The Fine-Tuning Argument Revisited

Philosophy

VOL. 3, No.2 PHII9 FALL-WINTER 2000 THE FINE-TUNING ARGUMENT REVISITED Theodore M. Drange Abstract: A version of the Fine-tuning Argument (FTA) considered in a previous essay is replaced by an improved version, which is then refuted. Advocates of FTA must proclaim that there is no world ensemble, that a great many alternatives to the physical constants of our universe are physically possible and roughly equal in probability to them, and that alternate hypothetical worlds are all, or almost all, uninteresting in comparison to our universe. But no reason has been produced to believe any of these claims, and so FTA, even in its improved version, can still be dismissed as unsupported, doubtful, and weak. In my Internet essay on the Fine-tuning Argument (FTA for short),l the argument is formulated as follows, with premises indicated by "P" and conclusions indicated by "C": (P I) The combination of physical constants that we observe in our universe is the only one capable of sustaining life as we know it. (P2) Other combinations of physical constants are conceivable. (C3) Therefore, some explanation is needed why our actual combination of physical constants exists rather than a different one. (P4) The very best explanation of the given fact is that our universe, with the particular combination of physical constants that it has, was created out of nothing by a single being who is omnipotent, omniscient, all-loving, eternal, and interested in sentient organic systems, and that he "fine-tuned" those constants in a way which would lead to the evolution of such systems. (P5) But such a being as described in (P4) is what people mean by "God." Theodore M. Drange is Professor of Philosophy at West Virginia University in Morgantown, West Virginia. E-mail: email@example.com. 38 Drange: The Fine-Tuning Argument Revisited 39 (C6) Hence [from (P4) & (P5)], there is good evidence that God exists. It has occurred to me that this formulation of FTA could be improved upon. I see three significant defects in it. First, step (C3) does not follow from premises (P I) and (P2). Second, the argument should contain the proposition that there is something remarkable or surprising about the physical constants of our universe. And third, the argument should be aimed at merely proving the existence of intelligent design, rather than God, since some of its advocates take it in that way. Here is a reformulation of FTA which avoids those defects: (PI) The particular group of values that exists for the fundamental physical constants of our universe (call it "GPC") is just one of a huge number of different groups of values, all of which are physically possible (i.e., not ruled out by more basic laws). (P2) For all, or at least a large number, of the various groups of values mentioned above, the probability of the existence of any particular group is not considerably less than the probability of the existence of GPC itself. (P3) It is not the case that there exist a great many worlds (or regions of spacetime), separated from our observable universe, each with its own group of values for fundamental physical constants. (C4) Therefore [from PI, P2, & P3], the existence of epc is exceedingly improbable. (P5) epc is the only group of values for the fundamental physical constants of a world (or region of spacetime) that would permit the origin, development, and continuation of life as we know it within that world. (P6) The capability of permitting life as we know it is a very special feature within the set of hypothetical physically possible worlds. (C7) Hence [from C4, P5, & P6], the existence of GPC is remarkable, surprising, and in need of explanation. (1'8) Given the truth of (C7), the hypothesis that GPC was a product of intelligent design (call it "IDH") is the very best explanation there is for the existence of GPC. (C9) It follows that there is good evidence that IDH is true. In my previous essay, mentioned above, I considered two objections to the original premise (1'4), referred to as the "Inadequacy Objection" and the "Alternate-explanations Objection." The first aimed to show that, for various reasons, the "God Hypothesis" advocated in the original FTA does not adequately explain why our universe has the values for the physical constants that it has, and the second attacked the old premise (P4) by presenting alternate explanations for the given fact that are at least as good as the God Hypothesis. Neither of these objections applies in quite the same way to the reformulated version of FTA. Let us take a look, then, at how the new version may be critically assessed. 40 PHII9 I shall not here challenge any of the conclusions (labeled "C"). Nor shall I challenge premise (P5), though people with a background in physics might do so. It claims that (within certain limits) GPC is the only possible group of values for the constants that is capable of permitting life as we know it. This is a very broad generalization about something that has never been observed. It is saying, in effect, that each significant change in value for any of a large number of specific physical constants of our universe, even if exceedingly small, would prevent the existence of life as we know it. But these changes have never been observed. So what we have here is speculation about states of the universe, or alternate worlds if you will, that not only may never have existed, but which, for all we know, cannot possibly exist. Such speculation, which takes the form of a series of counterfactual conditionals, is in need of support. Here are some examples of those counterfactuals: (1) If gravity had been stronger by one part in I04(), then the universe would have collapsed in upon itself long ago, rendering life impossible. (2) If the strength of the initial "big bang" explosion had varied from its actual value by one part in 1060, then the universe would be so different as to make life impossible. (3) If the electromagnetic force or the strong nuclear force had been just slightly different from what it actually is, then the formation of carbon, which is necessary for life as we know it, would have been impossible. Advocates of FTA sometimes trot out about forty or fifty of these counterfactual conditional propositions. Although I have my doubts about several of them, I am willing to grant that some, at least, receive good support from science. Such support obviously needs to be indirect, since there can be no direct support for a counterfactual conditional. It is up to physicists to hash out the truth of (P5).2 I myself am inclined to just bypass that premise and attack the argument elsewhere. In the end, it will be seen that FTA has many weaknesses. I turn now to a critique of its five other premises. OBJECTION 1: OTHER VALUES FOR PHYSICAL CONSTANTS MAY NOT BE PHYSICALLY POSSIBLE This attacks FTA's premise (PI). In my previous essay, I suggested the possibility of some physical theory that would explain why our universe had to have GPC, the particular values for the physical constants that it has. It may be that scientists of the future will come up with a "theory of everything" (TOE for short) that will show why values for physical constants other than GPC (though conceivable) are not physically possible. No one has ever proven that such a theory will never be developed. Advocates of FTA sometimes dismiss TOEs as "pipedreams," never to be realized. However, such dismissals are premature. First of all, it should be noted that the God Hypothesis and IDH are each themselves a kind of TOE, for they are appealed to by their advocates to explain just about anything that anyone might bring up as a phenomenon to be explained. As such, they are inadequate, to be sure. But their structure and the intention Drange: The Fine-Tuning Argument Revisited 41 behind them is nevertheless that of a TOE. For that reason, it would be inconsistent for advocates of FTA to simply dismiss all TOEs out of hand. Another consideration is that the burden of proof is upon the one who is putting FTA forward as an argument. Such a person needs to provide some good reason to think that values for physical constants other than GPC are indeed physically possible, i.e., not ruled out by some more basic law. And, so far, no such reason has been given. One reply that advocates of FTA might make here is that even if a purely naturalistic TOE were to be developed, it would be making appeal to some fundamental law from which all of our present laws of nature, which contain GPC, can be derived. And the question could then be raised why that fundamental law obtains and is the way it is. For example, suppose the TOE were to show that, given the initial conditions of the big bang, no other values for physical constants other than GPC could possibly have emerged. The advocates of IDH would then still press for an explanation why the initial conditions of the big bang were the way they were and not some other way. So, the pressure for an explanation would still be there. Despite this pressure for an explanation, the burden of proof is still on the advocates of FTA to show that the alternate hypothetical worlds to which they are appealing are indeed physically possible, as claimed in premise (PI). Whether those alternate worlds involve values for physical constants other than GPC or whether they involve initial conditions for the big bang other than the ones which actually obtained, there is still some need for support here. Why should we believe that the given worlds, whatever they may be, are not ruled out by some more basic law? Advocates of FTA have not adequately addressed this challenge, and so that is a place at which their reasoning is weak. OBJECTION 2: OTHER VALUES FOR PHYSICAL CONSTANTS MAY BE HIGHLY IMPROBABLE Premise (P2) claims that for at least a large number of the various hypothetical groups of values for the fundamental physical constants of our universe mentioned in (PI), the probability of their existence is not considerably less than that for GPC. What this means is that even if a correct naturalistic TOE is ever worked out, it will not only retain the alternate groups of values as physically possible, as claimed in (PI), but also, it will not render their existence considerably less probable than the existence of GPC itself. Such a claim is needed in FTA, for if all the groups other than GPC were, though physically possible, nevertheless shown by some TOE to be much more unlikely than GPC, then step (C4) of the argument could not be derived. However, what reason is there to proclaim this proposition regarding probabilities? Physicists do not have any data on the basis of which such probability computations could be made, whether it is the existence of GPC itself that is being considered or the existence of some group of values other than GPC. The burden of proof is on the advocate of FTA to show that 42 PHII9 claims about the probabilities of values for the fundamental physical constants of our universe have some sort of basis. So far as I know, there is nothing in physics at present that would allow such computations to be made. It may be that, in the future, a TOE will be developed that would allow them, but we have no basis now for speculating about what form such a theory will take. To suggest that it will not show alternate groups of values to be considerably less probable than GPe is mere assumption, totally unsupported. Thus, (P2) is another premise that lacks support and can be doubted. OBJECTION 3: THERE MAY BE AN ENSEMBLE OF OTHER WORLDS We now come to premise (P3). It was suggested in my previous essay that, once we assume that values for physical constants different from GPe are physically possible, there may in that case actually exist other worlds (or regions of spacetime) which are completely outside our observational field and which contain just such values for physical constants (i.e., ones different from GPC). It is therefore illegitimate to assume that the only values for physical constants that exist at all are the ones that we have observed. If there were to exist a great many such other worlds, totally separated from us, then there would be nothing improbable in the fact that GPe exists somewhere or other. But why does it exist in our universe? It could simply be chalked up to coincidence. It would be just a brute fact that our universe has the particular features that it has, and there would be nothing surprising about that if indeed there were many other actual worlds with other features. First, there is nothing at all surprising about the f~lct that we live in a world that permits our existence, and second, that there should somewhere exist such a world at all would not be surprising if there did actually exist the many different worlds as described. Consider the firing-squad analogy that some writers use. Suppose you are a prisoner to be shot by a firing squad composed of fifty expert marksmen. There is a finite though infinitesimal chance that all fifty would miss their target. The guns are fired, and 10 and behold, you find yourself still alive. That would indeed be unexpected and surprising. The hypothesis that you just happened to be lucky would be a poor explanation of the fact of your survival. But suppose you later find out that at the same time that your execution was scheduled to occur there were a great many other executions occurring, each by a firing squad of fifty expert marksmen. In practically all of them, the prisoners died and the number of prisoners actually surviving was just an infinitesimal proportion of the total. Given that new information, the fact that you were one of the very few survivors should no longer seem surprising and inexplicable. You should feel exceedingly lucky (as the winner of a lottery feels), but there would in that case be nothing in the situation that could not be explained, quite plausibly and reasonably, simply by an appeal to chance. In a similar way, if there really are a great many other worlds, each with its own set of physical constants different from GPe, then the fact that we happen to exist in one of the very few Drange: The Fine-Tuning Argurnent Revisited 43 worlds capable of sustaining life as we know it would not be unexpected or surprising or incapable of being reasonably explained simply by an appeal to chance. Another way to put the matter is to point out that step (C4) of FTA does not follow from premises (PI) and (P2) alone. Premise (P3) is needed because [assuming the truth of (PI) and (P2)], if there were a very large number of actual worlds (or separated regions of spacetime) with different groups of values f(Jr physical constants, then, just by the law of averages, GPC should occur in at least one of them. One standard way of attacking FTA has been to call its premise (P3) into question. The denial of (P3) is sometimes called the "World-ensemble Theory." Advocates of FTA, such as William Lane Craig, often criticize worldensemble theories as totally unsupported by any evidence. However, as the saying goes: "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." Just because we do not have evidence for the existence of other worlds (or separated regions of spacetime), that does not entail that they do not exist. As mentioned above, the burden of proof is always upon the one who is putting f()I'ward a proof, and in this context that person is the advocate of FTA. He has not provided any good reason to accept premise (P3), and so, that is still another basis for doubting the soundness of FTA. OBJECTION 4: OUR UNIVERSE MAY NOT BE SPECIAL, OVERALL This attacks FTA's premise (P6). I have read William Lane Craig's essays on the topic and looked at transcripts and videos of his debates. Nowhere in his presentation of FIA does he put forward anything like (P6). Instead, he attempts to derive step (C7) directly from (C4) and (P5). But (C7) does not follow from (C4) and (P5) alone! Even if the existence of GPC were highly improbable and GPC were the only group of values for constants that permit life, that would not make it necessarily remarkable or surprising. It could be merely one of a huge batch of grou ps all of which are both highly improbable and unique in some way. Consider the example of rolling a die. Suppose a die were rolled ten times and the sequence of numbers that comes up is the following: 3,5,6,3,1,4,4,2,3,6. This particular combination is highly improbable (less than 1/60,000,000) and also unique: no other combination places the six possible numbers in exactly those positions. Yet, there is nothing remarkable or surprising about it. This proves that a step like ((;7), the claim of surprisingness, does not logically follow from steps like (C4) and (P5) alone. What is needed for the combination to be surprising is that it be somehow very special. Suppose, f()r example, that the die had come up all sixes, which has the very same probability as the sequence above. It would be reasonable to view such a sequence as "very special." When compared to most other possible sequences of rolls, it stands out as being of particular interest. This shows the need for premise (P6). Without it, the inference to (C7) would be invalid. However, what support is there for (P6)? Assuming that 44 PH119 hypothetical alternate worlds are physically possible, why believe that in very few of those worlds, if any, is there anything happening that is as special or interesting as life as we know it? Why believe that they are all, or almost all, boring or humdrum sorts of world, akin to the die-sequence 3,5,6,3,1 ,4,4,2,3,6? Again, the burden of proof is upon the advocate of FTA to support the assumption at issue. And no support has ever been given for premise (P6). Assuming that groups of values for constants other than GPC are physically possible, there is no reason to believe that all of them, or even most of them, would result in a world with less variety and complexity than our universe. There may not be life as we know it, but there may be other forms of life or other things going on in them that would be at least as interesting to us if we could somehow peek in without being destroyed and comprehend what was happening. The problem is that no one has any idea what sorts of things might emerge over time in worlds that start out having values for physical constants different from ours. There is no way for our science, at its present stage, to extrapolate that sort of information from what we know. The example I used in my previous essay to bring out the point about special kinds of world was similar to the one above about rolling a die ten times. Suppose we count the sum of the ten rolls. It will be a number from 10 through 60. Whatever number that sum turns out to be, it will not only be unlikely to have come up but it will probably have at least one unique and interesting property, not possessed by any of the other fifty numbers. For example, suppose the sum turns out to be, say, 27. Someone like Craig could say: "Aha, there must have been design at work, for, 27 was very unlikely to come up and, out of all the possible numbers, 27 is the only perfect cube (being the cube of3)." Obviously, such an inference would be weak for the simple reason that, no matter what number the sum had turned out to be, it would have been an unlikely number with some unique and interesting property. For example, if it is, say, 25, then that number would be the only perfect square which is itself the sum of two squares (9 & 16) and is also the only odd number that is the square of its last digit. And the number 28 is the only one that is the sum of all its divisors smaller than itself (1, 2,4, 7, 14). And so on. In the essay I gave several examples of such interesting properties. In light of this fact, no matter what number might come up as the sum of the ten rolls of the die, we could say, "How amazing: that is the only number such that ... " and proceed to specify the interesting property or properties uniquely possessed by that number. Then if one were to ask, "Why did that number came up rather than some other number?" the correct answer would be that it is just a coincidence (or brute tact). Whatever number had come up, it would have been an unlikely one having some interesting property or properties possessed only by that number. It may be that way with our universe. It is simply a brute fact that it has the values for physical constants that it has. And even if it were true that no other possible world, with different values, would have permitted life as we know it, nevertheless, whatever world had come about, it would probably have had some Drange: The Fine-Tuning Argument Revisited 45 other unique feature(s) at least as interesting as the property of permitting life as we know it. From this perspective, there would be nothing special about our universe, and that makes FTA's premise (P6) totally unsupported and thus doubtful. OBJECTION 5: IDH MAY NOT BE THE BEST EXPLANATION FOR GPc, EVEN GIVEN (Cn (P8) is the premise that corresponds to the old (P4) in the earlier version of FTA. There are two sorts of objection that can be mounted against it: the Inadequacy Objection and the Alternate-explanations Objection. I shall take these up separately. The Inadequacy Objection For various reasons, IDH is an inadequate explanation. First, it does not tell us anything about the alleged intelligent designers of the universe except that they were intelligent and presumably had great power. That is certainly insufficient and there is apparently no way to gather more information about the matter, which makes IDH hopelessly incomplete. Second, no description whatever is supplied for how the designers did any creating or designing. The "modus operandi problem" is left completely unsolved. Third, nothing is provided regarding the motives of the designers. Sometimes it is suggested that they wanted there to be intelligent life. But, in that case, why should they wait billions of years for life to emerge, and billions more years for life to develop intelligence? And why should they make the universe so large in relation to the life on earth? None of that appears rational, at least from a human perspective, which is the only one we have. Finally, no explanation is given for the origin of the designers. What good is it to introduce the concept of design if nothing at all is said about how the design came to be? It would be, at best, simply replacing one mystery by an even greater mystery. Our object here is explanation, not the introduction of new mysteries. Some say that there was just one designer and that it (or "he") was a "Necessary Being," which in some sense had to exist. But all that is exceedingly obscure. Many philosophers, myself included, have found the notion of "Necessary Being" incomprehensible. With all the defects, IDH is clearly inadequate as an explanation for anything, and that in itself is reason to reject FTA's premise (P8). In putting IDH in place of the God Hypothesis, advocates of FTA may appear to have removed FTA from the debate between theism and atheism. Of course, that is not their intention. Usually they say that proof of God is a matter of "stages," where the first stage involves arguing for the existence of "intelligent design" and a second stage involves showing that the given design is the work of God as traditionally understood. Thus, although they would grant that the new FTA is strictly a first-stage argument, they would insist that it does have a bearing on the theism-atheism issue. In reply, I would certainly challenge the claim that the alleged "intelligent design" could ever be shown to be the work of the God of traditional theism. But 46 PHII9 aside from that, FTA can be refuted, even as a tIrst-stage argument, and that has been my aim here. The Altemate-Explanations Objection In my previous essay, I suggested three "alternate explanations" for the existence of GPC: (1) that it is required by some correct TOE which is yet to be formulated by physicists, (2) that it is just a "brute fact" which has no explanation, and (3) that it is the work of beings other than God. The tIrst of these was covered above under Objection # 1. The last of them does not apply to the new version of FTA, which makes no reference to God, and so I shall omit it here. But I would like to discuss the second alternative, which is the Brute-fact Hypothesis (BFH for short). In his debates over the existence of God, William Lane Craig characterizes BFH, which he calls "the atheistic view of the universe," as follows: When the universe popped into being uncaused, out of nothing, it just happened to be, by chance, fine-tuned with an incomprehensible complexity and detail for the existence of intelligent life." This formulation is certainly inaccurate for various reasons. First, to say that the universe began without cause does not imply that there was some prior state, called "nothingness," out of which it emerged (or "popped"). The universe and time may have just begun, simultaneously, without there being any prior state whatever. So, Craig's implication of a prior state is erroneous. It should be noted here that an advocate of BFH need not believe that the universe had a beginning in time at all, but could, instead, maintain that the universe is intInitely old and the ultimate facts about its properties just have no explanation. Or, alternatively, he might uphold Stephen Hawking's model, according to which space and time, though tInite, form a closed surface without any boundary, and thus with no beginning point. BFH is perfectly compatible with these other views, so that too makes Craig's characterization of it too narrow. Another inaccuracy lies in the term "tIne-tuned." It is usually theists who talk of "tIne-tuning," not atheists. So for Craig to employ the term in formulating the atheists' view is somewhat misleading. Finally, still another error lies in the reference to intelligent life. Assuming that our universe had a beginning, it would be true that, in its early stages, it contained features which made the eventual origin oflife and the evolution of intelligence physically possible. However, there may have been nothing in those features which would make such future events at all likely. Craig's expression "tIne-tuned for intelligent life" implies that intelligent life would be a likely outcome of the initial conditions of the universe, but there is no reason to think that that is so. For these reasons, Craig's characterization of BFH should be rejected. When properly formulated, BFH says no more than that the fact that the universe possesses the values for physical constants which it possesses is simply a "brute fact," that is, a fact for which there is no explanation. It has been pointed out that there is an implicit appeal to BFH in Objections 3 and Drange: The Fine-Tuning Argurnent Revisited 47 4, above. In Objection 3, which is an attack on FTA's premise (P3), it is assumed that if our universe is just one of a very large number of actual worlds, each with a different group of values for physical constants, then the fact that epc exists in our universe is just coincidence. which is the same as a brute fact. And in Objection 4, which is an attack on FTA's premise (P6), it is assumed that if our universe is just one of a very large number of hypothetical worlds. each being at least as interesting as ours, then the fact that our universe happens to have an interesting feature (being life-permitting) is, again. sheer coincidence, which is the same as a brute fact. Thus, it has already been shown in previous objections how BFH constitutes a kind of "alternate explanation" to IDH. However, we are now considering using BFH to attack premise (P8) as it is presently worded. There are problems in doing that, for (P8) presupposes the truth of step (C7), the claim of surprisingness. If indeed the existence of GPC is remarkable and surprising, then it is not clear how it could be merely a brute fact. One objection that might be raised is that BFH is not an explanation at all, but an appeal to a lack of explanation. So the title "Alternate-explanations Objection" would be misleading if BFH is the only alternative to IDH that is being put forward. There is some merit to this. First of all, I do want to focus on BFH as the main, if not only, alternative to IDH. There could not be any other naturalistic explanation, such as a TOE, assuming that the existence ofGPC is exceedingly improbable, for a TOE would show GPC to be either physically required or very highly probable, just the opposite of improbable. And second, it is indeed a little peculiar to call an appeal to a lack of explanation an "explanation." There is some ambiguity there. Either we need to understand the term "explanation" in a rather broad sense (broad enough to include appeals to a lack of explanation) or else some dif* ferent title for the objection should be employed, perhaps "Alternate-worldview Objection." For even if BFH is not to be called an alternate explanation, it is at least an alternate way of describing ultimate origins. Some philosophers and theologians appeal to the so-called Principle of Sufficient Reason according to which there is a reason or an explanation for everything. The only exception is supposed to be God, who is said to be "self-existing" and in no need of explanation. Whether or not that makes any sense, we can see that BFH is directly opposed to that principle, since, according to B FH, there is at least one fact about our universe for which there is no reason or explanation. The advocates of the Principle of Sufficient Reason might claim that it is a self-evident, or at least intuitively satisfying. principle. I deny that it is self-evident, but would agree that we all seek explanations f()r phenomena and are satisfied when we get them. Nevertheless, that in itself does not make the principle hue. Maybe reality is not the way we would like it to be, and in fact, maybe there simply is no explanation for why the physical constants of our universe have the particular values that they happen to have. Those who advocate the Principle of Sufficient Reason have never given any good argument for its truth. It seems that in every metaphysical theory there needs to be an appeal, 48 PHII9 eventually, to some brute fact or other. In the case of theism, the ultimate brute facts are that God exists and that he is the way he is (i.e., possessing the particular group of divine attributes, including desires, that he possesses). In the case of naturalism, the ultimate brute facts are that the universe exists and that it is the way it is (i.e., possessing the particular group of basic properties, including physical constants, that it possesses). Strictly speaking, then, there cannot be such a thing as a TOE, a theory of everything, for it is impossible for a theory to explain absolutely everything, even its own basic assumptions. The point is sometimes made that the fact that there is something, rather than nothing, is necessarily a brute fact. It cannot be explained, for whatever is brought in to explain it would already presuppose that there is something rather than nothing. Thus, since there has to be at least one brute fact, there cannot be a TOE, a theory which explains (literally) everything, and, furthermore, the Principle of Sufficient Reason cannot be universally true. It follows that an appeal to that principle does not favor either metaphysical theory over the other. The principle must have some exceptions to it and there is no reason to think that the exceptions lie in theism rather than naturalism. Hence, the attempt to use the Principle of Sufficient Reason to show that some explanation must exist for the universe and its properties is a failure. The term "explanation" can be taken in a narrow sense, which would exclude BFH as an explanation, or in a broad sense, which would include it. If it is taken in the narrow sense, then it is true thatBFH could not be brought in as an "alternate explanation" to attack FTA's premise (P8). However, FTA would still succumb to other objections, such as Objections 1-4, above. On the other hand, if the term "explanation" were taken in the broad sense which includes BFH as an explanation, then that would leave it open for BFH to be brought in as an attack on FTA's premise (P8). Let us explore this latter option a bit further. The main advantage of BFH over IDH, as an explanation in the broad sense, is that it does not have the defects mentioned above in the Inadequacy Objection. Another advantage is its greater simplicity, seeing that IDH brings in additional entities. The main drawback to BFH as an explanation is that in the present context it is highly implausible. Given the wording of premise (P8), we are assuming that FTA is sound up through its step (C7). Thus, we are assuming here that there is only one actual world (or region of spacetime), that GPC is exceedingly improbable, that there are many alternate hypothetical worlds, which, though physically possible and at least as probable as GPC, are nevertheless all (or almost all) uninteresting in comparison with our universe, which in turn makes the existence of GPC remarkable, surprising and in need of explanation (in the narrow sense of "explanation"). How, then, could the existence ofGPC be just a brute fact? It would be like Paley's watch (or Craig's skyscraper in the desert) being just a brute fact, which would be wildly implausible. I'm sure that many philosophers, even in the naturalistic camp, would give up on BFH, given such assumptions. In the present context, I would regard this battle between BFH and Drange: The Fine-Tuning Argument Revisited 49 IDH to be a standoff. Both hypotheses would be obviously inadequate. However, all that need be shown for FTA's premise (P8) to be refuted is that if BFH is an explanation at all then it is at least as good as IDH. And, that much I would he willing to say about BFH, especially considering the Inadequacy Objection to IDH, stated above. Although both explanations would be exceedingly poor, BFH would be no worse than IDH. Thus, even if FTA were sound through its step (C7), the rest of the argument would still not go through and its final conclusion regarding intelligent design could still not be established. All of this is moot, since FTA can be strongly attacked in its early steps, as shown previously. Advocates of FTA absolutely must proclaim that there is no world ensemble, that a great many alternatives to GPC are physically possible and roughly equal in probability to it (which makes GPC exceedingly improbable), and that such alternate hypothetical worlds are all, or almost all, uninteresting in comparison to our universe. But no reason has been produced to believe any of these claims, and so FTA, even in its improved version, can still be dismissed as unsupported, doubtful, and weak. REFERENCES l. The essay (entitled ''The Fine-tuning Argument") is at the following URL: http://www.infidels.org/library/modernltheodore_drange/tuning.html.ltis based upon appendix F of my book Nonbelief & Evil: Two Arguments for the Nonexistence of God (Buffalo: Prometheus Books, 1998). 2. Occasionally physicists question one or more of the counterfactuals. An example would be the talk "A Designer Universe?" given by physicist Steven Weinberg in April 1999 at the Conference on Cosmic Design of the American Ãsociation for the Advancement of Science in Washington, D.C. It appears on the Internet at: http://www.nybooks.comlnyrevIWWWfeatdisplay.cgi?19991 021 046F. 3. This is taken from the transcript of Craig'S debate with Prof. Douglas Jesseph in November 1996 at North Carolina State University.


Criticism of Falsifiability

Philosophy

Thomas Kuhn criticized falsifiability because it characterized "the entire scientific enterprise in terms that apply only to its occasional revolutionary parts," and it cannot be generalized. In Kuhn's view, a delimitation criterion must refer to the functioning of normal science. Kuhn objects to Popper's entire theory and excludes any possibility of rational reconstruction of the development of science. Imre Lakatos said that if a theory is scientific or non-scientific, it can be determined independently of the facts.He proposed a modification of Popper's criterion, which he called "sophisticated (methodological) falsification".
          DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.30572.82568

Criticism of Falsifiability Nicolae Sfetcu February 22, 2019 Sfetcu, Nicolae, "Criticism of Falsifiability", SetThings (February 22, 2019), MultiMedia Publishing (ed.), URL = Email: email@example.com This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/. This is a partial translation of: Sfetcu, Nicolae, "Distincția dintre falsificare și respingere în problema demarcației la Karl Popper", SetThings (3 iunie 2018), MultiMedia Publishing (ed.), DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.10444.72329, ISBN 978-606-033-139-1, URL = https://www.telework.ro/ro/ebooks/distinctia-dintre-falsificare-si-respingere-in-problema-demarcatiei-la-karl-popper/ Criticism of Falsifiability Thomas Kuhn criticized falsifiability because it characterized "the entire scientific enterprise in terms that apply only to its occasional revolutionary parts," (Kuhn 1970) and it cannot be generalized. In Kuhn's view, a delimitation criterion must refer to the functioning of normal science. (Kuhn 1970, 802) But Kuhn ignored Popper's sophisticated falsification and his extended theory. Kuhn objects to Popper's entire theory and excludes any possibility of rational reconstruction of the development of science. In Kuhn's view, "there can be no logic, but only psychology of discovery". (Lakatos 1978, 90) In a brief comparison of Hume, Carnap and Popper, Watkins points out that the development of science is inductive and irrational according to Hume, inductive and rational according to Carnap, non-inductive and rational according to Popper. (Watkins 1968) Extending this comparison, it can be added that the development of science is non-inductive and irrational, according to Kuhn. (Lakatos 1978, 90) Popper criticized Kuhn's demarcation criterion, claiming that Kuhn's criterion leads to a "major disaster...[the] replacement of a rational criterion of science by a sociological one." (K. Popper 1974, 1146–1147) Stephen Toulmin asserts that Kuhn has practically exposed three successive theories of scientific change, departing from the original theory of "scientific revolutions." Kuhn interprets the contrast between "normal" and "revolutionary" change in two alternative ways: sometimes as a philosophical analysis, sometimes as a sociological hypothesis, so that the "paradigm" is duly ambiguous. (Toulmin 1967) Paul Feyerabend, argued that it is neither possible nor desirable to distinguish between science and non-science. (Feyerabend 2010) He also rejected Lakatos's argument for ad-hoc hypotheses, arguing that science would not have progressed without using all available methods to support new theories. For Feyerabend, a special status of science can derive only from the social and physical value of its results, and not from its method. Imre Lakatos states that by falsifiability Popper has made a disconnect between science's play (falsifiability) and the purpose of science (the development of true theories). To restore the link between the game and its goal, Lakatos states that Popper has introduced a "whiff of "inductivism."1" (Lakatos 1978, 160) Note that Lakatos's criticism of Popper is equally valid against himself. (Musgrave and Pigden 2016) Popper's falsification has been criticized for both the exclusion of legitimate science (Hansson 2006) as well as for granting of scientific status to several pseudo-sciences. (Agassi 1991) (Mahner 2007, 518–19) Larry Laudan states that it "has the untoward consequence of countenancing as 'scientific' every crank claim which makes ascertainably false assertions." (Laudan 1983, 121) W. Bartley, in 1976, argued that Popper had destroyed the dialogue. "he gulfs between Popper's way of doing philosophy and that of the bulk of contemporary professional philosophers is as great as that between astronomy and astrology." (Bartley 1976) Rafe Champion states that "his theory of conjectural knowledge does not even pretend to provide positively justified foundations of belief." (Champion 1985) Putnam argues that the initial acceptance of Newtonian mechanics had little or nothing to do with falsifiable predictions, because scientists have accepted the success of theory in explaining the previously established phenomena. (Putnam, Gasper, and Trout 1974) Hacking states that many aspects of scientific practice, including experiments, cannot be interpreted as attempts to falsify or corroborate. (Hacking 1983) 1 "An inductive principle that correlates realistic metaphysics with methodological appraisals, verisimilitude with corroboration, which reinterprets the rules of" scientific play "as a conjectural theory of the signs of knowledge increase, that is, the signs of increasing verisimilitude of our scientific theories." (Champion 1985, 156) Physicists Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont have criticized the falsifiability of not accurately describing the way science works, and that falsifiability cannot distinguish between astrology and astronomy. (Sokal and Bricmont 1999) Some economists, like those of the Austrian school, believe that macroeconomics is empirically unfalsifiable. (Heath 2015) (von Mises 2014) Many philosophers also assert that mathematics is not experimentally falsifiable, and therefore is not a science in accordance with Karl Popper's definition. (Shasha and Lazere 1998) Some criticize Popper that his theory does not offer a legitimate alternative to the inductivist proposals he criticizes. Jeffrey argues that Bayesianism, with the emphasis on the extent to which empirical evidence supports a hypothesis, is much closer to scientific practice than Popper's falsifiability. (Jeffrey 1975) One of the great challenges of falsifiability is the Duhem-Quine thesis. (Quine 1953) With regard to Newton's first law of inertia, it is assumed that a body is neither at rest nor in a uniform motion in a straight line and apparently not driven by an external force. This observation seems to reject Newton's law, but it's not this way. The planet's orbits are driven by gravitational forces: "The physicist can never subject an isolated hypothesis to experimental test, but only a whole group of hypotheses; when the experiment is in disagreement with his predictions, what he learns is that at least one of the hypotheses constituting this group is unacceptable and ought to be modified; but the experiment does not designate which one should be changed." (Ariew 2014) Because the first law is used along with many assumptions, it is not possible to reject the law if what the law provides is not accomplished, for supposing assumptions or additional assumptions may be to blame. Therefore, Newton's first law is unfalsifiable. (Mitra 2016) D.C. Stove considers Popper's theory of scientific (non-statistical) and non-scientific statements to be simple denials or simple claims of existence or local existence. (Stove 1978) What Stove regards as "mere assertions of local existence", Popper calls them mere assertions of existence." In fact, he says, Popper's falsifiability criterion requires that a statement, in order to be empirical, be inconsistent with a certain basic statement in the sense stated by Stove. And a "mere denial of local existence," Popper calls it a "singular non-existence statement," which, when empirical, is an "instantial statements." According to Stove, a non-statistical law or theory of science empirical may be inconsistent with another, but Popper's philosophy of scientific statements is incompatible with this obvious fact, because Popper identifies laws or theories with simple denials of existence, and mere denial of existence cannot be inconsistent with another. Stove asserts that Popper's falsifiability criterion excludes from empirical science all those statements that, according to Popper himself, constitute the basis for observing science. O'Hear believes that Popper's epistemology leads to unacceptable skepticism and cannot avoid a commitment to inductive procedures. (O'Hear 1996) Similarly, W. Salmon argues that Popper's idea of corroborating theory involves referring to inductive procedures. (Salmon and Hitchcock 2017) Many other researchers, such as Miller, Tichý and Grünbaum, have argued defects in the official definitions of Popper's theory. Thus, it is believed that verisimilitude is important in Popper's system because of its application to the theories that are known to be false. In this sense, Popper wrote: "Ultimately, the idea of verisimilitude is most important in cases where we know that we have to work with theories which are at best approximations-that is to say, theories of which we know that they cannot be true. (This is often the case in the social sciences). In these cases, we can still speak of better or worse approximations to the truth (and we therefore do not need to interpret these cases in an instrumentalist sense)." (Karl Raimund Popper 2002, 235) Thornton argues that the problems of Popper's formal definitions were considered important because they have been linked to the verisimilitude of false theories. Miller and Tichý demonstrated that Popper's verisimilitude conditions for comparing the truths and falsity of content can be met only when theories are true. In the case of false theories, Popper's definitions are wrong. (Thornton 2017) Therefore, Popper's conditions to compare levels of veracity can never be met. Following the failure of Popper's definitions in 1974, some critics believed that the entire theory of falsifiability has been undermined. Popper acknowledged the deficiencies, (Karl R. Popper 1979, 371) but argued that "I do think that we should not conclude from the failure of my attempts to solve the problem [of defining verisimilitude] that the problem cannot be solved." (Karl R. Popper 1979, 372) He lower the importance of the concept in his philosophy, stating that he never intended to point out that degrees of verisimilitude cannot be determined, excepting certain limited cases, and arguing instead that the main value of the concept is heuristic and intuitive, and the absence of a formal appropriate definition is not so important in the evaluation of theories relative to issues in which we have an interest. (Thornton 2017) Extension of falsifiability Popper's delimitation criterion refers to the logical structure of theories. Imre Lakatos said that if a theory is scientific or non-scientific, it can be determined independently of the facts. (Lakatos 1973, 117) He proposed a modification of Popper's criterion, which he called "sophisticated (methodological) falsification", where the delimitation criterion should not apply to a hypothesis or isolated theory but to a whole research program. At Lakatos there appears a "hard core" of central thesis, that is resilient, constituting a research program. Thus, a research program is progressive if new theories make surprising predictions that are confirmed. Progress in science is only possible if each new theory developed in the program has empirically greater content than its predecessor. Otherwise, the program is pseudoscientific. Good science is progressive, bad science is degenerative, and if a research program does not predict anything new or involves new predictions that never happen, then such degeneration could have turned into a pseudoscience. (Hansson 2017) Lakatos' methodology was an attempt to reconcile Popper's falsification with Thomas Kuhn's paradigms. Lakatos proposed a middle way in which Kuhn's socio-psychological approaches were replaced by logical-methodological ones. Paul Thagard believes that a theory is pseudo-scientific if it fails to progress and "the community of practitioners makes little attempt to develop the theory towards solutions of the problems, shows no concern for attempts to evaluate the theory in relation to others, and is selective in considering confirmations and disconfirmations." (Thagard 1978, 228) He proposed another set of principles to try to overcome these difficulties and considers it important for society to find a way to do so2. Thagard states that sometimes theories will spend some time only as "unpromising" before they really deserve the title of pseudoscience. Daniel Rothbart sets eligibility criteria according to which the theory should include the rigor's explanatory success and gain testable implications that are incompatible with those of the rival. (Rothbart 1990) George Reisch proposed that the demarcation be based on the integration of theory properly in other sciences. In general, according to Reisch, an epistemic domain is pseudo-scientific if it cannot be incorporated into the existing set of established sciences. (Reisch 1998) 2 According to Thagard's method, (Thagard 1978) a theory is not scientific if it fulfills two conditions: 1) It is less progressive than alternative theories over a long period of time and faces many unresolved problems; and ... 2) The community of practitioners is making little attempts or none to develop to solve the problems, is not interested in the evaluation of the theory and is selective in terms of confirmations and disagreements. Sociologist Robert K. Merton (Merton 1973) proposed demarcation criteria based on the value of science, characterized by a spirit that can be summed up as four sets of institutional imperatives: universalism (affirmations must be subject to predetermined impersonal criteria), communism (the findings are products of social collaboration), disinterestedness (institutional control to reduce the effects of personal or ideological motives), and organized skepticism (detached examination of beliefs). (Hansson 2017) Many other authors have proposed demarcation criteria to identify pseudoscience science. These typically include faith in authority, unrepeatable experiments, selected examples, unwillingness to test, non-compliance with rejection information, embedded subterfuges, abandoned explanations without replacement. (Hansson 2017) In a notorious passage, Popper suggested that "`[although] the degree of corroboration of a theory cannot be interpreted simply as a measure of its verisimilitude, it can be taken as an indication of how its verisimilitude appears at the time." (Karl R. Popper 1979) After all, Miller states, (Miller 2009) the degree of corroboration of any falsified theory gives no indication, however small, either about the verisimilitude of the theory or how well the Truth is approximated. Popper thought that a hypothesis that failed in some tests, but did not fail very badly, will give rise to a hypothesis with some predictions tested with certainty beyond the limits of experimental errors, but not too wrong, will be closer to the truth than to a failed radical rival one, even if both are falsified. (Miller 2009) But the lack of a solution to this difficulty is not an excuse for a retreat into instrumentalism, inductivism or irrationality, and should not prevent us from seeking a more modest answer to the incontestable fact that "not all cases of falsification are the same." (Kvasz 2004, 263) Bibliography Agassi, Joseph. 1991. "Popper's Demarcation of Science Refuted." Methodology and Science 24. Ariew, Roger. 2014. "Pierre Duhem." In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Edward N. Zalta, Fall 2014. Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2014/entries/duhem/. Bartley, W. W. 1976. "III: Biology – Evolutionary Epistemology." Philosophia 6. Champion, Rafe. 1985. "Agreeing to Disagree: Bartley's Critique of Reason." 1985. http://www.the-rathouse.com/bartagree.html. Feyerabend, Paul K. 2010. Against Method. 4th edition. London ; New York: Verso. Hacking, Ian. 1983. Representing and Intervening: Introductory Topics in the Philosophy of Natural Science. Cambridge University Press. Hansson, Sven Ove. 2006. "Falsificationism Falsified." Foundations of Science 11 (3): 275–86. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10699-004-5922-1. ---. 2017. "Science and Pseudo-Science." In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Edward N. Zalta, Summer 2017. Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2017/entries/pseudo-science/. Heath, Joseph. 2015. "Methodological Individualism." In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Edward N. Zalta, Spring 2015. Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2015/entries/methodologicalindividualism/. Jeffrey, Richard C. 1975. "Probability and Falsification: Critique of the Popper Program." Synthese 30 (1–2): 95–117. Kuhn, Thomas. 1970. "Logic of Discovery or Psychology of Research?" Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge. Kvasz, Ladislav. 2004. "How Can A Falsified Theory Remain Corroborated?" In Induction and Deduction in the Sciences, 263–71. Vienna Circle Institute Yearbook. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-2196-1_19. Lakatos, Imre. 1973. "Science and Pseudoscience." Scribd. 1973. https://www.scribd.com/document/324484267/Science-and-Pseudoscience-1973-ImreLakatos. ---. 1978. "The Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes." Cambridge Core. 1978. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511621123. Laudan, Larry. 1983. "The Demise of the Demarcation Problem." In Physics, Philosophy and Psychoanalysis, 111–27. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-7055-7_6. Mahner, Martin. 2007. "Demarcating Science from Non-Science." ResearchGate. 2007. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/286895878_Demarcating_Science_from_NonScience. Merton, Robert. 1973. "Science and Technology in a Democratic Order." Journal of Legal and Political Sociology 1. Miller, David. 2009. "Some Hard Questions for Critical Rationalism." https://philpapers.org/rec/MILSHQ. Mises, Ludwig von. 2014. "Human Action." Text. Mises Institute. 2014. https://mises.org/library/human-action-0. Mitra, Suddhachit. 2016. "What Constitutes Science: Falsifiability as a Criterion of Demarcation." ResearchGate. 2016. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/304462826_What_Constitutes_Science_Falsifia bility_as_a_Criterion_of_Demarcation. Musgrave, Alan, and Charles Pigden. 2016. "Imre Lakatos." In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Edward N. Zalta, Winter 2016. Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2016/entries/lakatos/. O'Hear, Anthony. 1996. "Karl Popper: Philosophy and Problems." Cambridge Core. 1996. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511563751. Popper, Karl. 1974. "Replies to My Critics." 1974. http://www.theopensociety.net/category/popper-karl/replies-to-my-critics/. Popper, Karl R. 1979. Objective Knowledge: An Evolutionary Approach. Oxford University Press. Popper, Karl Raimund. 2002. Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge. Psychology Press. Putnam, Hilary, Philip Gasper, and J. D. Trout. 1974. The 'Corroboration' of Theories In The Philosophy of Science. Vol. The 'corroboration' of Theories. MIT Press. Quine, W. V. O. 1953. "Two Dogmas of Empiricism." In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Two_Dogmas_of_Empiricism&oldid=840214 769. Reisch, George A. 1998. "Pluralism, Logical Empiricism, and the Problem of Pseudoscience." Philosophy of Science 65 (2): 333–48. https://doi.org/10.1086/392642. Rothbart, Daniel. 1990. "Demarcating Genuine Science from Pseudoscience." Philosophy of Science and the Occult 2. Salmon, Wesley C., and Christopher Hitchcock. 2017. The Foundations of Scientific Inference: 50th Anniversary Edition. University of Pittsburgh Press. https://muse.jhu.edu/book/52596. Shasha, Dennis Elliot, and Cathy A. Lazere. 1998. "Out of Their Minds: The Lives and Discoveries of 15 Great Computer Scientists." 1998. https://books.google.ro/books/about/Out_of_their_Minds.html?id=-0tDZX3z8UC&redir_esc=y. Sokal, Alan, and Jean Bricmont. 1999. Fashionable Nonsense: Postmodern Intellectuals' Abuse of Science. 1st edition. New York: Picador. Stove, D. C. 1978. "Popper on Scientific Statements." Philosophy 53 (203): 81–88. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0031819100016326. Thagard, Paul R. 1978. "Why Astrology Is a Pseudoscience." PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1978: 223–234. Thornton, Stephen. 2017. "Karl Popper." In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Edward N. Zalta, Summer 2017. 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Philosophy

Page	#	/	length Headline Subhead Author	credit Kristin Andrews Photos Captions/credit Pulled	quotes 1. Cells	are	selves 2. Bees	display	optimism	and	pessimism 3. Plants	are	even	more	alien	than	the	octopus 4. Godfrey-Smith	is	a	gradualist	about	consciousness Metazoa: Animal Life and the Birth of the Mind, by Peter Godfrey-Smith (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux/William Collins), $28/£20 Some problems just get harder the more we work on them, and it takes insight to reframe the problem so you can see if in a different way. Consciousness is a notoriously hard problem-it's not called the hard problem without reason! No matter how much we squint at it, how much philosophy, neuroscience, or behavioural research we do, it can sometimes feel like the problem is just too hard, and the best we can do is embrace the mystery. In Metazoa, Peter Godfrey-Smith takes us on a journey toward insight, offering an experience that nudges the reader to see the problem of consciousness differently by considering the evolution of animal life. As in his earlier book Other Minds, the journey includes stories of Godfrey-Smith's experiences diving-here including a touching meeting with a banded shrimp, his observation of a pair of fighting decorator crabs, and watching a hunting octopus-and he uses science and philosophy to illuminate the experiences. As we become immersed in this watery world, we start to think differently about what is animal and what is mind. Along the way, we are offered concepts to help understand this unfamiliar world. Godfrey-Smith invites us to think about sensory experience, evaluative experience, perspectives and points of view, and the reader is introduced to simple and widespread activities such as the sensing and responding found in bacteria, bean plants, and beetles, and the more sophisticated and less common activities such as the evaluating done by crabs, bees, and octopuses. Godfrey-Smith leaves us with the idea that evaluating, not sensing, was the first experience. But it takes a while to get to that point. As promised at the beginning of the book, the pieces of the puzzle of consciousness are provided in good time. Godfrey-Smith begins his investigation not with animals but with life itself in the form of single cells, and shows us that cells' active lives include self-regulating their electric charge, maintaining their boundaries, and-though he doesn't put it this way-socially interacting with other cells. Cells are selves, Godfrey-Smith tells us, and living cells are surrounded by other cell selves. Thus, it seems there is sociality even before animality. The cell selves sense and respond to the world, and such abilities, which later get described as minimal cognition, constitute the first stage of mind, but not yet the perspective and evaluation that is conscious experience. From this discussion of cells Godfrey-Smith moves on to simple animals-sponges, corals, and jellies, and we are on our way. The journey includes discussions of the complexity of bee neurons, cleaner fish who pass the mirror test, hermit crabs who trade off good shells to avoid getting shocked, bilateral and decentralized bodies, and how many selves can exist in a single brain. He recounts the history of animal action, and reviews some of the key episodes in the evolution of animal sensing, including vision and touch. We revisit Octopolis, the community of octopuses he first introduced us to in Other Minds, and we find out that there is another community, Octlantis, that is also home to a surprisingly large number of octopuses. The time spent with species that we are only distantly related to helps us to steer clear of our natural anthropocentrism, primatocentrism, and mammalocentrism that infuses so much work on animal consciousness. Godfrey-Smith is sensitive to anthropocentric pitfalls, as illustrated by an extended discussion of pain across species. He points out that human pain may not exist in all animals, but that doesn't mean that animals lack aversive experiences; just because animals such as sharks and insects don't nurse injured areas or seek out morphine when they experience bodily damage doesn't mean they can't feel bad. There may be different kinds of aversive experience for sharks and insects that are appropriate to their particular life histories, bodily structures, and environments. For example, when we see that bees display optimism and pessimism after positive and negative experiences, it suggests that these insects have evaluative experiences, even if they don't seek out morphine after a researcher clamps tight clips on their legs. Call the pessimism pain or not, that isn't what matters. Our -centrisms are natural biases, and hard to avoid. Even when one is as committed to seeing the world from a variety of animal perspectives as Godfrey-Smith is, it is possible to fall into the trap. For example, when he discusses plants, Godfrey-Smith suggests they have less of a self than animals such as bees and octopuses, because they are not just individuals, but also communities. The entanglements of plants can cause consternation when we try to individuate selves-consider the 100 acre stand of aspen in Utah that is categorized as a single organism, the oldest and largest lifeform in existence. Is it really only one plant? Individual humans are also communities of cell selves, and, as Godfrey-Smith explained in Other Minds, we are each also communities of systems. We have digestive and circulatory systems, and some of us arguably have separate systems in the brain if the corpus callosum is severed. Our microbiomes are systems inside and on the surface of our bodies that have a correlate in plants' relationship with the soil and its mycelium networks. When we look at animals and plants in this way, as parts of interconnected systems, we see that we are all in some way partly a community and partly an individual. It is rather anthropocentric, or perhaps more correctly Eurocentric, to suggest that human selves are not also engaging with the world both as a you and as an us. And even if plants are more physically connected to each other than humans are, it is never clear why this physical organization can't permit the kinds of subjectivity we see in evaluating agents. Plants are even more alien than the octopus, and it requires a greater shift in perspective to see them as possible sources of experience. This is a book you will want to read to the end. It is in the last chapters that you learn that Godfrey-Smith is a gradualist about consciousness who thinks that being conscious isn't a lights on/lights off sort of phenomenon. His arguments against the on-or-off view are grounded in the evolutionary premise that that at least some of the physical-biological transitions in the story of consciousness were gradual changes, and that with gradual physical changes we should expect gradual experiential changes. He sets up this view at the beginning of the book when he endorses a form of identity theory according to which physical activity of a sensing and acting body is conscious experience. The physical and biological structures and processes of bodies don't cause mind, they are mind. This means that there is something special about life that gives us an experiencing mind. Not all living beings experience, but life is a prerequisite for consciousness. For this reason, Godfrey-Smith is dismissive of the idea popular in some areas of artificial intelligence research that we will someday be able to upload our minds into a computing cloud and enjoy life after bodily death. Too bad for us. But good for the animals, who Godfrey-Smith presents as morally considerable (though the tough job of moral accounting is left for others). By the end of the journey, the problem of consciousness seems not so hard, and new paths for investigation appear. This is the best kind of philosophy-a combination of story and science and argument that leaves us with a new perspective, and a sense of excitement that progress can be made.