Why trust a theory? Some further remarks (part 1)

Abstract

I expand on some ideas from my recent review "String theory to the rescue," I discuss my use of Bayesian reasoning. I argue that it can be useful but that it is very far from the central point of the discussion. I then review my own personal history with the multiverse. Finally I respond to some of the criticisms of Ellis and Silk, which initiated this interesting discussion.

v2: Part of v1 omitted from arXiv publication. Full discussion appears on personal website

References in corpus (5)

• The Anthropic Landscape of String Theory
• The Cosmological Constant and the String Landscape
• Computational complexity of the landscape I
• Quantum Mechanics Without State Vectors
• The history of the cosmological constant problem

Cited by in corpus (5)

• The Tune of Love and the Nature(ness) of Spacetime
• TASI Lectures on the Emergence of the Bulk in AdS/CFT
• Conceptual Challenges on the Road to the Multiverse
• Tuning the Cosmological Constant, Broken Scale Invariance, Unitarity
• Joseph Polchinski: A Biographical Memoir