This paper describes the main features and goals of the speculative work in modern sciences that has greatly accelerated since World War II due to the exponential increase in computing power and newly available theoretical and conceptual tools. It points to the long historical strand of speculative philosophical work in symbiosis with the sciences, suggests the reasons for its unexpected neglect in contemporary professional philosophy of science, why it should be a major approach, and why such pursuit is not inevitable. (...) Finally, the paper outlines potential topics, fields, and tools for such collaborative work and argues it is likelier to be more fruitful today than at any point in the past hundred years. (shrink)

It is commonly argued that the fact that our universe is fine-tuned for life favors both a design hypothesis as well as a non-teleological multiverse hypothesis. The claim that the fine-tuning of this universe supports a non-teleological multiverse hypothesis has been forcefully challenged however by Ian Hacking and Roger White. In this paper we take this challenge even further by arguing that if it succeeds, then not only does the fine-tuning of this universe fail to support a multiverse hypothesis, but (...) it tends to favor a single-universe hypothesis instead. (shrink)

This paper offers a defence of metaphysical naturalism, in the context of the Fine Tuning argument. Theistic objections to the Multiverse (MV) hypothesis are considered, specifically the claim that the MV hypothesis commits the Inverse Gambler’s Fallacy (IGF) and, as per the This Universe Objection (TUO), that it violates the Requirement of Total Evidence. It is argued that the IGF claim moved the goalposts when it comes to assessing the validity of the MV hypothesis. The Cosmic Slot Machine analogy will (...) be used to demonstrate how the This Universe Objection (TUO), fails to adequately account for the anthropic principle (or selection effect) and how the MV hyptothesis does satisfy the Requirement for Total Evidence. -/- With respect to the Naturalistic Single Universe (NSU), the implications of the ex-nihilonihil- fit principle, for evaluating the epistemic probability of a Life Permitting Universe (LPU)under the NSU hypothesis, are considered. It is argued that the ex nihilo nihil fit principle entails that an LPU is not improbable under the NSU hypothesis. (shrink)

This paper will attempt to offer a defence of to the Multiverse (MV) hypotheses, in the context of the theistic Fine Tuning Argument (FTA). It will be argued that theistic proponents of the FTA who argue that the MV hypothesis commits the Inverse Gambler’s Fallacy (IGF) are, themselves, guilty of moving the goalposts when it comes to assessing the validity of the MV hypothesis. The Cosmic Slot Machine analogy will be used to demonstrate how the This Universe Objection (TUO), first (...) outlined by White (2000) and further clarified by Draper et al (2007), fails to adequately account for the anthropic principle (or selection effect). (shrink)

This paper defends the view that discovering that our universe is fine-tuned should make us more confident that other universes exist. My defense exploits a distinction between ideal and non-ideal evidential support. I use that distinction in concert with a simple model to disarm the most influential objection—the this-universe objection—to the view that fine-tuning supports the existence of other universes. However, the simple model fails to capture some important features of our epistemic situation with respect to fine-tuning. To capture these (...) features, I introduce a more sophisticated model. I then use the more sophisticated model to show that, even once those complicating factors are taken into account, fine-tuning should boost our confidence in the existence of other universes. (shrink)

Experiences tend to be followed by states for which they provide normative reasons. Such harmonious correlations cry out for explanation. Theories that answer or diminish these cries thereby achieve an advantage over theories that do neither. I argue that the main lines of response to these cries that are available to biological theorists—theorists who hold (roughly) that conscious subjects are generally biological entities—are problematic. And I argue that panpsychism—which holds (roughly) that conscious subjects are ubiquitous in nature—provides an attractive response (...) to these explanatory cries. Taken together, these considerations underwrite a kind of ‘psychophysical fine-tuning’ argument in support of panpsychism, one that is reminiscent of cosmological fine-tuning arguments in favor of multiverse hypotheses. (shrink)

Is the fact that our universe contains fine-tuned life evidence that we live in a multiverse? Ian Hacking and Roger White influentially argue that it is not. We approach this question through a systematic framework for self-locating epistemology. As it turns out, leading approaches to self-locating evidence agree that the fact that our own universe contains fine-tuned life indeed confirms the existence of a multiverse. This convergence is no accident: we present two theorems showing that, in this setting, any updating (...) rule that satisfies a few reasonable conditions will have the same feature. The conclusion that fine-tuned life provides evidence for a multiverse is hard to escape. (shrink)

According to the Requirement of Total Evidence, when assessing the credibility of hypotheses, we should endeavor to take into account all of the relevant evidence at our disposal instead of just some proper part of that evidence. In "The Fine-Tuning Argument and the Requirement of Total Evidence," Peter Fisher Epstein offers two alleged counterexamples to this requirement. I show that, on at least one very natural interpretation of the requirement, his alleged counterexamples are not genuine. I close by explaining why (...) this conclusion is important. (shrink)

According to the Fine-Tuning Argument, the existence of life in our universe confirms the Multiverse Hypothesis. A standard objection to FTA is that it violates the Requirement of Total Evidence. I argue that RTE should be rejected in favor of the Predesignation Requirement, according to which, in assessing the outcome of a probabilistic process, we should only use evidence characterizable in a manner available before observing the outcome. This produces the right verdicts in some simple cases in which RTE leads (...) us astray, and, when applied to FTA, it shows that our evidence does confirm HM. (shrink)

According to Minkoswki, Einstein's special theory of relativity reveals that ‘space by itself, and time by itself are doomed to fade away into mere shadows’. But perceptual experience represents objects as instantiating shapes like squareness — properties of ‘space by itself’. Thus, STR seems to threaten the veridicality of shape experience. In response to this worry, some have argued that we should analyze the contents of our spatial experiences on the model of traditional secondary qualities. On this picture—defended in recent (...) work by Chalmers —an experience of squareness just represents whatever property usually causes such experiences. This view salvages the veridicality of shape experience, but leaves the nature of the properties we perceive outside our ken. I argue that such a move is unwarranted: STR is compatible with the idea that shape experience acquaints us with the spatial character of our world. In defending this claim, I propose a view on which shape experience presents familiar Euclidean spatial properties veridically, while implicitly representing those properties as instantiated in a particular manner — namely, relative to our own frame of reference. (shrink)

I present and defend an “indexical” version of the Fine-Tuning Argument. I begin by outlining the dialectic between the Fine-Tuning Argument, the Multiverse Objection, and the This-Universe Reply. Next, I sketch an indexical fine-tuning argument and defend it from two new objections. Then, I show that such an argument is immune to the Multiverse Objection. I explain how a further augmentation to the argument allows it to avoid an objection I call the “Indifference Objection.” I conclude that my indexical version (...) of the Fine-Tuning Argument is no less cogent than the standard version, and yet it is immune to the Multiverse Objection. (shrink)

Does the claimed fine-tuning of the constants of nature for life give reason to think that there are many other universes in which the constants have different values? Or does the inference from fine-tuning to a multiverse commit what Hacking calls the inverse gambler’s fallacy? The present paper considers two fine-tuning problems that seem promising to consider because they are in many respects analogous to the problem of the fine-tuned constants. Reasoning that parallels the inference from fine-tuning to a multiverse (...) seems prima facie adequate in these problems. However, it turns out that in both cases there are independent empirical reasons to believe the hypotheses that are analogous to the multiverse hypothesis. In the absence of such evidence, it would be coherent to raise the inverse gambler’s fallacy charge against the inference from fine-tuning to these multiverse-type hypotheses. In response to this finding, I suggest taking the possibility seriously that established standards of rationality may not allow us to decide whether the inference from fine-tuning to a multiverse is fallacious or not. The paper concludes by sceptically assessing the prospects for obtaining independent empirical evidence for concrete multiverse theories. (shrink)

The requirement of total evidence is a mainstay of Bayesian epistemology. Peter Fisher Epstein argues that the requirement generates mistaken conclusions about several examples that he devises. Here we examine the example of Epstein’s that we find most interesting and argue that Epstein’s analysis of it is flawed.

The idea that there might be multiple universes with different parameters of nature is often considered an attractive response to the finding that various parameters appear to be delicately fine-tuned for life. The present paper investigates whether the appeal to fine-tuning can legitimately be combined with an appeal to independent empirical evidence for other universes or whether, as suggested by Cory Juhl, combining such appeals inevitably results in illegitimate double counting of the finding that the parameters are right for life. (...) In doing so, the paper takes into account the fact that the parameters' life-friendliness is old evidence for us, which makes Bayesianism's problem of old evidence relevant to Bayesian analysis of its evidential impact. Ultimately, the verdict reached is that the warning of double counting is helpful, but that double counting can in principle be avoided. The paper highlights remaining independent challenges against the fine-tuning argument for the multiverse. (shrink)

To ascertain the rational credences for the epistemic agents in the famous cases of self-locating belief, one should model the processes by which those agents acquire their evidence. This approach, taken by Darren Bradley (Phil. Review 121, 149–177) and Joseph Halpern (Ergo 2, 195–206), is immensely reasonable. Nevertheless, the work of those authors makes it seem as if this approach must lead to such conclusions as the Doomsday argument being correct, and that Sleeping Beauty should be a halfer. I argue (...) that this is due to an implicit existential bias: it is assumed that the first step in those processes is the determination that the agent in question must necessarily exist. It is much more reasonable to model that determination as contingent and a result of other, earlier, steps in the process. This paper offers such alternative models. They imply an endorsement of what has mockingly been called “presumptuous” reasoning, and a massive shift of credences in favor of (1) the existence of a multiverse and (2) the Everettian interpretation of quantum mechanics. (shrink)

This paper has two aims. First, it points out a crucial difference between the standard argument from fine-tuning for the multiverse and paradigmatic instances of anthropic reasoning. The former treats the life-friendliness of our universe as the evidence whose impact is assessed, whereas the latter treat the life-friendliness of our universe as background information. Second, the paper develops a new fine-tuning argument for the multiverse which, unlike the old one, parallels the structure of paradigmatic instances of anthropic reasoning. The main (...) advantage of the new argument is that it is not susceptible to the inverse gambler’s fallacy charge. (shrink)