Multiverses and falsifiability
Feser
Interesting that Feser affirms the importance of Conservation here, as if it wouldn't affect his position on Dualism. But then being a Scholastic with a very particular dualism (hylemorphism) maybe it doesn't?
Feser
Quote:...So, if multiverse theories really are not even weakly falsifiable, but altogether unfalsifiable, it looks like they will fall into the fourth and most problematic class of unfalsifiable theories, alongside astrology, Marxism, and Freudianism. And in that case, Becker will not have succeeded in defending multiverse theories from the objection in question.
Successfully to defend them against that objection would require either (a) showing that unfalsifiable statements even of the fourth category are scientifically respectable, (b) showing that multiverse theories are, appearances notwithstanding, unfalsifiable in the way that statements in one of the other three categories are, or (c) showing that multiverse theories are in fact falsifiable and open to empirical testing. I don’t think that any of these routes is promising, but route (c) would certainly be the way to go if the defender of a multiverse theory wants to convince anyone that such theories are “scientific” in just the same sense that what Newton, Einstein, and the founders of quantum mechanics were up to was scientific. To do that, however, would not be to sidestep the objection from falsifiability (as Becker wants to do), but precisely to meet the objection head on.
Interesting that Feser affirms the importance of Conservation here, as if it wouldn't affect his position on Dualism. But then being a Scholastic with a very particular dualism (hylemorphism) maybe it doesn't?
'Historically, we may regard materialism as a system of dogma set up to combat orthodox dogma...Accordingly we find that, as ancient orthodoxies disintegrate, materialism more and more gives way to scepticism.'
- Bertrand Russell
- Bertrand Russell