Circularity problem: Since you can’t observe anything about it directly, the multiverse must be justified in terms of another theory that can be tested and this is string theory. But if you talk to string theorists these days about how they’re going to test the unified theory that string theory is supposed to provide, their answer is that, alas, there is no way to do this, because of the multiverse. You see, the multiverse implies that all the things you would think that string theory might be able to predict turn out to be unpredictable local environmental accidents. So, the multiverse can’t be tested, but we should believe in it since it’s an implication of string theory, but string theory can’t be tested because of the multiverse.
ME: This really gets down to the nature of explanation, per se. For explanation to be completely naturalistic, it would have to involve an infinite regress. The only way a finite mind can explain thus, is if the infinite regress involves cycles. Otherwise, the information content in the explanation is not finite. But to say that the explanation is truly natural and thus cyclical is to say that there is no free-will. But if there is no free-will, epistemology is dead out of the gate. Because a naturalistic epistemology is void of warranted belief, leaving us with an infinite set of merely logical possibilities without a corresponding plausibility criteria to adjudicate by. The knowable plausibility of naturalism is that easy to refute.
Post Edited (Similitude) : 7/28/2012 1:44:18 PM (GMT-5) |