The accidental universe: Science's crisis of faith

7 posts

Mike
The planets were never severed from the perception of medieval man. They were observed by the earliest astronomers. Neither the planets nor the sun nor the moon is even remotely analogous to the alternate universes described in this article because the planets were correctly recognized as some sort of physical entities within this universe, while alternate universes are pure theoretical conjecture.

From the article, emph. added:

Theoretical physics is far from settled. There are a lot of competing mathematical models out there. The fact that the multiverse is compatible with the mathematics of some of the models doesn't prove anything because no one knows which if any of the mathematical models being tinkered with is correct. Even if one particular mathematical model gains a preponderance of experimental support, the multiverse conjecture will continue to be problematic due to the inherent unobservability and untestability of alternate universes.

It's a useless conjecture not because it lacks explanatory power but because we will never know if it's true.

The medieval geocentrist is not to be faulted for failing to envision planets around other stars during his age. The modern experimental physicist is not to be faulted for failing to posit alternate universes without experimental support or even apparent hope of experimental support. The fact that planets around other stars were eventually going to be discovered does not mean that the multiverse is also eventually going to be discovered.
Arcturus
They saw some lights in the sky, but the true nature of the large-scale structure of the universe was a 20th century discovery. Prior to that, the existence of an infinite number of galaxies, stars and planets was 'pure hypothetical conjecture.

Being widely accepted is not incompatible with being "possible wrong". In fact, there is no theory in existence that could not possibly be wrong.

There are no competing theories that I know of that derive the fundamental constants of nature a priori .

That you have misgivings about the theory is immaterial since you lack the credentials to accurately critique the technical details or to formulate a plausible alternative.

That is false; we don't know if we will never know if it's true.

Ok, but neither does it give a reason not to be accepting of the theory. According to Max Tegmark, the multiverse theory in general should be considered 'positive' science because it makes predictions and it can be falsified.
Mike
Actually, some of the ancient Greeks and medieval Muslims hypothesized that the stars might be sun-like objects with planets of their own. But that's not important. What's important is that, whatever they are, stars and planets are directly observable. They exist. Alternative universes by definition are not observable. Talk of their existence is meaningless. There is no comparison.

When something in science is "true", what is meant is that it conforms to experimental evidence and has not been proven false. Alternative universes have no supporting evidence and are not falsifiable by experimentation and therefore they cannot be true in the same way that, say, special relativity is true. The multiverse is the modern equivalent of conjecturing how many angels can dance on a pinhead. I don't need to formulate a plausible alternative in order to reject such idle conjecture.

Positing an infinitude of universes that we will never observe in order to try to make sense of the one we do observe is not positive science.
Theo
Quite the contrary, you fall in error, because you think science can find the final "truth", whatever that may be. For every paradigm science currently is in, its just looking for more or less probable explanations for observed facts.

Quarks are also unobservable, so is dark matter, so is big bang. Yet they aren't useless, they are useful as hypothesis allowing to explain some of the observed phenomenna.
Mike
I don't think science (or any other human effort) can find the "final truth". The point I was trying to make in the paragraph that you quoted is that the multiverse conjecture, similarly to the tachyon conjecture, flows almost completely from abstract mathematic models rather than from observation.

I think that we agree that scientific truth doesn't refer to final truth, instead it refers to something that accords closely with observation and hasn't been shown to be false.

The multiverse conjecture is not directly related to specific observed phenomena in the way those things are. It's posited to explain away our universe's overall "fine-tuning". It doesn't make sense because there is no way to make predictions or observations about alternate universes. There's no point in positing theories that can't be tested at least potentially.
Theo

There's no fine tuning in Universe. We believe its fine-tuned just because it allowed for matter to form and carbon-based life-forms to exist. We argue out of egotism. To Universe itself, whether we exist or not is probably irrelevant, we are a byproduct.

Theo
I believe, they actually can be tested the same way they were deducted - mathematically, i.e. on scale of pure reason.