Atheistic Multiverses Can't Explain Fine-Tuning

For the past many years I’ve been of the position that a multiverse is the only hope for an atheist to explain fine-tuning. They can do a few other things to mildly chip away at the force of fine-tuning—like noting that theism doesn’t actually guarantee fine-tuning. But all of that is wildly insufficient because unless atheists have a better explanation of fine-tuning, they have to simply take the hit on a roughly googol to one update against their theory.

No one should ever take the hit on a googol to one update against their view! If some fact has any ghostly sliver of a chance on an alternative view but has odds of one in googol on your theory, you should drop your theory in an instant! Don’t take the hit on a 10^N update against your view if N is more than, say, 5.

Now, for reasons I’ve given before, I don’t think the multiverse takes very much force out of the core fine-tuning argument. While it’s by far the best explanation, it’s still riddled with problems. It can’t explain fine-tuning for discoverability, risks just kicking fine-tuning up a level, and struggles with Boltzmann brains.

But I’ve recently thought of a problem with the multiverse theory that strikes me as extremely decisive. Unless I’m missing something, this seems like the death blow of the multiverse as an alternative explanation of fine-tuning.

The core problem is as follows: there isn’t just fine-tuning in the constants (the values that are plugged into the equations in physics). There’s also fine-tuning in the laws and initial conditions. If you deleted gravity, for example, no life could ever form. Same with the other forces (except for maybe the weak force but you’d have to change a bunch of other stuff).

>>16695718 (OP)
Thus, in order for a multiverse to explain fine-tuning, the constants don’t just need to have different values across universes. So do the laws and the initial conditions! The fine-tuning in the constants is more extreme than in the laws. The fine-tuning in the initial conditions is dicier to evaluate it but shouldn’t really affect the core judgment.

The core problem is this: there are some law structures that don’t need finely-tuned constants. There are some law structures that either don’t have constants or will give rise to life whatever the constants are. But if there’s a multiverse, nearly all observers should be in those universes. The fact that we’re in a finely-tuned universe is thus utterly inexplicable! Because the law structures that don’t need fine-tuning can have life no matter what the constants are, many more of them will be life-permitting than other law structures.

An analogy should help illustrate the core idea. Suppose that there are a bunch of rooms. Some of them have life. In each room, two conditions need to be met: there must be a life generator and the temperature must be right. Some of the rooms can give rise to life no matter what the temperature is. Others require it be set to a value that falls in a very narrow range—roughly one googolth of the possible temperatures.

>>16695719
If you’re created, it would be very surprising for you to be in one of the rooms that has the temperature need to fall in a tiny range. Because so few rooms are that way, almost all observers will exist in rooms where the temperature doesn’t need to be precisely set. Similarly, in a multiverse, almost all observers will exist in universes where constants don’t need to be finely-tuned.

Thus, to get a multiverse of the right sort you need:

Some universe generator.

The universe generator to avoid all the problems inherent to one (gerrymandering, generating mostly Boltzmann brains, etc).

The universe generator to vary the laws, constants, and initial conditions.

The universe generator to shockingly make it so that the law structures that only produce observers if their constants fall in an infinitesimal range—roughly one googolth of the possible range they could take on—generate most observers.

The universe generator must also make it so that law structures that require finely-tuned initial conditions generate such law structures.

>>16695720

Now you might wonder: how does theism solve this problem? Why would God place us in a finely-tuned universe—rather than one that simply has a law structure no matter what the constants were.

Sadly, I do not have God’s personal telephone number. I don’t know exactly why he does what he does. I can only speculate. But there are some plausible speculative reasons for God to make a finely-tuned universe. Such a universe allows more people to come to believe in him through science by allowing the fine-tuning argument to exist. This is a good thing. It makes religious people more favorably disposed towards physics and secularists more favorably disposed towards God.

But in any case, it seems clear that the probability of God doing things this way is not trivial. It seems about equally likely that he’d make a finely-tuned universe as a non-finely-tuned universe. So the probability on theism of a finely-tuned universe is somewhere around .5.

In contrast, if the argument I’ve given above is correct, the probability given atheism is much much lower. Thus, even if fine-tuning isn’t very likely given theism, it’s still evidence for theism over atheism. (I’ve also heard some physicists suggest that our universe isn’t finely-tuned enough to be a good multiverse candidate—other universes that are more conducive to life would likely have more observers).

I think that the multiverse is by far the best hope for atheists to explain fine-tuning. But it is not a very plausible explanation. For a multiverse to be gerrymandered to produce a high probability of us finding ourself here, likely God is needed. If this is right, it is bad news for atheism as a worldview. To explain fine-tuning, they’ll need to reach for more exotic hypotheses like axiarchism or natural teleology. Naturalism, the default atheistic worldview, is out.

https://benthams.substack.com/p/the-fine-tuning-argument-simply-works

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/fine-tuning/

https://appearedtoblogly.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/final-blackwell-fine-tuning-proof-1-16-09-copy1.pdf

>>16695718 (OP)
two explanations
1) goddidit
2) multiverse, each universe with different random 'tuning'.
It's not surprising that mold grows where it happens to be wet.

>>16695731
Wouldn't the multiverses all come from the same initial universe with the same constants

You've experienced real-time fine tuning or miracles? One burn cost us the whole game man. Just trying to wipe out my alternate selves before I get got. They have a tendency to ditch me and mock. They thought they could sit back behind the scenes and enjoy the show by dropping acid n eating shrooms aka eating shit, I got you now.

>>16695743
no, quantum randomness makes them all different
https://youtu.be/IcxptIJS7kQ?t=24m40s

I don't think I'm n atheist, but if there was an infinite number of universes, we would find ourselves in one of the possibilities capable of producing life, thus it doesn't matter how improbable our set of conditions are, we were always going to end up in some set of conditions seemingly perfect for life to exist, and there would be nobody to observe the other possibilities.

>>16695718 (OP)
Its self tuning like most concretes are self leveling, but even if it were specifically fine tuned on purpose, there are far more ants (by sheer number obviously, but also significantly by weight and mass too) than people in the known universe, so the known universe is more fine-tuned for ant life than any other life, so the god of the universe must be an ant and you just exist for the convenience of the ant.

>>16695719
>The fact that we’re in a finely-tuned universe is thus utterly inexplicable!
This is exactly why billionaires and optimistic narcissists think they are gods because the odds are so utterly inexplicable to them that the only way they can explain some great unlikely thing happening to them is if they have godlike powers over reality.