Related papers: Physics Beyond the Multiverse - Naturalness and th…

When a physicist says that a theory is fine-tuned, they mean that it must make a suspiciously precise assumption in order to explain a certain observation. This is evidence that the theory is deficient or incomplete. One particular case of…

A well-known topic within the philosophy of physics is the problem of fine-tuning: the fact that the universal constants seem to take non-arbitrary values in order for live to thrive in our Universe. In this paper we will talk about this…

The fundamental physical theories that interpret and explain behaviour of matter in nature are dependent on several unobservables and insensibles in their construction. While a rigorous natural philosophy cannot take them for granted, there…

In physics, there is the prevailing intuition that we are part of a unique external world, and that the goal of physics is to understand and describe this world. This assumption of the fundamentality of objective reality is often seen as a…

The argument from naturalness is widely employed in contemporary quantum field theory. Essentially a formalized aesthetic criterion, it received a meaning in the debate on the Higgs mechanism, which goes beyond aesthetics. We follow the…

Fine-tuning in physics and cosmology is often used as evidence that a theory is incomplete. For example, the parameters of the standard model of particle physics are "unnaturally" small (in various technical senses), which has driven much…

Many of the classic problems of particle physics appear in a very different light when viewed from the perspective of the multiverse. Most importantly the two great ``fine tuning'' problems that motivate the field are far less serious when…

Naturalness is an extra-empirical quality that aims to assess plausibility of a theory. Finetuning measures are often deputized to quantify the task. However, knowing statistical distributions on parameters appears necessary. Such…

Our laws of nature and our cosmos appear to be delicately fine-tuned for life to emerge, in a way that seems hard to attribute to chance. In view of this, some have taken the opportunity to revive the scholastic Argument from Design,…

With the discovery of a particle that seems rather consistent with the minimal Standard Model Higgs boson, attention turns to questions of naturalness, fine-tuning, and what they imply for physics beyond the Standard Model and its discovery…

In this article we present a possible way to make usual quantum mechanics fully compatible with physical realism, defined as the statement that the goal of physics is to study entities of the natural world, existing independently from any…

The fundamental laws and constants of our universe seem to be finely tuned for life. The various multiverse hypotheses are popular explanations for the fine tuning. This paper reviews the four main suggestions on inference in the presence…

What is the nature of reality? How should be an answer to this question? At this level, we are so deep that all our concepts are obscure. Quantum theory (QT) is at this level. The quest for interpreting it fails because the clarity of our…

We critically analyze the rationale of arguments from finetuning and naturalness in particle physics and cosmology. Some other numerological coincidences are also discussed.

This short paper proposes an alternative theory to Anthropic Principle. According to our interpretation, the Universe is not "fine-tuned" for life, but "roughly-tuned" for computation and its biofilness is only a phenomenon. This standpoint…

Our notions of what is physically 'real' have long been based on the idea that the real is what is immediately apprehended, that is the local or observable, the physically tangible, though there has always been an alternative philosophical…

I aim to clarify the physical content and significance of naturalness. Physicists' earliest understanding of naturalness, as an autonomy of scales (AoS) requirement provides the most cogent definition of naturalness and I will assert that…

Evidence for fine-tuning of physical parameters suitable for life can perhaps be explained by almost any combination of providence, coincidence or multiverse. A multiverse usually includes parts unobservable to us, but if the theory for it…

On a scientific meta-level, it is discussed how an overall understanding of the physical universe can be built on the basis of well-proven theories, observations, and recent experiments. In the light of almost a century of struggle to make…

The cosmological constant problem and the absence of new natural physics at the electroweak scale, if confirmed by the LHC, may either indicate that the nature is fine-tuned or that a refined notion of naturalness is required. We construct…