2018/01/15 by Sean M. Carroll, Carroll, Sean M. · 1 citation
Decision Sciences · Physics and Astronomy · Psychology · #Big Data Technologies and Applications #Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO) #FOS: Physical sciences #History and Philosophy of Physics (physics.hist-ph) #Paranormal Experiences and Beliefs #Space Science and Extraterrestrial Life
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1801.05016
openalex publication_date 2018/01/15 · openalex created_date 2022/10/03 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
Cosmological models that invoke a multiverse - a collection of unobservable regions of space where conditions are very different from the region around us - are controversial, on the grounds that unobservable phenomena shouldn't play a crucial role in legitimate scientific theories. I argue that the way we evaluate multiverse models is precisely the same as the way we evaluate any other models, on the basis of abduction, Bayesian inference, and empirical success. There is no scientifically respectable way to do cosmology without taking into account different possibilities for what the universe might be like outside our horizon. Multiverse theories are utterly conventionally scientific, even if evaluating them can be difficult in practice.