This is a well argued opening statement. Good job. The biggest problems from my atheistic perspective IMO are:
1. Extreme overestimation of the simplicity of God, on the basis of the notion "perfection." We have a simple English word for it, but it's not clear it's a particularly coherent property; it doesn't seem to play any general role in any of our theories about the world other than to argue for God in debates like this, so the atheist is free to challenge its indispensability without much cost. Moreover, it seems the description "maximally perfect," while short, is extremely highly multiply realizable, and more importantly any such realization is going to make an infinite number of arbitrary choices, since some "perfections" conflict with others. This doesn't bode well.
2. It's not clear simpler, non-life permitting laws should be given a higher prior than our own, or even non-zero priors. If my own existence is given a high prior, this is going to be incompatible with a non-zero prior on the fundamental laws of reality that generate and govern my existence. Nor, in saying so, will I fall victim to firing-squad-case-type objections about how this kind of reasoning proves too much. If the firing squad unexpectedly misses, I can't just say, "the prior I exist now is high, so the probability they missed is 1, so there is nothing for the deliberate vs. accidental miss hypothesis to explain, so I have no evidence either way." This is because there are alternate (low probability) theories of biology and physics on which they successfully shoot me and I still continue to exist; "I exist after the squad fires" is not actually synonymous with "the squad misses." But you, by contrast, are talking about fundamental laws on which my existence is truly impossible.
3. If the multiverse hypothesis merely pushes the problem back a step, it's not clear why theism doesn't, too. If theism is true, then the true "laws" of "physics" are something like, "if God wills X, then X; if God wills Y, then Y;, etc." Why did we end up with those laws? You can't appeal to simplicity - setting aside the disputed nature of God's simplicity, "simple" helps us epistemically adjudicate between explanations, but does not itself explain anything. You can appeal to necessity, but so can the multiverse theorist. The source of the disanalogy will need to be spelled out.
A few other things as well, but this comment is probably already too long. Looking forward to seeing how this exchange goes.
I think I have a solution to psychophysical harmony (at least for non epiphenominalists), but let me know if I'm not understanding something here. Under any philosophy of mind theory that holds that some experience in the mind (pleasure from eating an apple) motivates one to do an action AT ALL (you eat the apple), there would be evolutionary pressure (and therefore more surviving descendants) for those who have that normative harmony. This is, of course, on the condition that you also grant that those who have certain states of mind-body interaction (like better or worse harmony) are at all more likely to have offspring more similar to them (for example, the odds of an individual with non harmonious states are more likely to have children with non harmonious states than children with harmonious states). I think there is great reason to think that there is some sort of motivating factor in our mental to physical states, but I think this video will do a better job explaining it than I: https://youtu.be/GrG6SdJzozc?si=St6HMc9knbeCQX7Y (I'm particularly talking about the inverted experiences part). This seems to me like it narrow down who the argument applies to.
Solipsism subsumes all of these arguments as well—if not better than—theism.
Why are there incredibly finely tuned laws and constraints? There aren’t.
Why is there psychophysical harmony? Because there is no external world which could disagree with our conscious minds. (I will also note that there is no am evidence for psychophysical harmony which does not assume the question)
I will confess I find the argument about a priori knowledge absurd, but it is also explained by solipsism: if you are the only thing that exists, it’s easy to get a priori knowledge without sensory experience because all knowledge ultimately comes from yourself. I assume this is a similar argument to your unsubstantiated assertion that theism supports apriori knowledge.
Solipsism also supports your existence vastly more than God. If there is only one person, and everything flows from that person, then the chances of that one person existing is 100%. The question “why me” doesn’t even make sense! There is no other person besides “me”.
Following the idea of the universe having N possible people who could exist, I can comprehend that the probability, or likelihood, of any particular person existing in the universe would be:
P(any particular person existing in the universe) = (n) number of people who have, or will exist / N
This would mean the existence of myself, you, or anybody, becomes more likely if 'there are more people', meaning n is increased.
If this is denied, well I am not sure what that means, but I am not even sure I have followed your meaning correctly: 'If there are more people, I'd more likely be one of them.' I don't really follow how, at least, that in denying this, you get to the (probably) absurd result that the world will probably end soon.
You say:
'Secondly, if you deny this, you get absurd results. For instance, you get the result that the world will probably end soon, because if a universe with more people is no more likely to have me, while a universe with fewer people guarantees that I’d be earlier in the universe, then I should think the universe won’t last long.'
Why would a universe with fewer people guarantee that I'd be earlier in the universe? You know, where does the total lifespan of the universe, and my position within it, come into the equation? In my formulation above, if the total number of people who have already existed is approaching n, the total number of people who will ever exist, I suppose that could signal the end of the universe is close. But I don't see why this would be implied, or even likely, by denying, 'If there are more people, I'd more likely be one of them.'
Sorry if what I've written is either too long for the comments section or just not easy to follow, but in my opinion, it's not worse or more unclear than what you have written in your original post. For now I'll go find something more brainless to do than read philosophical writings on Substack.
This is a well argued opening statement. Good job. The biggest problems from my atheistic perspective IMO are:
1. Extreme overestimation of the simplicity of God, on the basis of the notion "perfection." We have a simple English word for it, but it's not clear it's a particularly coherent property; it doesn't seem to play any general role in any of our theories about the world other than to argue for God in debates like this, so the atheist is free to challenge its indispensability without much cost. Moreover, it seems the description "maximally perfect," while short, is extremely highly multiply realizable, and more importantly any such realization is going to make an infinite number of arbitrary choices, since some "perfections" conflict with others. This doesn't bode well.
2. It's not clear simpler, non-life permitting laws should be given a higher prior than our own, or even non-zero priors. If my own existence is given a high prior, this is going to be incompatible with a non-zero prior on the fundamental laws of reality that generate and govern my existence. Nor, in saying so, will I fall victim to firing-squad-case-type objections about how this kind of reasoning proves too much. If the firing squad unexpectedly misses, I can't just say, "the prior I exist now is high, so the probability they missed is 1, so there is nothing for the deliberate vs. accidental miss hypothesis to explain, so I have no evidence either way." This is because there are alternate (low probability) theories of biology and physics on which they successfully shoot me and I still continue to exist; "I exist after the squad fires" is not actually synonymous with "the squad misses." But you, by contrast, are talking about fundamental laws on which my existence is truly impossible.
3. If the multiverse hypothesis merely pushes the problem back a step, it's not clear why theism doesn't, too. If theism is true, then the true "laws" of "physics" are something like, "if God wills X, then X; if God wills Y, then Y;, etc." Why did we end up with those laws? You can't appeal to simplicity - setting aside the disputed nature of God's simplicity, "simple" helps us epistemically adjudicate between explanations, but does not itself explain anything. You can appeal to necessity, but so can the multiverse theorist. The source of the disanalogy will need to be spelled out.
A few other things as well, but this comment is probably already too long. Looking forward to seeing how this exchange goes.
I think I have a solution to psychophysical harmony (at least for non epiphenominalists), but let me know if I'm not understanding something here. Under any philosophy of mind theory that holds that some experience in the mind (pleasure from eating an apple) motivates one to do an action AT ALL (you eat the apple), there would be evolutionary pressure (and therefore more surviving descendants) for those who have that normative harmony. This is, of course, on the condition that you also grant that those who have certain states of mind-body interaction (like better or worse harmony) are at all more likely to have offspring more similar to them (for example, the odds of an individual with non harmonious states are more likely to have children with non harmonious states than children with harmonious states). I think there is great reason to think that there is some sort of motivating factor in our mental to physical states, but I think this video will do a better job explaining it than I: https://youtu.be/GrG6SdJzozc?si=St6HMc9knbeCQX7Y (I'm particularly talking about the inverted experiences part). This seems to me like it narrow down who the argument applies to.
Solipsism subsumes all of these arguments as well—if not better than—theism.
Why are there incredibly finely tuned laws and constraints? There aren’t.
Why is there psychophysical harmony? Because there is no external world which could disagree with our conscious minds. (I will also note that there is no am evidence for psychophysical harmony which does not assume the question)
I will confess I find the argument about a priori knowledge absurd, but it is also explained by solipsism: if you are the only thing that exists, it’s easy to get a priori knowledge without sensory experience because all knowledge ultimately comes from yourself. I assume this is a similar argument to your unsubstantiated assertion that theism supports apriori knowledge.
Solipsism also supports your existence vastly more than God. If there is only one person, and everything flows from that person, then the chances of that one person existing is 100%. The question “why me” doesn’t even make sense! There is no other person besides “me”.
Following the idea of the universe having N possible people who could exist, I can comprehend that the probability, or likelihood, of any particular person existing in the universe would be:
P(any particular person existing in the universe) = (n) number of people who have, or will exist / N
This would mean the existence of myself, you, or anybody, becomes more likely if 'there are more people', meaning n is increased.
If this is denied, well I am not sure what that means, but I am not even sure I have followed your meaning correctly: 'If there are more people, I'd more likely be one of them.' I don't really follow how, at least, that in denying this, you get to the (probably) absurd result that the world will probably end soon.
You say:
'Secondly, if you deny this, you get absurd results. For instance, you get the result that the world will probably end soon, because if a universe with more people is no more likely to have me, while a universe with fewer people guarantees that I’d be earlier in the universe, then I should think the universe won’t last long.'
Why would a universe with fewer people guarantee that I'd be earlier in the universe? You know, where does the total lifespan of the universe, and my position within it, come into the equation? In my formulation above, if the total number of people who have already existed is approaching n, the total number of people who will ever exist, I suppose that could signal the end of the universe is close. But I don't see why this would be implied, or even likely, by denying, 'If there are more people, I'd more likely be one of them.'
Sorry if what I've written is either too long for the comments section or just not easy to follow, but in my opinion, it's not worse or more unclear than what you have written in your original post. For now I'll go find something more brainless to do than read philosophical writings on Substack.