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Jul 15, 2023

Physicists & Philosophers critique The Fine Tuning Argument

Posted by in categories: cosmology, entertainment, neuroscience, physics

The Fine-Tuning Argument is often seen as the best argument for the existence of God. Here we have assembled some of the world’s top physicists and philosophers to offer a reply. Not every critic of the argument comes from the same perspective. Some doubt there is a problem to be solved whilst others agree it is a genuine problem but think there are better solutions than the God hypothesis. Some like the multiverse and anthropics other don’t. We have tried to represent these different approaches and so it should be taken as given, that not all of the talking heads agree with each other. Nevertheless, they all share the view that the fine-tuning argument for God does not work. Nor are all the objectors atheist, Hans Halvorson offers what we think is a strong theological objection to the argument. This film does not try to argue that God doesn’t exist only that the fine-tuning argument is not a good reason to believe in God. Most of the footage was filmed exclusively for this film with some clips being re-used from our Before the Big Bang series, which can be viewed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ry_pILPr7B8&list=PLJ4zAUPI-q…4hnojoCR4m All of the critics of the fine tuning argument that appear were sent a draft of the film more than a month before release and asked for any objections either to their appearance, the narration or any other aspect of the film. No objections were raised, and many replies were extremely positive and encouraging. A timeline of the subjects covered is below:
(We define God as a perfect Omni immaterial mind as for example modern Christians and Muslims advocate, there are other conceptions of God which our video does not address).
Just to be clear, this is a polemical film arguing against the fine tuning argument.

Timecodes.

0:00 Introduction.
4:11 The universe as a roll of the dice.
6:15 what is probability?
7:28 probability problems.
9:25 measure problem.
15:45 deceptive probabilities.
20:23 the flatness problem.
22:14 counterfactuals versus probabilities.
23:59 fine tuning versus God.
37:02 necessity.
38:53 multiverse and anthropics.
47:34 Boltzmann brains.
49:45 Entropy.
52:45 Cosmological Natural Selection.
59:10 conclusion.

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