Is the fine-tuning evidence for a multiverse?

Goff, Philip

Abstract

Our best current science seems to suggest the laws of physics and the initial conditions of our universe are fine-tuned for the possibility of life. A significant number of scientists and philosophers believe that the fine-tuning is evidence for the multiverse hypothesis. This paper will focus on a much-discussed objection to the inference from the fine-tuning to the multiverse: the charge that this line of reasoning commits the inverse gambler’s fallacy. Despite the existence of a literature going back decades, this philosophical debate has made little contact with scientific discussion of fine-tuning and the multiverse, which mainly revolves around a specific form of the multiverse hypothesis rooted in eternal inflation combined with string theory. Because of this, potentially important implications from science to philosophy, and vice versa, have been left underexplored. In this paper, I will take a first step at joining up these two discussions, by arguing that attention to the eternal inflation + string theory conception of the multiverse supports the inverse gambler’s fallacy charge. It does this by supporting the idea that our universe is contingently fine-tuned, thus addressing the concern that proponents of the inverse gambler’s fallacy charge have assumed this without argument.

Citation

Goff, P. (2024). Is the fine-tuning evidence for a multiverse?. Synthese, 204(1), Article 3. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-024-04621-z

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: May 3, 2024
• Online Publication Date: Jun 18, 2024
• Publication Date: Jun 18, 2024
• Deposit Date: Jun 20, 2024
• Publicly Available Date: Jun 20, 2024
• Journal: Synthese
• Print ISSN: 0039-7857
• Electronic ISSN: 1573-0964
• Publisher: Springer
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 204
• Issue: 1
• Article Number: 3
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-024-04621-z
• Keywords: Design arguments for god, Inverse gambler’s fallacy, Fine-tuning, Multiverse
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/2486806