Sunday, 15 December 2024
Why the multiverse only multiplies questions but provides no answers re:finetuning
Why the Multiverse Theory Can’t Explain Away Cosmic Fine-Tuning
Some argue that our universe being fine-tuned for life is merely an accident. After all, there might be millions of flopped universes out there. There is no evidence for them but, they say, we can’t rule them out either.
Durham University philosophy professor Philip Goff explains at IAI.TV why he doesn’t think that the idea of a multiverse can explain away the obvious fine-tuning of our universe.
An Example of Fine-Tuning
First, he offers an example of that fine-tuning,:
The claim is just that, for life to be possible, certain numbers in physics had to fall in a very narrow range. For example, if the force that powers the accelerating expansion of the universe had been a little stronger, everything would have shot apart so quickly that no two particles would have ever met. There would have been no stars, planets, or any kind of structural complexity. Whereas if that force had been significantly weaker, it would not have counteracted gravity, and so the entire universe would have collapsed back on itself a split second after the Big Bang. For there to be structural complexity, and therefore life, that strength of this force had to be — a bit like Goldilocks porridge –— not too strong, and not too weak: just right. There are many numbers like this, which is what it means to say our universe is fine-tuned for life.
“The mistake at the heart of the multiverse,” December 3, 2024
The argument against fine-tuning is called the Inverse Gambler’s Fallacy:
Suppose you and I walk into a casino and the first person we see is someone winning big. I say, ‘Wow, there must be tens of thousands of people playing in the casino tonight!’ You say, ‘What makes you think that?’ I reply, ‘Well, if there are tens of thousands of people playing, it’s not so surprising that at least one person would win big, and that’s what we’ve just observed.’
“The mistake”
A Lucky Night
Of course, we have no evidence of that. We just see one person having a lucky night. Goff comments,
If we simply apply our standard way of understanding how evidence works, given by Bayes’ theorem, the fine-tuning of physics for life presents us with evidence for some form of goal-directedness towards life in the early universe. I suspect that it is deep-seated bias, a sense that this kind of hypothesis is not ‘proper science’, that is stopping most in the scientific community from following the evidence where it leads. Future historians will find it bizarre that we ignored for so long what is staring us in the face.
“The mistake”
But many thoughtful people in science today would see the goal of science as explaining away both goal-directedness and thought. In this universe, they have their work cut out for them.
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