I am constantly amazed by the extent to which materialists will go to prop up their metaphysics. Like a snake that eats its own tail, they sometimes resort to “scientific” explanations that, if true, would undermine the foundation of science, i.e., the concept of “causality.”
Consider rhampton7’s response to my prior post : “Susskind favors a megaverse interpretation of string theory that does not need a first cause other than itself (in which case, you could describe it as a pantheist argument, but that is not what Susskind believes).”
Let’s think about that.
First, as has been pointed out many times, the assertion that a megaverse (or multiverse) exists is a religious/metaphysical assertion, not a scientific one if we use the “falsification” standard. The only universe available on which we can perform experiments is the one in which we exist. Therefore, it is impossible to perform an experiment that tests for the existence of other universes. It follows that the hypothesis “Other universes exist” cannot be tested and is there not, in principle, falsifiable.
More importantly, however, is rhapmpton7’s willingness to give up on causality altogether. As Elizabeth Liddle frequently reminds us, “science” is about testing “predictions.” Scientists make a prediction about the natural world (i.e., a hypothesis). They then perform experiments to test the hypothesis. That is science is a nutshell.
The scientific enterprise falls if we posit natural events that do not conform to the rule of causality. Why? Because the predictions that are at the foundation of the scientific endeavor are based upon a fundamental assumption, i.e., that causality always holds.
Suppose a scientist hypothesizes that the application of heat to water will cause the water to boil at 99.97 degrees Celsius at a pressure of 1 atm (i.e., 101.325 kPa). He tests the hypothesis by applying heat to water and sure enough the water boils at 99.97 degrees Celsius at a pressure of 1 atm. But suppose that the next scientist who performs the experiment finds that water freezes at 99.97C, and the next one finds that the application of heat has no effect whatsoever on water, and the next one finds that boiling water spontaneously pops into existence from nothing without the application of heat. You can see that under these circumstances the temple of science crumbles into useless dust.
Again, the fundamental assumption of science: Effects have causes and a given cause always produces the same effect.
Now along comes rhapmpton7 to suggest that when it suits us we can do away with causality altogether and an effect can be its own cause. OK, but you can’t have it both ways. You can have your science (in which causality always holds) or you can have your materialist metaphysics (in which you can discard causality if it suits you), but you can’t have both at the same time.