Related papers: The Fine-Tuning Argument
We propose a new approach for multiverse analysis based on computational complexity, which leads to a new family of "computational" measure factors. By defining a cosmology as a space-time containing a vacuum with specified properties (for…
Cosmological fine-tuning has traditionally been associated with the narrowness of the intervals in which the parameters of the physical models must be located to make life possible. A more thorough approach focuses on the probability of the…
The effective coupling `constants' of physics, especially the cosmological constant, are observed to have highly biophilic values. If this is not a hugely improbable accident, or a consequence of some mysterious logical necessity or of some…
What do we do when cosmology raises questions it cannot answer? These include the existence of a multiverse and the universality of the laws of physics. We cannot settle any of these issues by experiment, and this is where philosophers…
We give an introduction to the cosmological multiverse, aimed at an audience of artists. We discuss general relativity -- our modern theory of gravity -- and the cosmological constant, which is widely believed to be responsible for the…
Theoretical background of our proposed relation between the accelerating universe and the time-variability of the fine-structure constant is discussed, based on the scalar-tensor theory, with emphases on the intuitive aspects of underlying…
Two people may claim both to be naturalists, but have divergent conceptions of basic elements of the natural world which lead them to mean different things when they talk about laws of nature, or states, or the role of mathematics in…
When we want to predict the future, we compute it from what we know about the present. Specifically, we take a mathematical representation of observed reality, plug it into some dynamical equations, and then map the time-evolved result back…
An explicit retrocausal model is used to analyze the general Wood-Spekkens argument [1] that any causal explanation of Bell-inequality violations must be unnaturally fine-tuned to avoid signaling. The no-signaling aspects of the model turn…
We investigate the cosmological behavior in a universe governed by time asymmetric extensions of general relativity, which is a novel modified gravity based on the addition of new, time-asymmetric, terms on the Hamiltonian framework, in a…
In this comment, we show explicitly that the phenomenological model in which the quintessence field depends linearly on the energy density of the spatial curvature can provide acceleration for the universe, contrary to recent claims it…
We review a few off-the-beaten-track ideas in cosmology. They solve a variety of fundamental problems; also they are fun. We start with a description of non-singular dilaton cosmology. In these scenarios gravity is modified so that the…
The doomsday argument is a probabilistic argument that claims to predict the total lifetime of the human race. By examining the case of an individual lifetime, I conclude that the argument is fundamentally related to consciousness. I derive…
It has been recently proposed that the multiverse of eternal inflation and the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics can be identified, yielding a new view on the measure and measurement problems. In the present note, we argue…
I argue that scientific determinism is not supported by facts, but results from the elegance of the mathematical language physicists use, in particular from the so-called real numbers and their infinite series of digits. Classical physics…
Nature's many varied complex systems (including galaxies, stars, planets, life, and society) are islands of order within the increasingly disordered universe. All organized systems are subject to physical, biological or cultural evolution,…
This paper has two parts, for a specific multiverse, and for the origin of our universe as it resulted from that multiverse. The first is based on the Planck domain and a Chandrasekhar equation that have quantum, relativity, gravity, and…
Modern scientific cosmology pushes the boundaries of knowledge and the knowable. This is prompting questions on the nature of scientific knowledge. A central issue is what defines a 'good' model. When addressing global properties of the…
Arising out of an attempt at a new foundations of mathematics, in which relations are more primitive than sets, and out of the theoretical physicists' concept of underlying causes of empirical phenomena, the idea of a purely mathematical…
Did the universe have a beginning or does it exist forever, i.e. is it eternal at least in relation to the past? This fundamental question was a main topic in ancient philosophy of nature and the Middle Ages. Philosophically it was more or…