Among the many papers on the Fine Tuning Argument, there are numerous analogies attempting to capture the logic of the fine tuning argument and the Inverse Gamblers Fallacy. A critical flaw I perceive in most of them is their failure to tie object of interest to the “winning” outcome. I will attempt to address that by way of a Genie in a Lamp analogy.
Imagine you suddenly appear as a being. It quickly becomes clear to you that you are a Genie and have appeared out of a lamp. Beside your lamp is a 10229-sided dice with the number 6 on it and a scroll saying that whenever a 6 is rolled, the genie will appear from the lamp. As the genie, which of the following scenarios is more likely to result in your appearing from the lamp?
- The dice was rolled once only
- The dice was rolled multiple times until a 6 was rolled, and the genie appeared.
Of course the answer is 2. So, from a Bayesian perspective the genie should have more credence in scenario 2.
While this might be suffucient for some to accept the MV hypothesis over the NSU hypothesis, it might be argued that the probability here represents the likeliohood of life emerging in a Universe whose initial conditions are LPU.
We can amend the analogy such that, instead of the roll of a 6 determining the appearance of the Genie, the roll of the 6 can be used to determine whether the Genie is put in the lamp to begin with. Again, which scenario is more likely to result in a genie in a lamp?
- The dice is rolled once only
- The dice is The dice was rolled multiple times until a 6 was rolled, and the genie is put in the lamp corresponding to the roll of 6.
Of course scenario 2 is the more likely to result in a genie being the lamp.
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