Landsman, Klaas (2015) The fine-tuning argument. [Preprint]

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Abstract

Our laws of nature and our cosmos appear to be delicately fine-tuned for life to emerge, in way that seems hard to attribute to chance.
In view of this, some have
taken the opportunity to revive the scholastic Argument from Design, whereas others have felt the need to explain
this apparent fine-tuning of the clockwork of the Universe by proposing the existence of a `Multiverse'.
We analyze this issue from a sober perspective.
Having reviewed the literature and having added several observations of our own, we conclude that cosmic fine-tuning supports neither Design nor a Multiverse, since both of these fail at an explanatory level as well as in a more quantitative context of Bayesian confirmation theory (although there might be
other reasons to believe in these ideas, to be found in religion and in inflation and/or string theory, respectively).
In fact, fine-tuning and Design even seem to be at odds with each other, whereas
the inference from fine-tuning to a Multiverse only works if the latter is underwritten by an additional metaphysical hypothesis we consider unwarranted.
Instead, we suggest that fine-tuning requires no special explanation at all, since it is not the Universe that is fine-tuned for life, but life that has been fine-tuned to the Universe.

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Item Type:	Preprint
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID Landsman, Klaas landsman@math.ru.nl
Keywords:	Fine-tuning, Argument from Design, Multiverse, Cosmology
Subjects:	General Issues > Confirmation/Induction General Issues > Explanation Specific Sciences > Physics
Depositing User:	Nicolaas P. Landsman
Date Deposited:	21 May 2015 14:52
Last Modified:	21 May 2015 14:52
Item ID:	11472
Subjects:	General Issues > Confirmation/Induction General Issues > Explanation Specific Sciences > Physics
Date:	5 April 2015
URI:	https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/11472

Available Versions of this Item

• The fine-tuning argument. (deposited 06 Apr 2015 19:00)
  • The fine-tuning argument. (deposited 21 May 2015 14:52) [Currently Displayed]

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