Philosophers and Physicists in the Multiverse of Madness

Whether we're talking about multiverse physics or David Lewis's concrete possible worlds, there's sadly no way to confirm the existence of alternate realities from the philosophical armchair.

Last Sunday at the the How the Light Gets In festival at Hay in the UK, I participated in a panel discussion called “The Best and Worst of All Possible Worlds” with philosopher Paul Horwich and physicist and novelist Tasneem Zehra Husain—the first Pakistani woman to earn a PhD in string theory. It was billed as a “debate” although I think we were on a f…