Debunking the Fine Tuning Argument: A Critical Analysis

roosh

Forgive the clickbait title, but that's the title I used for the youtube video (apparently it's a rule that you have to put the word "debunking" in video titles).

The video outlines the following argument:

• The Inverse Gambler's Fallacy (IGF) objection, raised by theistic proponents of the fine tuning argument, moves the goalposts against the multiverse hypothesis because it attributes a direct inference (to the best explanation) to multiverse proponents, instead of applying a Bayesian Framework. The claim is that MV proponents infer a multiverse on the basis that a fine tuned universe is improbable, given only a singular universe. However, theistic proponents say the question should be considered in a Bayesian framework. When considered in a Bayesian framework, there is no IGF because an MV isn't inferred from the evidence, instead, the likelihood of the evidence is inferred given the hypothesis.

• Under the MV hypothesis it is not improbable that some universe will have the apparently fine tuned values, which permit life.
• The "This Universe Objection" (TUO) claims the MV hypothesis violates the requirement for total evidence, however, the TUO doesn't adequately account for the anthropic principle/selection effect.
• The TUO employs the concept of "rigid designation" of a universe as "this universe" or as α (alpha).
• As per Kripke, a rigid designator designates the same object in all possible worlds in which that object exists and never designates anything else.
• This, however, is simply a restatement of statistical independence and the probability of life permitting values, associate with all universes, prior to the creation of the universe. It simply states that there was a possibility that alpha might not have been life permitting, prior to its creation - which is true for all universes in the MV.
• This idea is fully accounted for in the MV hypothesis and is precisely one of the issues which the MV resolves, because, while it might be improbable for each individual universe to be life permitting, with an infinite number of universes it is inevitable that at least one will be life permitting.
• The MV doesn't require that alpha be life permitting, simply that some universe is life permitting.
• The selection effect is what "bridges the gap from weaker evidence to stronger evidence" and ensures the requirement for total evidence is satisfied.
• The selection effect means that it doesn't matter which universe is life permitting, because the inhabitants of whichever universe ends up producing life will refer to it as "this universe".
• The theistic objections to the MV hypothesis, therefore, fail.

https://youtu.be/AhWVm_QrNtw?si=wEVNQtHbZtlaaN9x