LINK: Anthony Aguirre on the Multiverse Hypothesis

[This post was originally published on The Secular Outpost on October 17, 2011. It was republished here on November 8, 2021 with the date manually adjusted to reflect its original publication date. The link was also updated to its current location.]

Anthony Aguirre is a physicist at UC Santa Cruz. He wrote a paper in 1995 on the multiverse hypothesis. Here is the paper's abstract:

The notion that there are many "universes" with different properties is one answer to the question of "why is the universe so hospitable to life?" This notion also naturally follows from current ideas in eternal inflation and string/M theory. But how do we test such a "multiverse" theory: which of the many universes do we compare to ours? This paper enumerates would would seem to be essential ingredients for making testable predictions, outlines different strategies one might take within this framework, then discusses some of the difficulties and dangers inherent in these approaches. Finally, I address the issue of whether there may be some general, qualitative predictions that multiverse theories might share.

The Implausibility of Appealing to the Many-Worlds Hypothesis to Defeat the Fine-Tuning Argument

[This post was originally published on The Secular Outpost on October 17, 2011. It was republished here on November 8, 2021 with the date manually adjusted to reflect its original publication date.]

I know what I am about to write will be controversial among atheists--one of them may (?) be a certain professional physicist who writes regularly for The Secular Outpost--but I have never agreed with the idea of appealing to the hypothesis of multiple universes ("multiverse") as an objection to the fine-tuning argument for God's existence. Philosopher Bradley Monton is much more knowledgeable about the intersection of philosophy and physics than I am, so I felt good to discover he has the same concerns I do.

I like the way he begins his post:

Some physicists seem to think that the only good reply to the fine-tuning argument for God is an appeal to many universes. If that’s right, that puts the fine-tuning argument on pretty strong ground.

LINK

FWIW, I posted something to The Secular Outpost about 5 years ago with a link to a sophisticated critique of the multiverse hypothesis. LINK

Sophisticated Critique of Many Worlds Explanation of Fine-Tuning

[This post was originally published on The Secular Outpost on February 18, 2006. It was republished here on November 7, 2021 with the date manually adjusted to reflect its original publication date. I have also updated the link to reflect the new location of the essay]

The following essay was recommended to me by Paul Draper. The paper is not a defense of the fine-tuning argument, but he regards it as one of the best critiques of the many worlds explanation of fine-tuning:

Roger White, "Fine-tuning and Multiple Universes," forthcoming in Nous
http://web.mit.edu/rog/www/papers/fine_tuning.pdf (PDF)

Here is some info about the author:

ROGER WHITE, (Ph.D., MIT), Assistant Professor of Philosophy, specializes in philosophy of science, epistemology, and metaphysics. He is currently focusing on epistemological issues in the philosophy of science, particularly those having to do with probability and explanation. His main interests in metaphysics concern matters of identity and essential properties. He is the author of "Fine-tuning and Multiple Universes" (Nous).