The infinite turn and speculative explanations in cosmology
History and Philosophy of Physics
2016-04-26 v1 Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
Abstract
Infinity, in various guises, has been invoked recently in order to `explain' a number of important questions regarding observable phenomena in science, and in particular in cosmology. Such explanations are by their nature speculative. Here we introduce the notions of relative infinity, closure, and economy of explanation and ask: to what extent explanations involving relative or real constructed infinities can be treated as reasonable?
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1604.06773,
title = {The infinite turn and speculative explanations in cosmology},
author = {Reza Tavakol and Fabio Gironi},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1604.06773},
year = {2016}
}