Life, but Not as We Know It: Why Fine‐Tuning Arguments Fail

Journal article

Definitions of “life” and theories of life are systematically neglected in arguments for and from fine‐tuning. Despite claims to be neutral about the definition of “life,” fine‐tuning arguments generally presuppose that life requires a form of structural complexity only afforded by physicochemical complexity of the sort with which we are familiar, and more specifically, by water and carbon molecules. Conversely, our best accounts of life construe life as a matter of dynamic rather than structural complexity, and as substrate‐ and scale‐independent. Life could be as radically different in the possible universes considered as their physics is. We have no idea whether the relevant form of dynamic complexity would develop in possible universes radically physically unlike our own.

Authors: Gough, J

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Wiley
• Journal: Noûs
• Article number: nous.70052
• Publication date: 2026-06-14
• Acceptance date: 2026-06-05
• DOI: 10.1111/nous.70052
• EISSN: 1468-0068
• ISSN: 0029-4624
• Language: English
• Keywords: complexity; life; fine‐tuning; design; multiverse