>Just as background, probably the preferred way to avoid the issue of design
>now is adopt the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, in which
>(as I understand it, though there are probably variations) every quantum
>possibility is actualized in individual spatio-temporally disconnected
>universes. So every femtosecond, an unimaginably large quantity of
>universes is coming into being, said quantity increasing exponentially with
>each passing femtosecond.
>
This is one hypothesis as to how one might get the "many-worlds"
required for the many-worlds answer to fine-tuning but it
doesn't seem to me to be particularly satisfying for another,
I think more fundamental, reason than you suggested. Namely,
it seems to me that all the branch off universes will have the
same laws and physical constants as our own. For many-worlds
to work one has to have the anthropic selection effect which
requires the other universes to have different laws and
physical constants. Then one can answer the question "Why
are we in a finely tuned universe?" with "we really couldn't
be in one of the others now could we."
>This lets theoreticians avoid, e.g., the quantum measurement problem, and
>some other aspects of quantum weirdness.
>
>Of course, it does pay a rather enormous price for this. Most physicists
>find this to be truly egregious, a simple theory with an extraordinarily
>bloated ontology (talk about needlessly multiplying hypothetical entities!),
>but it's one way to avoid design, in theory at least.
>
>
Brian Harper
Associate Professor
Applied Mechanics
The Ohio State University
"... we have learned from much experience that all
philosophical intuitions about what nature is going
to do fail." -- Richard Feynman