München 2019 – scientific programme

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AGPhil: Arbeitsgruppe Philosophie der Physik

AGPhil 2: Philosophy of Cosmology II

AGPhil 2.1: Invited Talk

Monday, March 18, 2019, 16:30–17:15, HS 10

Fine-Tuning, Robustness, and Idealization — •Casey McCoy — Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden

Concerns over fine-tuning have motivated important developments in theoretical physics. Inflationary cosmology is one important example. In this context, fine-tuning has most often been characterized in terms of likelihood: fine-tuned conditions are said to be "improbable". Yet an interpretation of fine-tuning in such terms is untenable, since probability attributions in this context are unjustified. I propose a novel interpretation of fine-tuning which is based on an appreciation of the roles of robustness and idealization in our physical models, using the flatness and horizon problems as particular examples.