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331 | Solo: Fine-Tuning, God, and the Multiverse

331 | Solo: Fine-Tuning, God, and the Multiverse

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Certain features of our universe seem unnatural to us. These include "constants of nature" such as the cosmological constant and the mass of the Higgs boson, as well as features of the initial conditions like the curvature of space and the initial entropy. But they can't truly be "unnatural" -- they are literally features of Nature itself. Some have turned to the anthropic principle and the multiverse, while others look to theism for an explanation. I talk here about my views on the various attitudes one might take toward these apparent fine-tunings, and why it is important to think about them.

Blog post with transcript: https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2025/10/06/331-solo-fine-tuning-god-and-the-multiverse/

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Some readings of relevance:

  • Livio and Rees, Fine-Tuning, Complexity, and Life in the Multiverse
  • Carroll, In What Sense Is the Early Universe Fine-Tuned?
  • Barnes, A Reasonable Little Question: A Formulation of the Fine-Tuning Argument
  • Goff, Our Improbable Existence Is No Evidence for a Multiverse
  • Neal, Puzzles of Anthropic Reasoning Resolved Using Full Non-indexical Conditioning


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