Why are physicists debating the "multiverse" so detached from professional philosophy?

Question

Something curious is happening in some corners of fundamental physics these days, and I am wondering if professional philosophers of science are fully aware of this, or else why there is not more quality contribution to the discussion from those who would actually be trained and qualified to do so:

Namely in some corners of fundamental physics, physicists are starting to stop being physicists and start being all interested in discussing philosophy. Not with philosophers, though, but among themselves, and in fact while at the same time publically proclaiming that "philosophy is dead". I am thinking of much of the discussion that goes with the term "multiverse".

Some of this is science, but for intrinsic reasons there is not too much science to be done about a "multiverse" (as Bert Schellekens, who arguably was the first to point out the bit of science that is available, already pointed out). This discussion is instead squarely in the territory of philosophy, much like discussion of phenomena such as "conciousness" etc. which arguably might be part of science one day, but currently are not (and in fact you don't have to look long for physicists trying to make the connection to that, too). Nevertheless, this discussion is all the hype in some public media and the physics-web sphere, see for instance here.

A kind of inverse Giordano Bruno complex is getting hold of part of the community.

My trouble with this is not so much the discussion in itself. It is potentially interesting, such as speculations about the nature of conciousness are potentially interesting, -- while similarly out of reach for present science. My trouble is this: first, I find the intellectual discipline in some of the discussion lacking, one can tell that physicists are not being trained to enter such territory. Second, I find it disturbing that this discussion crops up in the physics arXive-s. I'd be happy to find it in the philosophy journals when I do want to go look for it.

In short, it seems there has rarely been such a strongly felt need among the fundamental pyhsics community for some help from the philosophy departments, and at the same time this help is not happening, or if it is, it is not being recognized.

In the tradition of this discussion forum of asking more or less obvious "Why?"-questions, let this be my why-question: why did that happen?

Notice that I am not asking why physicists are talking about the multiverse, I know that quite well. I am intersted in this phenomenon of the sociology of science, that we have physicists start getting all interested in philosophy while at the same time proclaiming that "philosophy is dead". Apparently, there is some lack of cross-community communication here.

Answer 1

This is a great question: Why don't scientists care to hear more from philosophers? My guess would be that the culprit here is specialization. This can happen in two different ways.

First, both philosophy and the natural sciences have become increasingly specialized in the past century. It has gotten much harder these days for a professional philosopher to also be up to speed on what is going on in the natural sciences, and vice versa. There are some exceptions. I would wager that Lawrence Sklar is about as up to speed on the cutting edge of physics as any non-physicist can be. Still, the amount of time and effort required to really get to know more than a few debates in one's own field is prohibitive, let alone to get the expertise necessary to discuss issues in other fields.

Second, there have been some high profile cases where scientists have made sweeping, negative claims about philosophy. Amateurish generalizations and denunciations make some philosophers question whether there really is anything philosophers stand to learn from their colleagues in the natural sciences.