Theorizing about the multiverse (Introduction)

by dhw, Friday, August 19, 2011, 11:40 (4846 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: This interview seems to me to be like the head on a glass of beer, lots of froth, no substance, but read it. You'll find that it is ok not to believe any of this wild math guessing.-http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/physics/johnson-multiverse.html-I love it! From an agnostic perspective, it could be a satire. "One of the wonderful things about science," we are told, "is that it's about evidence; it's not about belief." Indeed. And another of the wonderful things about science is that scientists are paid to do research, and publish learned articles and books about theories for which there is no evidence, for which there may never be any evidence, which almost certainly cannot be disproved, which may well be discarded for other theories, but which are taken with great seriousness by the scientific community (even to the extent of a fairytale parallel world in which you and I are corresponding about parallel worlds).
 
"But until we've done an experiment, until we've come up with more than just the ideas ... however compelling they are ... it's okay not to believe." So here's another compelling idea: life and the universe run on mechanisms that are so complex that maybe ... a word that occurs more than once in the article ... some sort of Universal Intelligence (no stories, Kent, just a UI) has designed them. Maybe. Maybe not. "Until we've done an experiment..." etc. etc., folks, it's okay not to believe, though you can hear hoots of laughter from certain quarters at the very thought of someone even contemplating such a theory, for which there is no evidence, for which there may never be evidence, and which almost certainly cannot be disproved...Bear in mind too that, as the professor observes: "One of the interesting things that's also possible is that we simply never know." Precisely. Don't get me wrong. I'm all for scientific research into the nature of our universe. I'm just pointing out certain parallels as viewed from the picket fence. When it comes to speculation, by scientists and non-scientists alike, not even the sky's the limit.