So far their input has proved fruitful.

Based on what evidence? So they got lucky one time purely because of the theological notion that all things must have a beginning—except for God, of course, who is somehow exempt from that rule.

Really, there is no comparison between the hypothesis or cosmologists and the musings of theologians. Even the most speculative cosmological theories have some scientific or mathematical basis they can be argued from (even if it can be very tenuous at times). What do the theologians have? Nothing, except some dusty manuscripts written thousands of years ago by a couple of desert tribes.

I am all for theologians having their say, but please don’t mistake the speculative theories of scientists with the sort of stuff theologians do.

I only mention it because the arguments pro-multiverse are very similar to those used in theology and metaphysics for the exitence of God … simplicity. Theology trod this ground centuries before this conference did, and we may learn a thing or two from their discussions.

As I said in an earlier post, Judeo-Christian theologians appear to be correct about creatio ex nihilo, despite what Einstein and Hoyle wanted to propose by way of static and steady state models of the universe.

I agree you don’t have to believe in God, no-one is forcing you to agree with a God hypothesis, but let the theologians talk too. So far their input has proved fruitful.

Sorry, I don’t quite understand that last sentence. Do you mean that RB and AL thought that Roger Penrose’s criticism of inflation [on the basis of its not really providing reasonable initial conditions] is unfair? What counter-arguments did they come up with? It would be interesting to hear what AL thinks about Penrose’s demolition of his old “inflation is an attractor so it generates its own arrow of time” fairytale.

The Weyl Curvature idea has a *very* strange sociology. I mean, it is *obviously correct* as a description of the earliest history of our universe, so it can’t be “controversial” in the usual sense. It could only be controversial if Penrose offered a theory as to *why* the Weyl curvature should be zero, as we observe. But that he has never done! Well, I guess the whole issue of cosmological initial conditions has a really weird sociology; there is no other major mystery in physics that has been so resolutely ignored. I wonder what outsiders like Huw Price think of this bizarre attitude. It certainly doesn’t put us in a very good light, to put it mildly.

The closest you can come to theology would be pure, unadulterated (by religion) intelligent design–i.e. proposing that the universe is an artifact of intelligence. But even then the problem is that you might as well suggest that the universe was created by magic since there would be no reason why the creator of such a universe should be bound to any laws of nature at all.

And theology is a non-starter since it presupposes certain non-scientific, non-detectable characteristics of the creator. In reality, even if intelligence was responsible for the creation of this universe, it tells us nothing about the nature of that intelligence. It might just as easily be the expected side-effect of a supernatural kid’s sixth-grade hyperdimensional physics experiment as it is the careful creation of an all seeing, all-powerful, loving God.

(And yes, I know that there is one woman listed on the speaker list – out of 34. But she is not on the talk schedule)