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The Failure of the Multiverse Hypothesis as a Solution to the Problem of No Best World

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Abstract

The multiverse hypothesis is growing in popularity among theistic philosophers because some view it as the preferable way to solve certain difficulties presented by theistic belief. In this paper, I am concerned specifically with its application to Rowe’s problem of no best world, which suggests that God’s existence is impossible given the fact that the world God actualizes must be unsurpassable, yet for any given possible world, there is one greater. I will argue that, as a solution to the problem of no best world, the multiverse hypothesis fails. To defend my thesis, I will first define the multiverse hypothesis and articulate the problem of no best world and how the multiverse hypothesis is thought to solve it. I will then show that the solution fails by articulating two problems that have been mentioned, but not developed, in the literature—what I call the problem of no highest standard and the problem of multiverse cardinality. In each case, after articulating the problem, I will offer possible responses to the problem and show why those responses are inadequate.

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Notes

  1. Although, because their conception of creation was considerably different, the ancients (and others who considered the hypothesis, such as the medievals) formed their hypothesis in a different way than we do now. The ancients wondered if there were other ‘geocentric systems’ (with orbiting sun, moon and stars). For the history of the multiverse hypothesis, see Munitz (1951).

  2. For a very straightforward and concise list of scientists who espouse the multiverse hypothesis, and an articulation of their motivations, see Dawkins (2006, pp. 145–147).

  3. Philosophers who adhere to the multiverse hypothesis include Smith (1986), Whitaker (1988), Leslie (1989), Smart (1989), Clifton (1991), van Inwagen (1993), Parfit (1998), and McGrath (1988). Many do so because they find the ‘fine tuning’ of our universe evidence for the existence of a multiverse. White (2000) has very convincingly argued that this is a mistake.

  4. See McHarry (1978), Forrest (1981), Coughlan (1987), Parfit (1991, 1992), Stewart (1993), Forrest (1996), Turner 2002, Draper (2004), Hudson (2005), O’Connor (2008, Ch 5), and Kraay (2005, 2008, 2010, and 2012).

  5. Many theists endorse this view, such as Plantinga (1974, pp. 33–34), Swinburne (1998, pp. 8–9), and O’Connor (p. 113). Others disagree—like Leibniz who not only insists that there is a best possible world, but that the actual world is identical to it. To support this idea, one might point out that thinking you can simply add ‘good things’ to a world to make it better is a bit utilitarian; other ethical theories might suggest that there are other things to consider. For example, maybe ‘unity’ or ‘balance’ is an intrinsic good, and there is a possible world that is perfectly balanced, and adding any good to it would make it unbalanced and worse. Philosophers making such arguments would have to worry about the fact that the actual world does not seem to be ‘the best’ by any ethical theory, but since I am instead worried about how philosophers who do think there is no best possible world deal with the problem Rowe has raised, I will not explore this issue further.

  6. It is important to realize that this is not a ‘divine paralysis’ problem. Some have wondered how God could choose one thing among many when there clearly is no best choice, given that God must always act with a reason. Since there is no reason to choose one over the others, wouldn’t God be forever flummoxed, scratching his head, unable to make a choice? Theists avoid this problem by suggesting that God can realize that making some choice is better than none, and then choose one at random. Whether or not this is actually possible is debatable (see Kraay 2008), but this is not the same problem. To see this, notice that one could raise the divine paralysis problem even if God could create an unsurpassable world—say by creating one of many worlds tied for the title of greatest world.

  7. One also might derive from this that a perfect being would not create any universes. After all, if all that exists is a perfect being, and nothing else, everything is perfect. If that were true, then the very existence of the universe would be evidence against the existence of God—since creating it is exactly what you would expect God not to do. This would be equally problematic for the theist, but it is not the problem I am considering here. This problem is raised, however, by Schellenberg (2007, pp. 198–199) and addressed by O’Connor (2008) at the beginning of his fifth chapter, which is on the multiverse hypothesis.

  8. There are other things that might be relevant to a multiverse’s value: variety, the presence or absence of non-spatiotemporal contingent entities. But the aggregate value of the set of universes that make up a multiverse is usually what multiverse theists speak of, so for simplicity I will restrict myself to that notion.

  9. Monton (2010) has raised some interesting problems regarding the possibility of aggregating values of universes, but I will leave such objections aside for the sake of argument.

  10. The idea that there is a highest aggregate value will be challenged later.

  11. To be precise, I perhaps should say their ‘creation and sustenance’ would not be worthwhile, but for simplicity I will forego mentioning the latter.

  12. Chapter 5, endnote 10 (p. 158). I will return to this suggestion later.

  13. The sum of any finite collection of negative numbers, and infinity, is still infinity.

  14. It is worth noting that, although he develops his view further, O’Connor (2008) does not think that the greatest possible world must contain all of the worthy universes. He suggests that there are many best possible worlds; any infinite collection of worthwhile universes (even if some worthwhile universes are left out) will have the same aggregate value (and the same, to use my term, ‘quality’). As O’Connor put it, ‘… [God] could also avoid the unwanted consequence by creating every other [worthwhile] universe, or every third universe, or every nth universe, for all finite values of n. So, at least as far as our puzzle is concerned, God retains an infinity of adequate choices among the super-universes [i.e., multiverses]… [As] we go up the scale of super universes (unlike universes), eventually the values become infinite, in such a way that the hierarchy seems to “flatten out.” The super universe God creates is one of these equally top valued members…’ (p. 177). In other words, there is a maximal aggregate value shared by all infinitely membered multiverses that are made up of universes above the worthiness threshold, and God could create any of them and still create the greatest possible world. One problem, similar to one realized by Monton (2010), is that if God can leave out worthy universes because only maximal aggregate value matters, God could also include any finite number of unworthy universe too, since such a multiverse would still have an infinite aggregate value. In O’Connor’s defense, he does develop his view further and suggests that maximal aggregate value would not actually be of concern to a perfect being. But since he does this in response to a concern I raise in the last section, I will save my commentary on that development for later. But, ultimately, most multiverse defending theists seem to disagree with O’Connor and assume that there is only one unsurpassable possible world—the one that contains all and only the worthwhile universes. Kraay (2010a) is an example. It doesn’t matter for the point I am making here, so I will assume the greatest possible multiverse has all the worthy universes, for the sake of simplicity, and save further discussion of this topic until later.

  15. Once again, since I am not defending the multiverse hypothesis, dealing with the objections raised by this suggestion is not my burden to bear.

  16. Although not in the context of a discussion about the multiverse, Rowe (2004, p. 155) defends the idea that beings with higher standards are ‘better’ in terms of being G1 and G2, where G2 is better than G1 because G2 is unwilling to create W1 yet G1 is, and W1 is a worse world than the world G2 is willing to create (W2).

  17. Notice also that this solution entails that God could embrace any criterion of worthiness and still be perfect. If so, God could chose a criterion that deemed a universe that is worse than hell as worthy of creation. But clearly he could not do so and be the greatest conceivable being. One might suggest that he would only choose a criterion worthy of selection, but this would simply raise the same problem all over again.

  18. Kraay (2010a) suggests something similar in his 35th footnote. Since (as I discussed above) O’Connor thinks leaving out worthwhile universes is compatible with the actualization of the greatest possible world, I don’t think that O’Connor can rely on this objection to save the multiverse solution.

  19. See Lewis (1986, pp. 212–213) and Sider (2001, pp. 120–139) for a discussion of metaphysical vagueness and its problems.

  20. Monton (2010) points out that one could do so simply by creating duplicates. If there are n worthy universes, God could create a multiverse of a higher cardinality by creating 2n duplicates of those universes. Although, as will be seen later, I don’t think this is the only reason to conclude that there could always be larger multiverses. I will discuss Morton again later in the text.

  21. Almeida (2010) makes a similar point on page 302.

  22. P. 90 (footnote). Beth-2 is the size of the power set of the power set of any countably infinite set. It is at least as large as (and may be bigger than) a set with size aleph-2.

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Acknowledgments

I would like to thank my colleagues William Irwin and Greg Bassham for their helpful feedback, my anonymous reviewers for their extremely helpful comments, and James Hawthorne who always goes beyond the call of duty to answer all my questions about set theory.

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  1. Department of Philosophy, King’s College, 133 N River St, Wilkes-Barre, PA, 18711, USA

    David Kyle Johnson

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Johnson, D.K. The Failure of the Multiverse Hypothesis as a Solution to the Problem of No Best World. SOPHIA 53, 447–465 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11841-013-0397-6

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