Le Bihan, Baptiste (2025) Holistic Versus Fragmented Multiverses: Empirical Access via Causal and Grounding Signatures. [Preprint]
![[img]](https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/style/images/fileicons/text.png) |
Text
2025LeBihanMultiverse.pdf Download (181kB) |
Abstract
Can multiverse hypotheses ever receive empirical support? Critics argue that multiverse scenarios posit unobservable entities, face severe underdetermination, or fall outside the bounds of science. This chapter challenges that view by offering a naturalistic metaphysical counterpoint to Bayesian approaches, distinguishing fragmented from holistic multiverses. Scientific proposals are almost always holistic: they embed universes within a unifying physical or metaphysical structure that can, in principle, leave empirical signatures inside the universes. I develop a typology of such signatures and show how it applies to leading scenarios from quantum theory, cosmology, and string theory. This framework clarifies why objections such as the `this universe' objection and a newly articulated generalization, the epistemic isolation objection, fail against scientifically motivated multiverses. The upshot is a qualified defence: while fragmented multiverses remain empirically inaccessible, certain holistic multiverses could, in principle, be supported by the same epistemic standards used elsewhere in physics.
| Export/Citation: | EndNote | BibTeX | Dublin Core | ASCII/Text Citation (Chicago) | HTML Citation | OpenURL |
| Social Networking: |
| Item Type: | Preprint | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Creators: |
|
||||||
| Keywords: | multiverse, empirical, confirmation | ||||||
| Subjects: | General Issues > Scientific Metaphysics General Issues > Confirmation/Induction Specific Sciences > Physics > Cosmology General Issues > Evidence Specific Sciences > Physics > Quantum Gravity |
||||||
| Depositing User: | Dr. Baptiste Le Bihan | ||||||
| Date Deposited: | 05 Sep 2025 10:55 | ||||||
| Last Modified: | 05 Sep 2025 10:55 | ||||||
| Item ID: | 26440 | ||||||
| Subjects: | General Issues > Scientific Metaphysics General Issues > Confirmation/Induction Specific Sciences > Physics > Cosmology General Issues > Evidence Specific Sciences > Physics > Quantum Gravity |
||||||
| Date: | 2025 | ||||||
| URI: | https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/26440 |
Monthly Views for the past 3 years
Monthly Downloads for the past 3 years
Plum Analytics
Actions (login required)
 |
View Item |
![[feed]](http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/style/images/feed-icon-32x32.png){kind=icon}