Berlin 2024 – wissenschaftliches Programm

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AGPhil: Arbeitsgruppe Philosophie der Physik

AGPhil 1: Quantum and Classical Gravity 1

AGPhil 1.1: Hauptvortrag

Montag, 18. März 2024, 09:30–10:15, PTB SR AvHB

The Dark Energy Crisis as a Problem of Underdetermination of Pursuit-worthiness — •Patrick Duerr — von Weizsäcker Institut für Grundlagenforschung in den Wissenschaften, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen, Germany

We ought not to conceive of the Dark Energy problem as a crisis in the traditional--Kuhn-inspired--way. Insteady of a frenzy of motley explored ideas, triggered by an empirical or theoretical anomaly that defies the prevalent cosmological framework, the LCDM model, the Dark Energy crisis consists in a proliferation of approaches to account for the pertinent phenomena--in the hopes of hitting on a conclusive empirical anomaly. The main hypothesis, defended in this talk, is that the Dark Energy crisis is best construed in terms of underdetermination of pursuit-worthiness (rather than the more familiar plight of evidential underdetermination). What renders the Dark Energy crisis so perplexing is that none of them stands out as uncontroversially preferred in terms of their promise--the rational justification for their pursuit, i.e. the reasons to work on them. I substantiate this claim by applying a Peircean economic model of pursuit-worthiness to the main Dark Energy proposals. I conclude with counselling two complementary research strategies, implemented already in the cosmology community. The first, remiscent of Feyerabendian "anarchism", encourages bold heterodox ideas, with the goal of enhancing the testability of the present paradigm through theory pluralism. Secondly, reminiscent of Wheeler's "daring conservativism", we should explore the implications of the LCDM model, and seek to devise more and stricter tests.

Keywords: cosmology; pursuit; dark energy; underdetermination; crisis