Critiques of multiverse theories

Multiverse theories have been widely criticized as speculation or philosophy rather than science, which is indeed a legitimate concern regarding the more-disconnected types of multiverses. Less legitimate are criticisms of multiverse models that appear as a side effect of well-motivated and tested theories or that admit some level of empirical verification.

Some of the fiercest debate surrounds the legitimacy and utility of anthropic arguments such as that which explains the small observed value of the cosmological constant. On the one hand, such reasoning is arguably no different from explaining the highly unusual ambient temperature and local density experienced on Earth relative to most locations in the universe because only a certain range of temperatures and densities can support life. On the other hand, it is very difficult to define what life exactly is, or what it requires, in a multiverse context. It is also very difficult to compute or compare probabilities for a given sort of life to arise in different sorts of universes. There is also a danger of accepting anthropic explanations for things that could be better and more elegantly explained using other reasoning.

It is also debatable whether multiverses are in accord with Ockham’s razor, which holds that the simplest explanation of an entity or phenomenon is the one that should be preferred. Critics contend that other universes are almost perfect examples of entities “multiplied beyond necessity.” Multiverse defenders, on the other hand, contend that a description of the observable universe as one part of a multiverse can be much simpler than a description of the observable universe as the only universe at all.