question: ‘Why do just these worlds exist, with these elements and laws?’ But, if all these worlds exist, there is no such further question.”
The All Worlds possibility is thus the least arbitrary of the cosmic possibilities, since no local possibility is excluded. And this fullest of all possibilities could, for all we know, be the form that reality actually does take.
But what about the other cosmic possibilities? Well, if our world has a net goodness rating above zero, it might be part of the Axiarchic ensemble of worlds, whose existence would be the ethically best. Or if the laws governing our world turn out, in the final theory envisaged by Steven Weinberg, to be exceptionally elegant, then our world might be part of the most beautiful cosmic possibility. Or, if Schopenhauer and Woody Allen are right, our world might well be part of the worst cosmic possibility.
The point is that each of these cosmic possibilities has a special feature. The Null is the simplest, the All Worlds is the fullest, the Axiarchic is the best, and so on. Now, suppose that the cosmic possibility that actually obtains is also one that possesses such a special feature. Perhaps that is no coincidence. Perhaps that possibility obtains because it has this special feature. If that is the case, this special feature in effect chooses what reality is like. It is what Parfit calls “the Selector.”
Not every special feature a reality might have makes for a credible Selector. Suppose, for example, the 58 Worlds possibility mentioned earlier was how reality turned out. Now, the number 58 does have a special property: it is the smallest number that is the sum of seven different primes (2 + 3 + 5 + 7 + 11 + 13 + 17 = 58). But no one would imagine that this property could explain why reality turned out the way it did. It would be more reasonable to assume that the number of worlds merely happened to be 58. But features like best, fullest, simplest, most beautiful, and least arbitrary are different. If the cosmic possibility tapped to be reality had one of these features, it would be hard to think of this as simply a matter of chance. More likely, the cosmic possibility became reality because it had this feature.
But isn’t this use of “because” somewhat mysterious? Of course it is, Parfit admits. But even ordinary causation, he points out, is mysterious. Besides, he says, “if there is some explanation of the whole of reality, we should not expect this explanation to fit neatly into some familiar category. This extraordinary question may have an extraordinary answer.”
What Parfit had managed to do, I realized, was to reframe the mystery of existence in a way that made it vastly less mysterious. While everyone else was trying to bridge the unbridgeable gap between being and nothingness, he was running an ontological lottery. Or was it more like a beauty contest—the Miss Cosmos Pageant? The field of contestants comprised all the different ways reality could have turned out—all the cosmic possibilities. And since reality has to be some way or another, one of these cosmic possibilities is bound to prevail, as a matter of logical necessity. There is no conceivable alternative, and hence no need for any sort of “hidden machinery” to ensure that a selection is made. So the Selector, in tipping the outcome, doesn’t exert any force or do any actual work.
But what, I wondered, if there is no Selector?
AFTER MY SOLITARY weekend of reading, brooding, soaking, and dozing, it was good to come down to the commodious dining room of the Athenaeum Club on Monday morning and see a couple of dozen young City of London types, nicely turned out in Savile Row bespoke suits and Turnbull & Asser shirts, at breakfast. It reminded me that there are other things (if not necessarily more important things) beyond all this metaphysical fiddle. I picked up a copy of the Daily Telegraph, sat down at a table by myself, and ordered a big greasy English breakfast of eggs and kippers and stewed tomatoes. Delicious. A couple of hours later, feeling more sated than I usually did at that time of day, I was boarding an Oxford-bound train at Paddington Station.
En route to Oxford, I continued to think about what the Selector for our world could possibly be. Clearly, it was not simplicity. For, if it had been, the outcome of the reality contest would surely have been the Null Possibility.