Likelihood criteria for the universe

Abstract

The development of science and technology has progressively demonstrated the ability of humankind to understand and manipulate the physical world, and it has also shown some fundamental limitations to predictability of physical events. This realization has led many thinkers to wonder why the universe has the observed level of regularity. Justifications of this fact tend to present our universe as a likely option among some range of possibilities. In this work, an assessment of the likelihood criteria employed for such justifications is carried out. Furthermore, four alternative universes are described that appear to be more likely than our own, depending on the likelihood criterion that is considered.