How Finely Tuned Is Our Universe?
On this ID the Future from the archive, Baylor University computer engineering professor Robert J. Marks hosts Ola Hössjer of Stockholm University and Daniel Díaz of the University of Miami to discuss a recent research paper the three contributed to the Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics, “Is Cosmological Tuning Fine or Coarse?” Although it’s no easy question to answer rigorously, the paper sheds new light on just how finely tuned our universe–and our existence–actually is. In this conversation, Marks, Hössjer, and Díaz unpack the long answer.
What about the short answer? It’s akin to a description in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: “Space,” it informs us, “is big. Really big.” Measuring how finely tuned our universe is for life is all about searching large spaces of possibilities; and as it turns out, the space of fine-tuning possibilities is really, really big. Tune in to learn more.
This episode is reposted here by permission of Mind Matters News, a publication of the Walter Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence.
Dig Deeper
- Watch Dr. Stephen Meyer unpack the fine-tuning of the universe and shatter the myth of the multiverse: