On your other point, there are plenty of things we have indirect evidence for, and that’s fine. We don’t have direct observations of the nuclear fusion process at the heart of the Sun, but the indirect observations (including helioseismology and neutrino experiments) tell us our model for that process is correct. The problem about evidence for the multiverse isn’t that it’s indirect, but that even if we have that evidence, we can’t probe the properties of the parallel universes.

Please refer back to the commenting policy if you object to my heavy-handedness: http://galileospendulum.org/commenting-policy/.

The article soundly _rejected_ an “ultimate cause” in that it was describing how only natural processes has been found to suffice, which are causal but not atomistic “causes”, and in how eternal processes could be responsible for cosmology so no time to place an “ultimate” event. But of course you are not interested in the science, only in what seemed to fit your anti-science preconceptions.

Moreover, this is empirical findings so logic is a negligible part of its foundation. In fact, Gödel showed that first-order logic alone cannot “dictate” (result in) arithmetic, which is the basis for empirical quantification.

Finally, if you want to find an existence beyond current testability, the emergence chemistry and especially its gas giant core high pressure regime out of first principles of quantum mechanics comes to mind. Yet gas giants exists and are known results of natural processes.

The cyclic model isn’t complete: it doesn’t explain how much dark energy there is in the Universe any more than standard cosmology does, for example. In other words, the cyclic model is not complete, so at present there’s no physical evidence to distinguish it from inflationary models.

First, as I understand it standard cosmology does predict the density of dark energy. It is the amount that is needed to balance gravity potential with the matterenergy contributions, or inflation wouldn’t occur. Or at least that is what I got from Krauss 2009 video on cosmology.

If so then the question becomes why the rest of the contributions are what they are, e.g. what predicts the standard particle model.

Second, there is no distinguishing evidence except perhaps the WMAP and Planck observations that only inflation predicts!?

Here is what one cosmologist say on the Planck polarization data to date:

“Still, at the small angular scales, the polarisation data can be trusted and in this data Planck have one of their most impressive figures. The figure below shows how both the temperature multiplied by the polarisation (pixel by pixel on the sky) and how the polarisation itself varies with angular scale. The blue dots are the measured signal. Now, the red curve is not the best fit curve to this data. That is worth pausing and reflecting on. If it isn’t the best fit curve, then what is it?

That curve is the unique prediction from analysing Planck’s temperature data. There are no free parameters in defining those red lines. Once the temperature data is analysed, we can make an unchangeable prediction for what the polarisation should look like. The fact that the red line goes straight through the blue data points is absolutely remarkable. However, if one believes in the big bang and standard cosmological model, this is all that could have happened.”

The figure text is also worthwhile:

“These curves reflect some of the best of humanity. These are the tiny fluctuations in the polarisation of a field of radiation, left over from a hydrogen plasma that permeated the entire universe, 14 billion years ago. The oscillations in the curves come from sound waves in this hydrogen plasma. The curve is our prediction for this data, with no free parameters to play with at all. Just reflect on that. I’m unable to describe how incredible this is. We don’t even know whether Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare’s plays, but we can predict exactly what the polarisation in the CMB should look like.”

Maybe I am mistaken, but I have never heard that the cyclic model predicts these features but instead that it was pretty much excluded pre-WMAP 9 and Planck 4 year data releases.

Also, I seem to remember Bousso claiming that cyclic models has inherent difficulties with singularity theorems. Admittedly, I would have to check that.

The evidence for multiverses will be indirect at best, even with confirmation of inflation from Planck or other observations.

Isn’t a claim of “indirect” evidence just a result of sloppy thinking? I haven’t seen a testable definition of it.

Conversely, all our facts are achieved not by preexisting knowledge but by observation some distance and, from relativity by necessity, some time removed. It is all the same under the method of statistical hypothesis testing.

Eg we should be able to decide between eternal inflation and cyclic models, say, given sufficient constraint.