level beliefs an infeasible approach to measuring and comparing how much we know. There are two methods of comparing sizes of infinite sets, using the one-to-one correspondence principle or the subset principle, and I argue that we should use the subset principle for measuring knowledge. I then turn to the normalizability and coarse tuning objections to (...) fine-tuning arguments for the existence of God or a multiverse. These objections center on the difficulty of talking about the epistemic probability of a physical constant falling within a finite life-permitting range when the possible range of that constant is infinite. Applying the lessons learned regarding infinity and the measurement of knowledge, I hope to blunt much of the force of these objections to fine-tuning arguments. (shrink)

I argue that the rationale behind the fine-tuning argument for design is self-undermining, refuting the argument’s own premise that fine-tuning is to be expected given design. In (Weisberg 2010) I argued on informal grounds that this premise is unsupported. White (2011) countered that it can be derived from three plausible assumptions. But White’s third assumption is based on a fallacious rationale, and is even objectionable by the design theorist’s own lights. The argument (...) that shows this, the argument from divine indifference, simultaneously exposes the fine-tuning argument’s self-undermining character. The same argument also answers Bradley’s (forthcoming) reply to my earlier objection. (shrink)

This paper defends a novel sceptical response to the fine-tuning argument for the existence of God (FTA). According to this response, even if FTA can establish, what I call, the confirmation proposition: ‘fine-tuning confirms the God hypothesis’, there is no reason to think that a strengthening of FTA can establish the evidence-favouring proposition: ‘fine-tuning favours the God hypothesis over its competitors’. My argument is that, any criteria for the explanation of fine- (...) class='Hi'>tuning that permit us to take the God hypothesis seriously ought to make us sceptical that fine-tuning favours the God hypothesis over its competitors. As taking the God hypothesis seriously requires us to give a fair hearing to all sorts of non-theistic explanations, including the so-called weird sorts of atheism. (shrink)

This is response to Stephen Parrish’s article "Theodore Drange on the Fine-Tuning Argument: A Critique," ’Philosophia Christi’, Series 2, 1 (No. 2, 1999), which attacked a section of my book ’Nonbelief and Evil: Two Arguments for God’s Nonexistence’ (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1998). The Fine-Tuning Argument (FTA) maintains that the physical constants of our universe exhibit evidence of "fine-tuning" by an intelligent designer. In opposition, I suggest alternate explanations which are at least (...) as good. Here I defend my objections to FTA against Parrish’s critique, aiming to show that his defense of the argument is a failure. (shrink)

I present and defend an “indexical” version of the Fine-Tuning Argument. I begin by outlining the dialectic between the Fine-Tuning Argument, the Multiverse Objection, and the This-Universe Reply. Next, I sketch an indexical fine-tuning argument and defend it from two new objections. Then, I show that such an argument is immune to the Multiverse Objection. I explain how a further augmentation to the argument allows it to avoid an (...) objection I call the “Indifference Objection.” I conclude that my indexical version of the Fine-Tuning Argument is no less cogent than the standard version, and yet it is immune to the Multiverse Objection. (shrink)

Roger White (God and design, Routledge, London, 2003) claims that while the fine-tuning of our universe, $\alpha $ , may count as evidence for a designer, it cannot count as evidence for a multiverse. First, I will argue that his considerations are only correct, if at all, for a limited set of multiverses that have particular features. As a result, I will argue that his claim cannot be generalised as a statement about all multiverses. This failure to generalise, (...) I will argue, is also a feature of design hypotheses. That is, design hypotheses can likewise be made insensitive or sensitive to the evidence of fine-tuning as we please. Second, I will argue that White is mistaken about the role that this evidence plays in fine-tuning discussions. That is, even if the evidence of fine-tuning appears to support one particular hypothesis more strongly than another, this does not always help us in deciding which hypothesis to prefer. (shrink)

Richard Swinburne presents a substantially rewritten and updated edition of his most celebrated book. No other work has made a more powerful case for the probability of the existence of God. Swinburne gives a rigorous and penetrating analysis of the most important arguments for theism: the cosmological argument; arguments from the existence of laws of nature and the 'fine-tuning' of the universe; from the occurrence of consciousness and moral awareness; and from miracles and religious (...) experience. He claims that while none of these arguments are deductively valid, they do give inductive support to theism and that, even when the argument from evil is weighed against them, taken together they offer good grounds to support the probability that there is a God. The overall structure of the discussion and its conclusion have been retained for this new edition, but much has been changed in order to strengthen the argumentation and to take account of Swinburne's subsequent work on the nature of consciousness and the problem of evil, and of the latest philosophical and scientific writing, especially in respect of the laws of nature and the argument from fine-tuning. This is now the definitive version of a classic in the philosophy of religion. (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)

Physical force strengths, particle masses, the early cosmic expansion speed and many other factors seem "fine tuned for life". Had they been slightly different, life’s evolution would have been impossible. The situation resembles catching a fish with an apparatus unable to catch ones slightly differently sized. One explanation is that the lake contains fish of many different sizes: multiple universes with randomized characteristics, most of them unobservable because observers cannot evolve in them. Another is that God created a fish (...) of the right size, a universe able to generate observers. The article defends these explanations against numerous ingenious objections. (shrink)

Studies in astrophysical cosmology have served to reveal the incomprehensible fine-tuning of the fundamental constants and cosmological quantities which must obtain if a universe like ours is to be life-permitting. Traditionally, such fine-tuning of the universe for life would have been taken as evidence of divine design. William Dembski’s ’generic chance elimination argument’ provides a framework for evaluating the hypothesis of design with respect to the fine-tuning of the universe. On Dembski’s model the (...) key to a design inference is the elimination of the competing alternatives of physical necessity and chance. In debates over fine-tuning, the former is represented by a ’theory of everything’, which would eliminate or significantly reduce the improbabilities of fine-tuning. The latter takes the shape of the ’many worlds hypothesis’, according to which a ’world ensemble’ of universes exist, thus providing purchase for the ’anthropic principle’. This paper assesses the relative merit. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: * Notes.

The core argument in this paper is that, to reconstruct the last unwritten section on Judging in Hannah Arendt's Life of the Mind , it is necessary to address what Arendt was doing with the book as a whole and how the different parts relate internally to one another. This is no easy matter, especially as the existing sections on Thinking and Willing are quite different in tone from one another. My proposition is that the work should be (...) read as a critique of the life of the `modern' mind, and especially of the differentiation of the modern mind into distinct and reified faculties. The work as a whole is an attempt to understand the distorted forms of modernization that result from the division of the life of the mind into opposing faculties. It is, so to speak, a critique of the combined and uneven development of the life of the modern mind. While Arendt famously argues that the activity of thinking itself conditions people against evildoing, the spectre that informs her analysis of both thinking and willing is the danger of nihilism inherent in these mental activities. The work raises vital questions concerning the conditions under which this danger is actualized and the means by which it might be averted. What this entails for our reconstruction of the missing section on judgment is that, rather than see it as the core of Arendt's contribution to political thought or as the promised solution to an impasse, we should explore the equivocations of judging. This aporetic reading of the text helps clarify Arendt's concerns over the separation of the life of the mind from the world and the role of both judging and understanding in renewing its connections to the world. (shrink)

The requirement of naturalness has long served as an influential constraint on model-building in theoretical particle physics. Yet there are many ways of understanding what, precisely, this requirement amounts to, from restrictions on the amount of fine-tuning that a model can exhibit, to prohibitions on sensitive dependence between physics at different scales, to the requirement that dimensionless parameters defining the Lagrangian of a theory all be of order one unless they are protected by a symmetry. This workshop (...) aims to clarify the relationships among these concepts of naturalness and their connection to the hierarchy problem, as well as to assess arguments for and against imposing various forms of naturalness as a requirement on particle physics model-building. (shrink)

The requirement of naturalness has long served as an influential constraint on model-building in theoretical particle physics. Yet there are many ways of understanding what, precisely, this requirement amounts to, from restrictions on the amount of fine-tuning that a model can exhibit, to prohibitions on sensitive dependence between physics at different scales, to the requirement that dimensionless parameters defining the Lagrangian of a theory all be of order one unless they are protected by a symmetry. This workshop (...) aims to clarify the relationships among these concepts of naturalness and their connection to the hierarchy problem, as well as to assess arguments for and against imposing various forms of naturalness as a requirement on particle physics model-building. (shrink)

There is a well-known argument from Leibniz's Law for the view that coincident material things may be distinct. For given that they differ in their properties, then how can they be the same? However, many philosophers have suggested that this apparent difference in properties is the product of a linguistic illusion; there is just one thing out there, but different sorts or guises under which it may be described. I attempt to show that this ‘opacity’ defence has intolerable (...) consequences for the functioning of our language and that the original argument should therefore be allowed to stand. (shrink)

Richard Swinburne presents a substantially rewritten and updated edition of his most celebrated book. No other work has made a more powerful case for the probability of the existence of God. Swinburne gives a rigorous and penetrating analysis of the most important arguments for theism: the cosmological argument; arguments from the existence of laws of nature and the 'fine-tuning' of the universe; from the occurrence of consciousness and moral awareness; and from miracles and religious (...) experience. He claims that while none of these arguments are deductively valid, they do give inductive support to theism and that, even when the argument from evil is weighed against them, taken together they offer good grounds to support the probability that there is a God. The overall structure of the discussion and its conclusion have been retained for this new edition, but much has been changed in order to strengthen the argumentation and to take account of Swinburne's subsequent work on the nature of consciousness and the problem of evil, and of the latest philosophical and scientific writing, especially in respect of the laws of nature and the argument from fine-tuning. This is now the definitive version of a classic in the philosophy of religion. (shrink)