The multiverse: science's assisted suicide?

[Laird]

The article from which that commenter pulled the quote is worth reading in full:

#14 Multiverse and the Design Argument by William Lane Craig on July 23, 2007.

[ETA: although I must admit that there's a long section in it referring to inflationary physics concepts in which my eyes kind of glazed over.]

I've noticed this article from last year interviewing the infamous skeptic Sean Carroll about his views on the multiverse and 'many worlds' theory that I thought might be relevant here: 

https://www.wired.com/story/sean-carroll...ype=earned

According to Many Worlds, the universe continually splits into new branches, to produce multiple versions of ourselves. Carroll thinks that, so far, Many Worlds is the simplest possible explanation of quantum mechanics...

..."It’s not about personal growth. It shouldn’t be. It’s trying to understand how reality works at a deep level. It’s not that we want the worlds to be there; it’s just the simplest, most austere way of understanding the data..." 

So he won't admit to wishful thinking yet will accuse others who believe consciousness survives death of it, without looking at the evidence as he has admitted? Also, I'm fairly certain others have established here that's not the only way to 'understand the data'. 


He ironically claims that he's been 'ignored' by the physics community for his interest in quantum physics. I say that's ironic since it seems the media won't leave him alone, especially the king-of-all-clickbait news site The Express.

[Laird]

"Austere" is an interesting choice of words. Kind of like, "This is going to hurt me more than it hurts you. Now hold out your hand". Austerity is preferred to anything redolent of the transcendent. There is no such thing as a truly mindful decision; instead, there is only an ever-expanding mechanistic tree in which every possible branching point is followed. "Bleak and dehumanising" might be another way of putting it.

I'm not sure that introducing an infinite number of universes - and always becoming increasingly infinite, an infinity of infinities really qualifies for "simplest possible explanation" of anything. It sounds like the most infinitely complex explanation possible to me.