Philosophy of Cosmology 2009

Programme


Day 0: Saturday 19th September
19.00-23.00 Registration, drinks and canape reception at St Anne's College bar

Day 1: Sunday 20th September
Morning Cosmology
09.00-09.30 Welcome and Opening Comments: Joe Silk, George Ellis
09.30-10.30 Talk 1: The state of cosmology today: Joe Silk
10.00-10.30 Coffee
10.30-11.30 Talk 2: Inflationary Multiverse: Andrei Linde
11.30-12.30 Talk 3: The string theory landscape and the multiverse: Raphael Bousso
12.30-13.30 Lunch
Afternoon Philosophy of Science
13.30-14.15 Talk 4: Cosmology and Inductive Inference: John Norton
14.15-15.00 Talk 5: Probability in the Multiverse: Simon Saunders
15.00-15.30 Tea
15.30-17.00 Panel 1: Alex Vilenkin, Wayne Myrvold, Christopher Smeenk
Evening Ultimate Explanation
19.00- Dinner
-21.00 Talk: Ultimate Explanation: Reforging Natural Philosophy, Timothy O'Connor
Response: Martin Rees

Day 2: Monday 21st September
Morning The Case for Multiverses (1)
09.00-10.00 Keynote Talk: Scientific Justification of Multiverses: Martin Rees
10.00-10.45 Talk 6: Probabilities in the landscape: Philip Candelas
10.45-11.15 Coffee
11.15-12.00 Talk 7: Probability measures and initial data for inflation: Robert Brandenberger
12.00-13.00 Panel 2: Critical commentaries: Brian Greene, Jean-Philippe Uzan, Andrei Linde
13.00-14.00 Lunch
Afternoon Fine Tuning and Anthropic Arguments
14.00-15.00 Talk 8: Probability and entropy issues for cosmology: Roger Penrose
15.00-16.00 Panel 3: Explaining fine tuning: Alex Vilenkin, Lawrence Hall, David Wallace
16.00-16.30 Tea
16.30-18.00 Panel 4: Critical commentaries: Alex Pruss, John Barrow, Robin Collins
Evening Conference Dinner
19.30- Dinner
-21.30 Talk: Cosmology, Ultimate Causation and Multiverses: Paul Davies
Commentator: George Ellis

Day 3: Tuesday 22nd September
Morning The Case for Multiverses (2)
09.00-09.45 Talk 9: How we know multiverses exist: Bernard Carr
09.45-10.30 Talk 10: Do we know multiverses exist? George Ellis
10.30-11.00 Coffee
11.00-12.30 Panel 5: The views of physicists: Pedro Ferreira, George Efstathiou, Sean Carroll
12.30-13.30 Lunch
Afternoon Philosophical Assessment of the Scientific Case
13.30-15.30 Panel 6: John Norton, Wayne Myrvold, David Wallace, Henrik Zinkernagel
15.30-16.00 Tea
16.00-17.30 Workshop Discussion: Cosmology as a Science
Panel 7: Bill Stoeger, Jean-Philippe Uzan, Jeremy Butterfield, Huw Price
Evening Balliol Dinner
19.00- Dinner
-21.00 Talk: Why is there something rather than nothing? John Hawthorne
Reply: Max Tegmark
Concluding remarks: Simon Saunders