Fine tuning explained? Multiverses and cellular automata
Entidad
UAM. Departamento de Ingeniería InformáticaEditor
Springer NetherlandsFecha de edición
2013-07Cita
10.1007/s10838-013-9215-7
Journal for General Philosophy of Science 44.1 (2013): 153 – 172
ISSN
0925-4560 (print); 1572-8587 (online)DOI
10.1007/s10838-013-9215-7Financiado por
This work has been partially sponsored by the Spanish MICINN projects TIN2011-28260-C03-02 and RYC-2009-04042.Versión del editor
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10838-013-9215-7Materias
Astrophysics; Cellular automata; Cosmology; Fine tuning; Multiverse; Philosophy of Science; InformáticaNota
The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10838-013-9215-7A preliminary (and extended) version of this article is available at arXiv under the title ‘‘Is the Multiverse Hypothesis capable of explaining the Fine Tuning of Nature Laws and Constants? The Case of Cellular Automata‘‘. See: http://arxiv.org/abs/1105.4278
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© Springer Netherlands 2013Resumen
The objective of this paper is analyzing to which extent the multiverse hypothesis provides a real explanation of the peculiarities of the laws and constants in our universe. First we argue in favor of the thesis that all multiverses except Tegmark’s “mathematical multiverse” are too small to explain the fine tuning, so that they merely shift the problem up one level. But the “mathematical multiverse" is surely too large. To prove this assessment, we have performed a number of experiments with cellular automata of complex behavior, which can be considered as universes in the mathematical multiverse. The analogy between what happens in some automata (in particular Conway’s “Game of Life") and the real world is very strong. But if the results of our experiments can be extrapolated to our universe, we should expect to inhabit—in the context of the multiverse—a world in which at least some of the laws and constants of nature should show a certain time dependence. Actually, the probability of our existence in a world such as ours would be mathematically equal to zero. In consequence, the results presented in this paper can be considered as an inkling that the hypothesis of the multiverse, whatever its type, does not offer an adequate explanation for the peculiarities of the physical laws in our world.
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A preliminary (and extended) version of this article available at arXiv
Google Scholar:Soler Gil, Francisco José
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Alfonseca, Manuel
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