Is It Possible to Know Cosmological Fine-tuning?
Abstract
Fine-tuning studies whether some physical parameters, or relevant ratios between them, are located within so-called life-permitting intervals of small probability outside of which carbon-based life would not be possible. Recent developments have found estimates of these probabilities that circumvent previous concerns of measurability and selection bias. However, the question remains whether fine-tuning can indeed be known. Using a mathematization of the concepts of learning and knowledge acquisition, we argue that most examples that have been touted as fine-tuned cannot be formally assessed as such. Nevertheless, fine-tuning can be known when the physical parameter is seen as a random variable and it is supported in the nonnegative real line, provided the size of the life-permitting interval is small in relation to the observed value of the parameter.
- Publication:
-
The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series
- Pub Date:
- April 2024
- DOI:
- 10.3847/1538-4365/ad2c88
- arXiv:
- arXiv:2401.04190
- Bibcode:
- 2024ApJS..271...56D
- Keywords:
-
- Anthropic principle;
- Bayesian statistics;
- Analytical mathematics;
- Cosmological constant;
- Cosmological parameters;
- 48;
- 1900;
- 38;
- 334;
- 339;
- Astrophysics - Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics;
- Computer Science - Information Theory;
- Statistics - Methodology;
- 85A40 85A40 (Primary) 68T30;
- 94A15 (Secondary)
- E-Print:
- Accepted version. Minor changes: a sentence removed at the end of Section 5.2, and more comprehensive keywords