[gloriousduke]

It means the deist explanation doesn't stand up to Occam's razor as well as the multiverse explanation. "Parsimony" in this context comes from the latin, lex parsimoniae, "law of parsimony."

Adding a deity to the explanation requires adding an "entity" completely nonexistent in the current models that are the basis for the multiverse, i.e. those within quantum theory and cosmology.

[Veelox]

>the current models that are the basis for the multiverse, i.e. those within quantum theory and cosmology.

The root of my question is I am uninformed of anything with quantum theory or cosmology that makes a multiverse more likely than deism. Do you have specific examples from quantum theory or cosmology that makes a multiverse more likely?

[glenstein]

I'm definitely on your side in terms of where I ultimately lean, but I don't feel satisfied that this is a strong enough answer.

I think the deist can insist "My explanation is the most parsimonous. I have just the one thing, a deity. You have a kludge of a dozen different forces and laws and variables."

[TeMPOraL]

That's why you see "Kolmogorov complexity" being mentioned all around this thread.

The "parsimony", the "simplicity", the unit in which we count entities - is that of Kolmogorov complexity. "A dozen different forces and laws and variables" is significantly simpler, Kolmogorov-wise, than a thinking entity. There is orders of magnitude less things to specify about the former than about the latter for a complete description.