No Inverse Gambler's Fallacy in Cosmology

Abstract

Our universe can seem spectacularly 'fine tuned' for producing observers. Tiny changes in the strengths of its main forces, in its particle masses, in its early expansion speed, etc., would (very plausibly) have prevented life's evolution.1 A first reaction could be that God must have created it-a theory which may be attractively simple if 'God' just names the principle that an ethical need for our universe to exist is itself creatively powerful.2 A second is that there exist very many 'universes', that is, largely or entirely separate cosmic systems. Force strengths, particle masses, and so on, are settled randomly in early symmetrybreaking phase transitions when a unified force splits into four or more forces. Perhaps only very rarely would a universe develop life-permitting characteristics; but, the Anthropic Principle reminds us tautologically, living beings could see only universes whose characteristics were life-permitting. In 'The Inverse Gambler's Fallacy: the Argument from Design. The Anthropic Principle Applied to Wheeler Universes',3 Ian Hacking invites Mind's readers to agree that the existence of us living beings would be explained if 'all logically possible universes consistent with classical big-bang cosmology actually coexist', a position he ascribes to Brandon Carter. However, he detects a fallacy in effortshe cites mine and those of P. C. W. Davies-to do similar explanatory work with the oscillating cosmos of John Wheeler, a cosmos whose many cycles are characterized by different force strengths etc. Hacking's intriguing idea is that Davies and I are like a dim-witted gambler striving to account for a roll of double six. The gambler 'enters the room as a roll is about to be made. The kibitzer asks, Is this the first roll of the dice . . . or have we made many a one earlier tonight? The gambler . . . says, Can I wait until I see how this roll comes out . . .? The roll is double six. The gambler foolishly says, Ha, that makes a difference-I think there have been quite a few rolls. ' In Hacking's eyes the proposed excuse for believing in quite a few previous cycles of a Wheeler cosmos-namely, that here we are in a cycle in which all the force strengths etc. are 'just right'-is equally foolish. He mentions that I had tried to reply to this in an earlier paper.4 There, however, I was struggling to follow him down the twistings of one of his earlier