The Multiverse - reasons, why it's not a good explanation for the existence of our fine-tuned universe.
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t1282-multiverse
1. The multiverse theory suggests that if there are an infinite number of universes, then anything is possible, including the existence of fantastical entities like the "Spaghetti Monster." This seems highly implausible.
2. The atheistic multiverse hypothesis is not a natural extrapolation from our observed experience, unlike the theistic explanation which links the fine-tuning of the universe to an intelligent designer. Religious experience also provides evidence for God's existence.
3. The "universe generator" itself would need to be finely-tuned and designed, undermining the multiverse theory as an explanation for the fine-tuning problem.
4. The multiverse theory would need to randomly select the very laws of physics themselves, which seems highly implausible.
5. The beauty and elegance of the laws of physics points to intelligent design, which the multiverse theory cannot adequately explain.
6. The multiverse theory cannot account for the improbable initial arrangement of matter in the universe required by the second law of thermodynamics.
7. If we live in a simulated universe, then the laws of physics in our universe are also simulated, undermining the use of our universe's physics to argue for a multiverse.
8. The multiverse theory should be shaved away by Occam's razor, as it is an unnecessary assumption introduced solely to avoid the God hypothesis.
9. Every universe, including a multiverse, would require a beginning and therefore a cause. This further undermines the multiverse theory's ability to remove God as the most plausible explanation for the fine-tuning of the universe.
The multiverse seems to have evolved from a scientific hypothesis to a scientific theory. Thats remarkable. Even more, if we consider that no scientific experiment or test was performed to confirm its soundness.
Marie-Danielle Smith The multiverse theory, explained October 14, 2021
https://www.macleans.ca/society/science/the-multiverse-theory-explained/
Multiverse Theory
https://pt.scribd.com/document/491553034/Multiverse-Theory
Heather Brown What is the Multiverse Theory?
https://www.famousscientists.org/what-is-the-multiverse-theory/
If a multiverse exists, there is one, where I am richer than the 1000 richest billionaires together, where I play better football than Neymar and Messi together. Where I win at any sport competition. Where I can time travel, surrounded always by 70 virgins. Where there are billions of habitable planets, and I have spaceships to visit all of them. All habitants on each planet regard me as their king, and there is an interplanetary internet. Hail the multiverse. Hail the new theory of science.
Multiverse is a rather useless scientific theory, as it makes no predictions and is not testable or falsifiable. As a theological theory, it assumes a large number of universes to nearly an infinite amount. While it deals with the organized complexity of this universe in a satisfactory manner (i.e. having infinite universes means even the small probability events like organized complexity must occur), it also creates a seeming organized and complex omniverse that itself needs justification for its complexity. So it does not answer the question, it pushes the question to the location of the unknowable.
Naumann, Thomas: Do We Live in the Best of All Possible Worlds? The Fine-Tuning of the Constants of Nature Sep 2017
The multiverse is not an established theory but a hypothesis. Asking the question “Does the Multiverse Really Exist?” the astrophysicist George Ellis said [58]: “As skeptical as I am, I think the contemplation of the multiverse is an excellent opportunity to reflect on the nature of science and on the ultimate nature of existence: why we are here... In looking at this concept, we need an open mind, though not too open. It is a delicate path to tread. Parallel universes may or may not exist; the case is unproved. We are going to have to live with that uncertainty. Nothing is wrong with scientifically based philosophical speculation, which is what multiverse proposals are. But we should name it for what it is”.
https://www.proquest.com/docview/2124812833
1. Dawkins & many scientists allude to the multiverse as the best explanation for our universe. if there is an infinite number of universes, then absolutely everything is not only possible… It’s actually happened! This means the Spaghetti monster MUST exist in one of the 10 to the 500 power multiverses. It means that somewhere, in some dimension, there is a universe where the Chicago Cubs won the World Series last year. There’s a universe where Jimmy Hoffa doesn’t get cement shoes; instead, he marries Joan Rivers and becomes President of the United States. There’s even a universe where Elvis kicks his drug habit and still resides at Graceland and sings at concerts. Imagine the possibilities! I might sound like I’m joking, but actually, I’m dead serious. Furthermore, this implies Zeus, Thor, and 1000s of other gods ALSO exist in these worlds. They ALL exist. We must now bow in humble respect to ALL of them. AMEN!
2.Suppose a dinosaur skeptic claimed that she could explain the bones by postulating a "dinosaur-bone-producing-field" that simply materialized the bones out of thin air. Moreover, suppose further that, to avoid objections such as that there are no known physical laws that would allow for such a mechanism, the dinosaur skeptic simply postulated that we have not yet discovered these laws or detected these fields. Surely, none of us would let this skeptical hypothesis deter us from inferring to the existence of dinosaurs. Why? Because although no one has directly observed dinosaurs, we do have experience of other animals leaving behind fossilized remains, and thus the dinosaur explanation is a natural extrapolation from our common experience. In contrast, to explain the dinosaur bones, the dinosaur skeptic has invented a set of physical laws and a set of mechanisms that are not a natural extrapolation from anything we know or experience.
In the case of the fine-tuning, we already know that minds often produce fine-tuned devices, such as Swiss watches. Postulating God--a supermind--as the explanation of the fine-tuning, therefore, is a natural extrapolation from of what we already observe minds to do. In contrast, it is difficult to see how the atheistic many-universes hypothesis could be considered a natural extrapolation from what we observe. Moreover, unlike the atheistic many-universes hypothesis, we have some experiential evidence for the existence of God, namely religious experience. Thus, by the above principle, we should prefer the theistic explanation of the fine-tuning over the atheistic many-universes explanation, everything else being equal.
3. the "many-universes generator" seems like it would need to be designed. For instance, in all current worked-out proposals for what this "universe generator" could be--such as the oscillating big bang and the vacuum fluctuation models explained above--the "generator" itself is governed by a complex set of physical laws that allow it to produce the universes. It stands to reason, therefore, that if these laws were slightly different the generator probably would not be able to produce any universes that could sustain life. After all, even my bread machine has to be made just right in order to work properly, and it only produces loaves of bread, not universes! Or consider a device as simple as a mousetrap: it requires that all the parts, such as the spring and hammer, be arranged just right in order to function. It is doubtful, therefore, whether the atheistic many-universe theory can entirely eliminate the problem of design the atheist faces; rather, at least to some extent, it seems simply to move the problem of design up one level.
4. the universe generator must not only select the parameters of physics at random but must actually randomly create or select the very laws of physics themselves. This makes this hypothesis seem even more far-fetched since it is difficult to see what possible physical mechanism could select or create laws.
The reason the "many-universes generator" must randomly select the laws of physics is that, just as the right values for the parameters of physics are needed for life to occur, the right set of laws is also needed. If, for instance, certain laws of physics were missing, life would be impossible. For example, without the law of inertia, which guarantees that particles do not shoot off at high speeds, life would probably not be possible (Leslie, Universes, p. 59). Another example is the law of gravity: if masses did not attract each other, there would be no planets or stars, and once again it seems that life would be impossible. Yet another example is the Pauli Exclusion Principle, the principle of quantum mechanics that says that no two fermions--such as electrons or protons--can share the same quantum state. As prominent Princeton physicist Freeman Dyson points out [Disturbing the Universe, p. 251], without this principle all electrons would collapse into the nucleus and thus atoms would be impossible.
5. it cannot explain other features of the universe that seem to exhibit apparent design, whereas theism can. For example, many physicists, such as Albert Einstein, have observed that the basic laws of physics exhibit an extraordinary degree of beauty, elegance, harmony, and ingenuity. Nobel Prize-winning physicist Steven Weinberg, for instance, devotes a whole chapter of his book Dreams of a Final Theory (Chapter 6, "Beautiful Theories") explaining how the criteria of beauty and elegance are commonly used to guide physicists in formulating the right laws. Indeed, one of the most prominent theoretical physicists of this century, Paul Dirac, went so far as to claim that "it is more important to have beauty in one's equations than to have them fit experiment" (1963, p. ??).
Now such beauty, elegance, and ingenuity make sense if the universe was designed by God. Under the atheistic many-universes hypothesis, however, there is no reason to expect the fundamental laws to be elegant or beautiful. As theoretical physicist Paul Davies writes, "If nature is so 'clever' as to exploit mechanisms that amaze us with their ingenuity, is that not persuasive evidence for the existence of intelligent design behind the universe? If the world's finest minds can unravel only with difficulty the deeper workings of nature, how could it be supposed that those workings are merely a mindless accident, a product of blind chance?" (Superforce, pp. 235-36.)
6. neither the atheistic many-universes hypothesis (nor the atheistic single-universe hypothesis) can at present adequately account for the improbable initial arrangement of matter in the universe required by the second law of thermodynamics. To see this, note that according to the second law of thermodynamics, the entropy of the universe is constantly increasing. The standard way of understanding this entropy increase is to say that the universe is going from a state of order to disorder. We observe this entropy increase all the time around us: things, such as a child's bedroom, that start out highly organized tend to "decay" and become disorganized unless something or someone intervenes to stop it. To believe an infinite number of universes made life possible by random chance is to believe everything else I just said, too.
7.“If you take seriously the theory of all possible universes, including all possible variations,” Davies said, “at least some of them must have intelligent civilizations with enough computing power to simulate entire fake worlds. Simulated universes are much cheaper to make than the real thing, and so the number of fake universes would proliferate and vastly outnumber the real ones. And assuming we’re just typical observers, then we’re overwhelmingly likely to find ourselves in a fake universe, not a real one.” So far it’s the normal argument. Then Davies makes his move. He claims that because the theoretical existence of multiple universes is based on the laws of physics in our universe, if this universe is simulated, then its laws of physics are also simulated, which would mean that this universe’s physics is a fake. Therefore, Davies reasoned,“We cannot use the argument that the physics in our universe leads to multiple universes because it also leads to a fake universe with fake physics.” That undermines the whole argument that fundamental physics generates multiple universes because the reasoning collapses in circularity. Davies concluded, “While multiple universes seem almost inevitable given our understanding of the Big Bang, using them to explain all existence is a dangerous, slippery slope, leading to apparently absurd conclusions.”
8. The Multiverse should be shaved with Occam's razor. We don't need it to explain reality, it's only advanced to keep from having to turn to God. It's naturalistic so it's an arbitrary necessity at best. Arbitrary necessitates are logical impossibilities, contingent things jumped up to the level of necessity to answer a God argument. It's not we are going to disprove the unnecessary entity but we are going refrain from advancing it's existence as an assumption until such a time that real empirical evidence makes it necessary. Therefore, Multiverse should be taken out of the issues of God arguments.
9. The existence of multiple universes with varying constants doesn't necessarily preclude the existence of a creator or higher power.
Paul Davies: A Brief History of the Multiverse April 12, 2003
How seriously can we take this explanation for the friendliness of nature? Not very, I think. For a start, how is the existence of the other universes to be tested? To be sure, all cosmologists accept that there are some regions of the universe that lie beyond the reach of our telescopes, but somewhere on the slippery slope between that and the idea that there is an infinite number of universes, credibility reaches a limit. As one slips down that slope, more and more must be accepted on faith, and less and less is open to scientific verification. Extreme multiverse explanations are therefore reminiscent of theological discussions. Indeed, invoking an infinity of unseen universes to explain the unusual features of the one we do see is just as ad hoc as invoking an unseen Creator. The multiverse theory may be dressed up in scientific language, but in essence, it requires the same leap of faith.
It is but a small extra step to conjecture that each universe comes with its own knob settings. They could be random, as if the endless succession of universes is the product of the proverbial monkey at a typewriter. Almost all universes are incompatible with life, and so go unseen and unlamented. Only in that handful where, by chance, the settings are just right will life emerge; then beings such as ourselves will marvel at how propitiously fine-tuned their universe is.
Similar arguments apply to other supposedly fixed properties of the cosmos, such as the strengths of the fundamental forces or the masses of the various subatomic particles. Imagine you can play God and fiddle with the settings of the great cosmic machine. Turn this knob and make electrons a bit heavier; twiddle that one and make gravitation a trifle weaker. What would be the effect? The universe would look very different -- so different, in fact, that there wouldn't be anyone around to see the result, because the existence of life depends rather critically on the actual settings that Mother Nature selected.
At the same time, the multiverse theory also explains too much. Appealing to everything in general to explain something in particular is really no explanation at all. To a scientist, it is just as unsatisfying as simply declaring, ''God made it that way!'' Problems also crop up in the small print. Among the myriad universes similar to ours will be some in which technological civilizations advance to the point of being able to simulate consciousness. Eventually, entire virtual worlds will be created inside computers, their conscious inhabitants unaware that they are the simulated products of somebody else's technology. For every original world, there will be a stupendous number of available virtual worlds -- some of which would even include machines simulating virtual worlds of their own, and so on ad infinitum. Taking the multiverse theory at face value, therefore, means accepting that virtual worlds are more numerous than ''real'' ones. There is no reason to expect our world -- the one in which you are reading this right now -- to be real as opposed to a simulation. And the simulated inhabitants of a virtual world stand in the same relationship to the simulating system as human beings stand in relation to the traditional Creator.
Far from doing away with a transcendent Creator, the multiverse theory actually injects that very concept at almost every level of its logical structure. Gods and worlds, creators and creatures, lie embedded in each other, forming an infinite regress in unbounded space. This reductio ad absurdum of the multiverse theory reveals what a very slippery slope it is indeed. Since Copernicus, our view of the universe has enlarged by a factor of a billion billion. The cosmic vista stretches one hundred billion trillion miles in all directions -- that's a 1 with 23 zeros. Now we are being urged to accept that even this vast region is just a minuscule fragment of the whole.
Scientists have long puzzled over this rather contrived state of affairs. Why is nature so ingeniously, one might even say suspiciously, friendly to life? What do the laws of physics care about life and consciousness that they should conspire to make a hospitable universe? It's almost as if a Grand Designer had it all figured out.
It is but a small extra step to conjecture that each universe comes with its own knob settings. They could be random, as if the endless succession of universes is the product of the proverbial monkey at a typewriter. Almost all universes are incompatible with life, and so go unseen and unlamented. Only in that handful where, by chance, the settings are just right will life emerge; then beings such as ourselves will marvel at how propitiously fine-tuned their universe is.
Paul Davies Yes, the universe looks like a fix. But that doesn't mean that a god fixed it 26 Jun 2007
The multiverse theory certainly cuts the ground from beneath intelligent design, but it falls short of a complete explanation of existence. For a start, there has to be a physical mechanism to make all those universes and allocate bylaws to them. This process demands its own laws, or meta-laws. Where do they come from? The problem has simply been shifted up a level from the laws of the universe to the meta-laws of the multiverse.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2007/jun/26/spaceexploration.comment
Max Tegmark physicist, has pointed out that there are several different 'multiverse hypotheses'
Two of Tegmark's 'types' of multiverses are implications of eternal chaotic inflation (something believed to be true, but still an open question)--with universes 'birthing' new universes beyond the cosmological horizon (as a result of runaway inflation). This kind of multiverse results in an infinite variety of different physical laws. 2
A strong motivation for introducing the multiverse concept is to get rid of the need for design, this bid is only partially successful. Like the proverbial bump in the carpet, the popular multiverse models merely shift the problem elsewhere – up a level from universe to multiverse”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiverse#Max_Tegmark.27s_four_levels
The Hidden Reality: Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos
The quilted multiverse conditions in an infinite universe necessarily repeat across space, yielding parallel worlds.
The inflationary multiverse says that eternal cosmological inflation yields an enormous network of bubble universes, of which our universe would be one.
The brane multiverse states that in M-theory, in the brane world scenario, our universe exists on one three-dimensional brane, which floats in a higher dimensional expanse potentially populated by other branes – other parallel universes.
The cyclic multiverse is saying that collisions between braneworlds can manifest as big bang-like beginnings, yielding universes that are parallel in time.
The landscape multiverse states that by combining inflationary cosmology and string theory, the many different shapes for string theory's extra dimensions give rise to many different bubble universes.
The quantum multiverse creates a new universe when a diversion in events occurs, as in the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics.
The holographic multiverse is derived from the theory that the surface area of a space can simulate the volume of the region.
The simulated multiverse implies that technological leaps suggest that the universe is just a simulation.
The ultimate multiverse is the ultimate theory, saying the principle of fecundity asserts that every possible universe is a real universe, thereby obviating the question of why one possibility – ours – is special. These universes instantiate all possible mathematical equations.
http://library.lol/main/D4CD343993D4D92BD82A07F23BB2345C
The task of a multiverse generator
The expansion rate of the Universe is characterized by a delicate balance between repulsion and consequently expansion and contraction. Since gravity is purely attractive, its action sums up throughout the whole Universe. The strength of this attraction is defined by the gravitational constant GN and by an environmental parameter, the density ΩM of (dark and baryonic) matter. The strength of the repulsion is defined by two parameters: the initial impetus of the Big Bang parameterized by the Hubble constant H0 and the cosmological constant Λ.
The smallness of the cosmological constant is widely regarded as the single the greatest problem confronting current physics and cosmology. The cosmological constant acts as a repulsive force, causing space to expand and, when negative, acts as an attractive force, causing space to contract. To get our universe, this constant must be right amongst 10^123 possibilities. That means that the probability that our universe contains galaxies is akin to exactly 1 possibility in 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 . Unlikely doesn’t even begin to describe these odds. There are “only” 10^81 atoms in the observable universe, after all. Thirty billion years contain only 10^18 seconds. By totaling those, we find that the maximum elementary particle events in 30 billion years could only be 10^143.
Now let's suppose there was a multiverse generator. He would have had to make up to 10^123 attempts to get one universe with the right expansion rate. He would have made 10^18 attempts after 30 billion years.
Once he had that right, to get a universe with atoms, he would have to make the following number of trials:
the right Ratio of Electrons: Protons 1:10^37
Ratio of Electromagnetic Force: Gravity 1:10^40
If a multiverse generator existed, he must have been VERY busy in the last trillion trillion trillion years to get out only our universe......
does that make sense?
Atheists love to use Occam's razor. Remarkable, that arguing that there is no evidence of God because he cannot be perceived by our senses, in order to explain fine-tuning, he sticks to infinity of completely made-up, undetectable and unobservable parallel universes and claim the proposal to be entirely scientific and disregarding Occams. Methinks. Occam's would not be amused.
If the mathematics of quantum mechanics is right (as most fundamental physicists believe),and if materialism is right, then one is forced to accept the Many Worlds view. However bizarre the consequences.
In the Many Worlds picture, you exist in a virtually infinite number of versions: in some branches of reality you are reading this article, in others you are asleep in bed, in others you have never been born. Even proponents of the Many Worlds idea admit that it sounds crazy and strains credulity. 2
The multiverse hypothesis is plagued by two problems: first, as Dr. Robin Collins, an acknowledged authority on fine-tuning, has argued, it merely shifts the fine-tuning problem up one level, as a multiverse capable of generating any life-supporting universes at all would still need to be fine-tuned; and second, as physicist Paul Davies has pointed out, even the multiverse hypothesis implies that a sizable proportion of universes (including perhaps our own) were intelligently designed. By default, then, Intelligent Design remains the best viable explanation for the origin of replication and translation, and hence of life on Earth. Why? Because it’s the only explanation that posits something already known to be capable of generating life, in order to account for the emergence of life on Earth. That “something” is intelligence.
If every possible universe exists, then, according to philosopher Alvin Plantinga, there must be a universe in which God exists – since his existence is logically possible – even though highly improbable in the view of the New Atheists. It then follows that, since God is omnipotent, he must exist in every universe and hence there is only one universe, this universe, of which he is the Creator and Upholder. The concept of many worlds is clearly fraught with logical, and not only scientific, difficulties. It can also present moral difficulties. If every logically possible universe exists, then presumably there is one in which I exist (or a copy of me?) and of which I am a murder – or worse. The concept seems therefore also to lead to moral absurdity.
a. The there are a virtually infinite number of universes coming into being or
b. That it was not mere randomness that leads to our universe forming this way (with the implication of design).
Both options are proposing a reality "outside our universe", i.e. each option involves a form of "transcendence".
Also, each option involves a reality not subject to the natural laws of this universe, i.e. each option involves a kind of "supernaturalism".
Also, each option involves a form of reality that we could not expect to be able to "reach" or "observe" from within our universe, i.e. each is subject to similar difficulties of "falsifiability".
The list could be continued. And the point is that these are the *very arguments* that are leveled against the existence of a creator, yet must be accepted in the case of a multiverse.
Charles Hard Townes, winner of a Nobel Prize in Physics and a UC Berkeley professor noted:
"This is a very special universe: it's remarkable that it came out just this way. If the laws of physics weren't just the way they are, we couldn't be here at all....Some scientists argue that, "Well, there's an enormousnumber of universes and each one is a little different. This one just happened to turn out right. Well, that's a postulate, and it's a pretty fantastic postulate. It assumes that there really are an enormous number of universes and that the laws could be different for each of them. The other possibility is that our was planned, and that is why it has come out so specially."
Paul Davies: A Brief History of the Multiverse April 12, 2003
Imagine you can play God and fiddle with the settings of the great cosmic machine. Turn this knob and make electrons a bit heavier; twiddle that one and make gravitation a trifle weaker. What would be the effect? The universe would look very different -- so different, in fact, that there wouldn't be anyone around to see the result, because the existence of life depends rather critically on the actual settings that Mother Nature selected.
Scientists have long puzzled over this rather contrived state of affairs. Why is nature so ingeniously, one might even say suspiciously, friendly to life? What do the laws of physics care about life and consciousness that they should conspire to make a hospitable universe? It's almost as if a Grand Designer had it all figured out.
For a start, how is the existence of the other universes to be tested? To be sure, all cosmologists accept that there are some regions of the universe that lie beyond the reach of our telescopes, but somewhere on the slippery slope between that and the idea that there is an infinite number of universes, credibility reaches a limit. As one slips down that slope, more and more must be accepted on faith, and less and less is open to scientific verification. Extreme multiverse explanations are therefore reminiscent of theological discussions. Indeed, invoking an infinity of unseen universes to explain the unusual features of the one we do see is just as ad hoc as invoking an unseen Creator. The multiverse theory may be dressed up in scientific language, but in essence, it requires the same leap of faith.
is to invoke the so-called multiverse theory. The idea here is that what we have hitherto been calling ''the universe'' is nothing of the sort. It is but a small component within a vast assemblage of other universes that together make up a ''multiverse.''
It is but a small extra step to conjecture that each universe comes with its own knob settings. They could be random, as if the endless succession of universes is the product of the proverbial monkey at a typewriter. Almost all universes are incompatible with life, and so go unseen and unlamented. Only in that handful where, by chance, the settings are just right will life emerge; then beings such as ourselves will marvel at how propitiously fine-tuned their universe is.
But we would be wrong to attribute this suitability to design. It is entirely the result of self-selection: we simply could not exist in biologically hostile universes, no matter how many there were.
This idea of multiple universes, or multiple realities, has been around in philosophical circles for centuries. The scientific justification for it, however, is new.
One argument stems from the ''big bang'' theory: according to the standard model, shortly after the universe exploded into existence about 14 billion years ago, it suddenly jumped in size by an enormous factor. This ''inflation'' can best be understood by imagining that the observable universe is, relatively speaking, a tiny blob of space buried deep within a vast labyrinth of interconnected cosmic regions. Under this theory, if you took a God's-eye view of the multiverse, you would see big bangs aplenty generating a tangled melee of universes enveloped in a superstructure of frenetically inflating space. Though individual universes may live and die, the multiverse is forever.
Some scientists now suspect that many traditional laws of physics might in fact be merely local bylaws, restricted to limited regions of space. Many physicists now think that there are more than three spatial dimensions, for example, since certain theories of subatomic matter are neater in 9 or 10 dimensions. So maybe three is a lucky number that just happened by accident in our cosmic neighborhood -- other universes may have five or seven dimensions.
Life would probably be impossible with more (or less) than three dimensions to work with, so our seeing three is then no surprise. Similar arguments apply to other supposedly fixed properties of the cosmos, such as the strengths of the fundamental forces or the masses of the various subatomic particles. Perhaps these parameters were all fluke products of cosmic luck, and our exquisitely friendly ''universe'' is but a minute oasis of fecundity amid a sterile space-time desert.
How seriously can we take this explanation for the friendliness of nature? Not very, I think. For a start, how is the existence of the other universes to be tested? To be sure, all cosmologists accept that there are some regions of the universe that lie beyond the reach of our telescopes, but somewhere on the slippery slope between that and the idea that there are an infinite number of universes, credibility reaches a limit. As one slips down that slope, more and more must be accepted on faith, and less and less is open to scientific verification.
Extreme multiverse explanations are therefore reminiscent of theological discussions. Indeed, invoking an infinity of unseen universes to explain the unusual features of the one we do see is just as ad hoc as invoking an unseen Creator. The multiverse theory may be dressed up in scientific language, but in essence it requires the same leap of faith.
At the same time, the multiverse theory also explains too much. Appealing to everything in general to explain something in particular is really no explanation at all. To a scientist, it is just as unsatisfying as simply declaring, ''God made it that way!''
Problems also crop up in the small print. Among the myriad universes similar to ours will be some in which technological civilizations advance to the point of being able to simulate consciousness. Eventually, entire virtual worlds will be created inside computers, their conscious inhabitants unaware that they are the simulated products of somebody else's technology. For every original world, there will be a stupendous number of available virtual worlds -- some of which would even include machines simulating virtual worlds of their own, and so on ad infinitum.
Taking the multiverse theory at face value, therefore, means accepting that virtual worlds are more numerous than ''real'' ones. There is no reason to expect our world -- the one in which you are reading this right now -- to be real as opposed to a simulation. And the simulated inhabitants of a virtual world stand in the same relationship to the simulating system as human beings stand in relation to the traditional Creator.
Far from doing away with a transcendent Creator, the multiverse theory actually injects that very concept at almost every level of its logical structure. Gods and worlds, creators and creatures, lie embedded in each other, forming an infinite regress in unbounded space.
This reductio ad absurdum of the multiverse theory reveals what a very slippery slope it is indeed. Since Copernicus, our view of the universe has enlarged by a factor of a billion billion. The cosmic vista stretches one hundred billion trillion miles in all directions -- that's a 1 with 23 zeros. Now we are being urged to accept that even this vast region is just a minuscule fragment of the whole.
https://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/12/opinion/a-brief-history-of-the-multiverse.html
Koonin, the logic of chance, page 384:
This profound difficulty of the origin of life problem might appear effectively insurmountable, compelling one to ask extremely general questions that go beyond the realm of biology. Did certain factors that were critical at the time of the origin of life but that are hidden from our view now significantly change these numbers and make the origin of life much more likely? Or is it possible that the processes that form the foundation for the origin of life are as difficult as we imagine, but the number of trials is so huge that the appearance of life forms in one or more of them is likely or even inevitable? In other words, is it conceivable that our very concepts of probability are inadequate? The first possibility has to do with finding conditions that existed on primitive Earth and somehow made the origin of life “easy.” Russell’s compartments go some way in that direction, but apparently not far enough: Even in these flow reactors rich in energy and catalysts, the combination of all the necessary processes would be an extreme rarity. The second possibility may be addressed in the context of the entire universe by asking, how many planets are there with conditions conducive to the origin of life? That is, how many trials for the origin of life were there altogether? In this section, we pursue this second line of inquiry from the perspective of modern physical cosmology. During the twentieth century, cosmology has undergone a complete transformation, from a quaint (and not particularly reputable) philosophical endeavor to a vibrant physical field deeply steeped in observation. The leading direction in cosmology these days centers on the so-called inflation, a period of exponentially fast initial expansion of a universe (Carroll, 2010; Guth, 1998a; Guth and Kaiser, 2005; Vilenkin, 2007). In the most plausible, self-consistent models, inflation is eternal, with an infinite number of island (pocket) universes (or simply universes) emerging through the decay of small regions of the primordial “sea” of false (high-energy) vacuum and comprising the infinite multiverse (see Appendix B). The many worlds in one (MWO) model makes the startling prediction that all macroscopic, “coarsegrain” histories of events that are not forbidden by conservation laws of physics have been realized (or will be realized) somewhere in the infinite multiverse—and not just once, but an infinite number of times (Garriga and Vilenkin, 2001; Vilenkin, 2007). For example, there are an infinite number of (macroscopically) exact copies of the Earth, with everything that exists on it, although the probability that a given observable region of the universe contains one of these copies is vanishingly small. This picture appears extremely counterintuitive (“crazy”), but it is a direct consequence of eternal inflation, the dominant model for the evolution of the multiverse in modern cosmology.
Kirk Durston: Confusing Fantasy with Science August 3, 2015
Science is also advancing our understanding of just how fantastically improbable the origin of life is. Evolutionary biologist, Eugene Koonin, looking at the possibility that life arose through the popular “RNA-world” scenario, calculates that the probability of just RNA replication and translation is 1 chance in 10 with 1,017 zeros after it. Koonin’s solution is to propose an infinite multiverse. With an infinite number of possible universes, the emergence of life will becomes inevitable, no matter how improbable.
So the multiverse has become atheism’s “god of the gaps” but some scientists point out that multiverse “science” is not science at all. Mathematician George Ellis wrote of multiverse models, “they are not observationally or experimentally testable — and never will be.”
https://evolutionnews.org/2015/08/confusing_fanta/#sthash.I8c5Bofm.dpuf
Thomas Naumann: Do We Live in the Best of All Possible Worlds? The Fine-Tuning of the Constants of Nature 1 August 2017
From Universe to Multiverse
The problem of the uniqueness of our Universe can be avoided going from a single and unique universe to a multiverse consisting of a huge number of different universes. At the extreme energy densities at Planck time (~10−43 s) immediately after the Big Bang, due to quantum gravity the Universe is thought to be dominated by vacuum fluctuations of space-time. Soon (~10−36 s) after, in the cosmological model of inflation, vacuum fluctuations of a scalar (Higgs-like) inflaton field of the size of a tiny fraction of a proton radius could have inflated by many orders of magnitude to a region larger than the event horizon which later expanded to today’s observable Universe. At these extreme energies, all non-gravitational interactions are still thought to be unified to one primordial force. At decreasing energies, these grand unified symmetries can break down to the symmetries of separate forces in many different ways. On top of that, the superstring theory developed in the 1980s by Green, Schwarz, Witten, and others assumes six (or seven) extra spatial dimensions which are curled up at the small distance scales relevant in the early Universe. These theories give rise to a huge (~10^500) number of possible compactifications to the three dimensions which we observe at the low energies in our Universe today. Each of the inflationary bubbles may have evolved into a universe with a different realization of the physics potential hidden in grand unified and superstring theories. So, the physics in these universes can be different from the physics in our Universe. Susskind called this vast field of possibilities “The anthropic landscape of string theory”.
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017EPJWC.16407011N/abstract
Philip Goff: Our Improbable Existence Is No Evidence for a Multiverse Experts in probability have spotted a logical flaw in theorists’ reasoning January 10, 2021
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/our-improbable-existence-is-no-evidence-for-a-multiverse/
MICHAEL EGNOR:WE DON’T LIVE IN A MULTIVERSE BECAUSE THE CONCEPT MAKES NO SENSE FEBRUARY 28, 2021
https://mindmatters.ai/2021/02/we-dont-live-in-a-multiverse-because-the-concept-makes-no-sense/
ALBERT MCKEON: Despite the Hype, There’s No Proof of a Parallel Universe Sep 2nd 2020
The idea of parallel universes was first conceived through the study of quantum physics, but they are hard to prove.
https://now.northropgrumman.com/despite-the-hype-theres-no-proof-of-a-parallel-universe/
C. Renee James:Evidence of the Multiverse? MARCH 23, 2021
The problem with treating multiverse ideas scientifically is that there seems to be no place to start. Our observations are, as far as we can tell, restricted to this universe. Oh, sure, in the spring of 2020, there was quite a lot of excitement that NASA had somehow found evidence for a parallel universe in which particles move backward in time — at least that was the story if you believe the tabloids. Apparently one energetic particle had somehow escaped the bounds of its universe, its wreckage discovered by NASA’s balloon craft, the Antarctic Impulsive Transient Antenna. Except… that’s not what the discovery’s announcement suggested at all. It was merely pointing out the curious case of a signal similar to the high-energy particles from a cosmic ray shower that appeared to be going up instead of down. While there are several dozen more mundane explanations that should be ticked off the list long before invoking “proof of parallel universes,” the whole notion of co-mingling universes has actually been at the forefront of many instructors’ minds this year. I mean…face it. There really is no other explanation for 2020.
https://astrosociety.org/news-publications/mercury-online/mercury-online.html/article/2021/03/23/evidence-of-the-multiverse-
Sabine Hossenfelder: Sorry, 'Flash' Fans - There's No Evidence For A Multiverse Yet Oct 25, 2016,
The multiverse – a conjectured endless collection of universes – was once the realm of science fiction, but now it’s science. Not only would anything that could happen actually happen in some universe within the multiverse, but anything that can happen would happen infinitely many times. Therefore, the multiverse also contains infinitely many universes that are almost exactly like our own, including our planet, and me, and you. But in some of these other universes, a dark matter particle gave you cancer ten years ago. Don’t worry that you might accidentally get condolences for your other self, though. The universes aren’t causally connected and information exchange not possible. The LHC hasn’t shown we live in a multiverse.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2016/10/25/no-the-lhc-hasnt-shown-that-we-live-in-a-multiverse/?sh=730014c441aa
Flying Spaghetti Monster
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Fun:Flying_Spaghetti_Monster
Teaching about the Flying Spaghetti Monster alongside other theories
Pasta strainers and pirates: how the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster was born
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/may/18/pasta-strainers-and-pirates-how-the-church-of-the-flying-spaghetti-monster-was-born
“I fully expect, then, that this FSM theory will be admitted into accepted science with a minimum of apparently unnecessary bureaucratic nonsense, including the peer-review process.”
Multiverse Theory, Explained
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVvcOQk6G0Q
MULTIVERSE THEORY EXPLAINED
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNIhCRB8ZlE
Multiverse
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiverse
Any conceivable parallel universe theory can be described at Level IV
What is the Multiverse Theory?
https://www.universetoday.com/77523/multiverse/
After death, Hawking cuts 'multiverse' theory down to size
https://phys.org/news/2018-05-death-hawking-multiverse-theory-size.html
Multiverse Theory
http://www.academia.edu/Documents/in/Multiverse_Theory
It is remarkable to what extent scientists go to keep the materialist Zombie alive, just for sake of personal preference.
Paul Davies - Do Multiple Universes Surely Exist?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGtb-6WOpuk
The Multiverse - reasons, why it's not a good explanation for the existence of our fine-tuned universe.
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t1282-multiverse
1. https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnfarrell/2017/01/29/a-physicist-talks-god-and-the-quantum/#6f9172582c86
2. https://philosopherscocoon.typepad.com/blog/2015/05/vacuum-stability-and-fine-tuning.html
SECRET ORIGINS OF THE MULTIVERSE
https://legionofandy.com/2019/08/15/secret-origins-of-the-multiverse/
http://www.focus.org.uk/lennox.php
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t1282-multiverse
1. The multiverse theory suggests that if there are an infinite number of universes, then anything is possible, including the existence of fantastical entities like the "Spaghetti Monster." This seems highly implausible.
2. The atheistic multiverse hypothesis is not a natural extrapolation from our observed experience, unlike the theistic explanation which links the fine-tuning of the universe to an intelligent designer. Religious experience also provides evidence for God's existence.
3. The "universe generator" itself would need to be finely-tuned and designed, undermining the multiverse theory as an explanation for the fine-tuning problem.
4. The multiverse theory would need to randomly select the very laws of physics themselves, which seems highly implausible.
5. The beauty and elegance of the laws of physics points to intelligent design, which the multiverse theory cannot adequately explain.
6. The multiverse theory cannot account for the improbable initial arrangement of matter in the universe required by the second law of thermodynamics.
7. If we live in a simulated universe, then the laws of physics in our universe are also simulated, undermining the use of our universe's physics to argue for a multiverse.
8. The multiverse theory should be shaved away by Occam's razor, as it is an unnecessary assumption introduced solely to avoid the God hypothesis.
9. Every universe, including a multiverse, would require a beginning and therefore a cause. This further undermines the multiverse theory's ability to remove God as the most plausible explanation for the fine-tuning of the universe.
The multiverse seems to have evolved from a scientific hypothesis to a scientific theory. Thats remarkable. Even more, if we consider that no scientific experiment or test was performed to confirm its soundness.
Marie-Danielle Smith The multiverse theory, explained October 14, 2021
https://www.macleans.ca/society/science/the-multiverse-theory-explained/
Multiverse Theory
https://pt.scribd.com/document/491553034/Multiverse-Theory
Heather Brown What is the Multiverse Theory?
https://www.famousscientists.org/what-is-the-multiverse-theory/
If a multiverse exists, there is one, where I am richer than the 1000 richest billionaires together, where I play better football than Neymar and Messi together. Where I win at any sport competition. Where I can time travel, surrounded always by 70 virgins. Where there are billions of habitable planets, and I have spaceships to visit all of them. All habitants on each planet regard me as their king, and there is an interplanetary internet. Hail the multiverse. Hail the new theory of science.
Multiverse is a rather useless scientific theory, as it makes no predictions and is not testable or falsifiable. As a theological theory, it assumes a large number of universes to nearly an infinite amount. While it deals with the organized complexity of this universe in a satisfactory manner (i.e. having infinite universes means even the small probability events like organized complexity must occur), it also creates a seeming organized and complex omniverse that itself needs justification for its complexity. So it does not answer the question, it pushes the question to the location of the unknowable.
Naumann, Thomas: Do We Live in the Best of All Possible Worlds? The Fine-Tuning of the Constants of Nature Sep 2017
The multiverse is not an established theory but a hypothesis. Asking the question “Does the Multiverse Really Exist?” the astrophysicist George Ellis said [58]: “As skeptical as I am, I think the contemplation of the multiverse is an excellent opportunity to reflect on the nature of science and on the ultimate nature of existence: why we are here... In looking at this concept, we need an open mind, though not too open. It is a delicate path to tread. Parallel universes may or may not exist; the case is unproved. We are going to have to live with that uncertainty. Nothing is wrong with scientifically based philosophical speculation, which is what multiverse proposals are. But we should name it for what it is”.
https://www.proquest.com/docview/2124812833
1. Dawkins & many scientists allude to the multiverse as the best explanation for our universe. if there is an infinite number of universes, then absolutely everything is not only possible… It’s actually happened! This means the Spaghetti monster MUST exist in one of the 10 to the 500 power multiverses. It means that somewhere, in some dimension, there is a universe where the Chicago Cubs won the World Series last year. There’s a universe where Jimmy Hoffa doesn’t get cement shoes; instead, he marries Joan Rivers and becomes President of the United States. There’s even a universe where Elvis kicks his drug habit and still resides at Graceland and sings at concerts. Imagine the possibilities! I might sound like I’m joking, but actually, I’m dead serious. Furthermore, this implies Zeus, Thor, and 1000s of other gods ALSO exist in these worlds. They ALL exist. We must now bow in humble respect to ALL of them. AMEN!
2.Suppose a dinosaur skeptic claimed that she could explain the bones by postulating a "dinosaur-bone-producing-field" that simply materialized the bones out of thin air. Moreover, suppose further that, to avoid objections such as that there are no known physical laws that would allow for such a mechanism, the dinosaur skeptic simply postulated that we have not yet discovered these laws or detected these fields. Surely, none of us would let this skeptical hypothesis deter us from inferring to the existence of dinosaurs. Why? Because although no one has directly observed dinosaurs, we do have experience of other animals leaving behind fossilized remains, and thus the dinosaur explanation is a natural extrapolation from our common experience. In contrast, to explain the dinosaur bones, the dinosaur skeptic has invented a set of physical laws and a set of mechanisms that are not a natural extrapolation from anything we know or experience.
In the case of the fine-tuning, we already know that minds often produce fine-tuned devices, such as Swiss watches. Postulating God--a supermind--as the explanation of the fine-tuning, therefore, is a natural extrapolation from of what we already observe minds to do. In contrast, it is difficult to see how the atheistic many-universes hypothesis could be considered a natural extrapolation from what we observe. Moreover, unlike the atheistic many-universes hypothesis, we have some experiential evidence for the existence of God, namely religious experience. Thus, by the above principle, we should prefer the theistic explanation of the fine-tuning over the atheistic many-universes explanation, everything else being equal.
3. the "many-universes generator" seems like it would need to be designed. For instance, in all current worked-out proposals for what this "universe generator" could be--such as the oscillating big bang and the vacuum fluctuation models explained above--the "generator" itself is governed by a complex set of physical laws that allow it to produce the universes. It stands to reason, therefore, that if these laws were slightly different the generator probably would not be able to produce any universes that could sustain life. After all, even my bread machine has to be made just right in order to work properly, and it only produces loaves of bread, not universes! Or consider a device as simple as a mousetrap: it requires that all the parts, such as the spring and hammer, be arranged just right in order to function. It is doubtful, therefore, whether the atheistic many-universe theory can entirely eliminate the problem of design the atheist faces; rather, at least to some extent, it seems simply to move the problem of design up one level.
4. the universe generator must not only select the parameters of physics at random but must actually randomly create or select the very laws of physics themselves. This makes this hypothesis seem even more far-fetched since it is difficult to see what possible physical mechanism could select or create laws.
The reason the "many-universes generator" must randomly select the laws of physics is that, just as the right values for the parameters of physics are needed for life to occur, the right set of laws is also needed. If, for instance, certain laws of physics were missing, life would be impossible. For example, without the law of inertia, which guarantees that particles do not shoot off at high speeds, life would probably not be possible (Leslie, Universes, p. 59). Another example is the law of gravity: if masses did not attract each other, there would be no planets or stars, and once again it seems that life would be impossible. Yet another example is the Pauli Exclusion Principle, the principle of quantum mechanics that says that no two fermions--such as electrons or protons--can share the same quantum state. As prominent Princeton physicist Freeman Dyson points out [Disturbing the Universe, p. 251], without this principle all electrons would collapse into the nucleus and thus atoms would be impossible.
5. it cannot explain other features of the universe that seem to exhibit apparent design, whereas theism can. For example, many physicists, such as Albert Einstein, have observed that the basic laws of physics exhibit an extraordinary degree of beauty, elegance, harmony, and ingenuity. Nobel Prize-winning physicist Steven Weinberg, for instance, devotes a whole chapter of his book Dreams of a Final Theory (Chapter 6, "Beautiful Theories") explaining how the criteria of beauty and elegance are commonly used to guide physicists in formulating the right laws. Indeed, one of the most prominent theoretical physicists of this century, Paul Dirac, went so far as to claim that "it is more important to have beauty in one's equations than to have them fit experiment" (1963, p. ??).
Now such beauty, elegance, and ingenuity make sense if the universe was designed by God. Under the atheistic many-universes hypothesis, however, there is no reason to expect the fundamental laws to be elegant or beautiful. As theoretical physicist Paul Davies writes, "If nature is so 'clever' as to exploit mechanisms that amaze us with their ingenuity, is that not persuasive evidence for the existence of intelligent design behind the universe? If the world's finest minds can unravel only with difficulty the deeper workings of nature, how could it be supposed that those workings are merely a mindless accident, a product of blind chance?" (Superforce, pp. 235-36.)
6. neither the atheistic many-universes hypothesis (nor the atheistic single-universe hypothesis) can at present adequately account for the improbable initial arrangement of matter in the universe required by the second law of thermodynamics. To see this, note that according to the second law of thermodynamics, the entropy of the universe is constantly increasing. The standard way of understanding this entropy increase is to say that the universe is going from a state of order to disorder. We observe this entropy increase all the time around us: things, such as a child's bedroom, that start out highly organized tend to "decay" and become disorganized unless something or someone intervenes to stop it. To believe an infinite number of universes made life possible by random chance is to believe everything else I just said, too.
7.“If you take seriously the theory of all possible universes, including all possible variations,” Davies said, “at least some of them must have intelligent civilizations with enough computing power to simulate entire fake worlds. Simulated universes are much cheaper to make than the real thing, and so the number of fake universes would proliferate and vastly outnumber the real ones. And assuming we’re just typical observers, then we’re overwhelmingly likely to find ourselves in a fake universe, not a real one.” So far it’s the normal argument. Then Davies makes his move. He claims that because the theoretical existence of multiple universes is based on the laws of physics in our universe, if this universe is simulated, then its laws of physics are also simulated, which would mean that this universe’s physics is a fake. Therefore, Davies reasoned,“We cannot use the argument that the physics in our universe leads to multiple universes because it also leads to a fake universe with fake physics.” That undermines the whole argument that fundamental physics generates multiple universes because the reasoning collapses in circularity. Davies concluded, “While multiple universes seem almost inevitable given our understanding of the Big Bang, using them to explain all existence is a dangerous, slippery slope, leading to apparently absurd conclusions.”
8. The Multiverse should be shaved with Occam's razor. We don't need it to explain reality, it's only advanced to keep from having to turn to God. It's naturalistic so it's an arbitrary necessity at best. Arbitrary necessitates are logical impossibilities, contingent things jumped up to the level of necessity to answer a God argument. It's not we are going to disprove the unnecessary entity but we are going refrain from advancing it's existence as an assumption until such a time that real empirical evidence makes it necessary. Therefore, Multiverse should be taken out of the issues of God arguments.
9. The existence of multiple universes with varying constants doesn't necessarily preclude the existence of a creator or higher power.
Paul Davies: A Brief History of the Multiverse April 12, 2003
How seriously can we take this explanation for the friendliness of nature? Not very, I think. For a start, how is the existence of the other universes to be tested? To be sure, all cosmologists accept that there are some regions of the universe that lie beyond the reach of our telescopes, but somewhere on the slippery slope between that and the idea that there is an infinite number of universes, credibility reaches a limit. As one slips down that slope, more and more must be accepted on faith, and less and less is open to scientific verification. Extreme multiverse explanations are therefore reminiscent of theological discussions. Indeed, invoking an infinity of unseen universes to explain the unusual features of the one we do see is just as ad hoc as invoking an unseen Creator. The multiverse theory may be dressed up in scientific language, but in essence, it requires the same leap of faith.
It is but a small extra step to conjecture that each universe comes with its own knob settings. They could be random, as if the endless succession of universes is the product of the proverbial monkey at a typewriter. Almost all universes are incompatible with life, and so go unseen and unlamented. Only in that handful where, by chance, the settings are just right will life emerge; then beings such as ourselves will marvel at how propitiously fine-tuned their universe is.
Similar arguments apply to other supposedly fixed properties of the cosmos, such as the strengths of the fundamental forces or the masses of the various subatomic particles. Imagine you can play God and fiddle with the settings of the great cosmic machine. Turn this knob and make electrons a bit heavier; twiddle that one and make gravitation a trifle weaker. What would be the effect? The universe would look very different -- so different, in fact, that there wouldn't be anyone around to see the result, because the existence of life depends rather critically on the actual settings that Mother Nature selected.
At the same time, the multiverse theory also explains too much. Appealing to everything in general to explain something in particular is really no explanation at all. To a scientist, it is just as unsatisfying as simply declaring, ''God made it that way!'' Problems also crop up in the small print. Among the myriad universes similar to ours will be some in which technological civilizations advance to the point of being able to simulate consciousness. Eventually, entire virtual worlds will be created inside computers, their conscious inhabitants unaware that they are the simulated products of somebody else's technology. For every original world, there will be a stupendous number of available virtual worlds -- some of which would even include machines simulating virtual worlds of their own, and so on ad infinitum. Taking the multiverse theory at face value, therefore, means accepting that virtual worlds are more numerous than ''real'' ones. There is no reason to expect our world -- the one in which you are reading this right now -- to be real as opposed to a simulation. And the simulated inhabitants of a virtual world stand in the same relationship to the simulating system as human beings stand in relation to the traditional Creator.
Far from doing away with a transcendent Creator, the multiverse theory actually injects that very concept at almost every level of its logical structure. Gods and worlds, creators and creatures, lie embedded in each other, forming an infinite regress in unbounded space. This reductio ad absurdum of the multiverse theory reveals what a very slippery slope it is indeed. Since Copernicus, our view of the universe has enlarged by a factor of a billion billion. The cosmic vista stretches one hundred billion trillion miles in all directions -- that's a 1 with 23 zeros. Now we are being urged to accept that even this vast region is just a minuscule fragment of the whole.
Scientists have long puzzled over this rather contrived state of affairs. Why is nature so ingeniously, one might even say suspiciously, friendly to life? What do the laws of physics care about life and consciousness that they should conspire to make a hospitable universe? It's almost as if a Grand Designer had it all figured out.
It is but a small extra step to conjecture that each universe comes with its own knob settings. They could be random, as if the endless succession of universes is the product of the proverbial monkey at a typewriter. Almost all universes are incompatible with life, and so go unseen and unlamented. Only in that handful where, by chance, the settings are just right will life emerge; then beings such as ourselves will marvel at how propitiously fine-tuned their universe is.
Paul Davies Yes, the universe looks like a fix. But that doesn't mean that a god fixed it 26 Jun 2007
The multiverse theory certainly cuts the ground from beneath intelligent design, but it falls short of a complete explanation of existence. For a start, there has to be a physical mechanism to make all those universes and allocate bylaws to them. This process demands its own laws, or meta-laws. Where do they come from? The problem has simply been shifted up a level from the laws of the universe to the meta-laws of the multiverse.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2007/jun/26/spaceexploration.comment
Max Tegmark physicist, has pointed out that there are several different 'multiverse hypotheses'
Two of Tegmark's 'types' of multiverses are implications of eternal chaotic inflation (something believed to be true, but still an open question)--with universes 'birthing' new universes beyond the cosmological horizon (as a result of runaway inflation). This kind of multiverse results in an infinite variety of different physical laws. 2
A strong motivation for introducing the multiverse concept is to get rid of the need for design, this bid is only partially successful. Like the proverbial bump in the carpet, the popular multiverse models merely shift the problem elsewhere – up a level from universe to multiverse”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiverse#Max_Tegmark.27s_four_levels
The Hidden Reality: Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos
The quilted multiverse conditions in an infinite universe necessarily repeat across space, yielding parallel worlds.
The inflationary multiverse says that eternal cosmological inflation yields an enormous network of bubble universes, of which our universe would be one.
The brane multiverse states that in M-theory, in the brane world scenario, our universe exists on one three-dimensional brane, which floats in a higher dimensional expanse potentially populated by other branes – other parallel universes.
The cyclic multiverse is saying that collisions between braneworlds can manifest as big bang-like beginnings, yielding universes that are parallel in time.
The landscape multiverse states that by combining inflationary cosmology and string theory, the many different shapes for string theory's extra dimensions give rise to many different bubble universes.
The quantum multiverse creates a new universe when a diversion in events occurs, as in the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics.
The holographic multiverse is derived from the theory that the surface area of a space can simulate the volume of the region.
The simulated multiverse implies that technological leaps suggest that the universe is just a simulation.
The ultimate multiverse is the ultimate theory, saying the principle of fecundity asserts that every possible universe is a real universe, thereby obviating the question of why one possibility – ours – is special. These universes instantiate all possible mathematical equations.
http://library.lol/main/D4CD343993D4D92BD82A07F23BB2345C
The task of a multiverse generator
The expansion rate of the Universe is characterized by a delicate balance between repulsion and consequently expansion and contraction. Since gravity is purely attractive, its action sums up throughout the whole Universe. The strength of this attraction is defined by the gravitational constant GN and by an environmental parameter, the density ΩM of (dark and baryonic) matter. The strength of the repulsion is defined by two parameters: the initial impetus of the Big Bang parameterized by the Hubble constant H0 and the cosmological constant Λ.
The smallness of the cosmological constant is widely regarded as the single the greatest problem confronting current physics and cosmology. The cosmological constant acts as a repulsive force, causing space to expand and, when negative, acts as an attractive force, causing space to contract. To get our universe, this constant must be right amongst 10^123 possibilities. That means that the probability that our universe contains galaxies is akin to exactly 1 possibility in 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 . Unlikely doesn’t even begin to describe these odds. There are “only” 10^81 atoms in the observable universe, after all. Thirty billion years contain only 10^18 seconds. By totaling those, we find that the maximum elementary particle events in 30 billion years could only be 10^143.
Now let's suppose there was a multiverse generator. He would have had to make up to 10^123 attempts to get one universe with the right expansion rate. He would have made 10^18 attempts after 30 billion years.
Once he had that right, to get a universe with atoms, he would have to make the following number of trials:
the right Ratio of Electrons: Protons 1:10^37
Ratio of Electromagnetic Force: Gravity 1:10^40
If a multiverse generator existed, he must have been VERY busy in the last trillion trillion trillion years to get out only our universe......
does that make sense?
Atheists love to use Occam's razor. Remarkable, that arguing that there is no evidence of God because he cannot be perceived by our senses, in order to explain fine-tuning, he sticks to infinity of completely made-up, undetectable and unobservable parallel universes and claim the proposal to be entirely scientific and disregarding Occams. Methinks. Occam's would not be amused.
If the mathematics of quantum mechanics is right (as most fundamental physicists believe),and if materialism is right, then one is forced to accept the Many Worlds view. However bizarre the consequences.
In the Many Worlds picture, you exist in a virtually infinite number of versions: in some branches of reality you are reading this article, in others you are asleep in bed, in others you have never been born. Even proponents of the Many Worlds idea admit that it sounds crazy and strains credulity. 2
The multiverse hypothesis is plagued by two problems: first, as Dr. Robin Collins, an acknowledged authority on fine-tuning, has argued, it merely shifts the fine-tuning problem up one level, as a multiverse capable of generating any life-supporting universes at all would still need to be fine-tuned; and second, as physicist Paul Davies has pointed out, even the multiverse hypothesis implies that a sizable proportion of universes (including perhaps our own) were intelligently designed. By default, then, Intelligent Design remains the best viable explanation for the origin of replication and translation, and hence of life on Earth. Why? Because it’s the only explanation that posits something already known to be capable of generating life, in order to account for the emergence of life on Earth. That “something” is intelligence.
If every possible universe exists, then, according to philosopher Alvin Plantinga, there must be a universe in which God exists – since his existence is logically possible – even though highly improbable in the view of the New Atheists. It then follows that, since God is omnipotent, he must exist in every universe and hence there is only one universe, this universe, of which he is the Creator and Upholder. The concept of many worlds is clearly fraught with logical, and not only scientific, difficulties. It can also present moral difficulties. If every logically possible universe exists, then presumably there is one in which I exist (or a copy of me?) and of which I am a murder – or worse. The concept seems therefore also to lead to moral absurdity.
a. The there are a virtually infinite number of universes coming into being or
b. That it was not mere randomness that leads to our universe forming this way (with the implication of design).
Both options are proposing a reality "outside our universe", i.e. each option involves a form of "transcendence".
Also, each option involves a reality not subject to the natural laws of this universe, i.e. each option involves a kind of "supernaturalism".
Also, each option involves a form of reality that we could not expect to be able to "reach" or "observe" from within our universe, i.e. each is subject to similar difficulties of "falsifiability".
The list could be continued. And the point is that these are the *very arguments* that are leveled against the existence of a creator, yet must be accepted in the case of a multiverse.
Charles Hard Townes, winner of a Nobel Prize in Physics and a UC Berkeley professor noted:
"This is a very special universe: it's remarkable that it came out just this way. If the laws of physics weren't just the way they are, we couldn't be here at all....Some scientists argue that, "Well, there's an enormousnumber of universes and each one is a little different. This one just happened to turn out right. Well, that's a postulate, and it's a pretty fantastic postulate. It assumes that there really are an enormous number of universes and that the laws could be different for each of them. The other possibility is that our was planned, and that is why it has come out so specially."
Paul Davies: A Brief History of the Multiverse April 12, 2003
Imagine you can play God and fiddle with the settings of the great cosmic machine. Turn this knob and make electrons a bit heavier; twiddle that one and make gravitation a trifle weaker. What would be the effect? The universe would look very different -- so different, in fact, that there wouldn't be anyone around to see the result, because the existence of life depends rather critically on the actual settings that Mother Nature selected.
Scientists have long puzzled over this rather contrived state of affairs. Why is nature so ingeniously, one might even say suspiciously, friendly to life? What do the laws of physics care about life and consciousness that they should conspire to make a hospitable universe? It's almost as if a Grand Designer had it all figured out.
For a start, how is the existence of the other universes to be tested? To be sure, all cosmologists accept that there are some regions of the universe that lie beyond the reach of our telescopes, but somewhere on the slippery slope between that and the idea that there is an infinite number of universes, credibility reaches a limit. As one slips down that slope, more and more must be accepted on faith, and less and less is open to scientific verification. Extreme multiverse explanations are therefore reminiscent of theological discussions. Indeed, invoking an infinity of unseen universes to explain the unusual features of the one we do see is just as ad hoc as invoking an unseen Creator. The multiverse theory may be dressed up in scientific language, but in essence, it requires the same leap of faith.
is to invoke the so-called multiverse theory. The idea here is that what we have hitherto been calling ''the universe'' is nothing of the sort. It is but a small component within a vast assemblage of other universes that together make up a ''multiverse.''
It is but a small extra step to conjecture that each universe comes with its own knob settings. They could be random, as if the endless succession of universes is the product of the proverbial monkey at a typewriter. Almost all universes are incompatible with life, and so go unseen and unlamented. Only in that handful where, by chance, the settings are just right will life emerge; then beings such as ourselves will marvel at how propitiously fine-tuned their universe is.
But we would be wrong to attribute this suitability to design. It is entirely the result of self-selection: we simply could not exist in biologically hostile universes, no matter how many there were.
This idea of multiple universes, or multiple realities, has been around in philosophical circles for centuries. The scientific justification for it, however, is new.
One argument stems from the ''big bang'' theory: according to the standard model, shortly after the universe exploded into existence about 14 billion years ago, it suddenly jumped in size by an enormous factor. This ''inflation'' can best be understood by imagining that the observable universe is, relatively speaking, a tiny blob of space buried deep within a vast labyrinth of interconnected cosmic regions. Under this theory, if you took a God's-eye view of the multiverse, you would see big bangs aplenty generating a tangled melee of universes enveloped in a superstructure of frenetically inflating space. Though individual universes may live and die, the multiverse is forever.
Some scientists now suspect that many traditional laws of physics might in fact be merely local bylaws, restricted to limited regions of space. Many physicists now think that there are more than three spatial dimensions, for example, since certain theories of subatomic matter are neater in 9 or 10 dimensions. So maybe three is a lucky number that just happened by accident in our cosmic neighborhood -- other universes may have five or seven dimensions.
Life would probably be impossible with more (or less) than three dimensions to work with, so our seeing three is then no surprise. Similar arguments apply to other supposedly fixed properties of the cosmos, such as the strengths of the fundamental forces or the masses of the various subatomic particles. Perhaps these parameters were all fluke products of cosmic luck, and our exquisitely friendly ''universe'' is but a minute oasis of fecundity amid a sterile space-time desert.
How seriously can we take this explanation for the friendliness of nature? Not very, I think. For a start, how is the existence of the other universes to be tested? To be sure, all cosmologists accept that there are some regions of the universe that lie beyond the reach of our telescopes, but somewhere on the slippery slope between that and the idea that there are an infinite number of universes, credibility reaches a limit. As one slips down that slope, more and more must be accepted on faith, and less and less is open to scientific verification.
Extreme multiverse explanations are therefore reminiscent of theological discussions. Indeed, invoking an infinity of unseen universes to explain the unusual features of the one we do see is just as ad hoc as invoking an unseen Creator. The multiverse theory may be dressed up in scientific language, but in essence it requires the same leap of faith.
At the same time, the multiverse theory also explains too much. Appealing to everything in general to explain something in particular is really no explanation at all. To a scientist, it is just as unsatisfying as simply declaring, ''God made it that way!''
Problems also crop up in the small print. Among the myriad universes similar to ours will be some in which technological civilizations advance to the point of being able to simulate consciousness. Eventually, entire virtual worlds will be created inside computers, their conscious inhabitants unaware that they are the simulated products of somebody else's technology. For every original world, there will be a stupendous number of available virtual worlds -- some of which would even include machines simulating virtual worlds of their own, and so on ad infinitum.
Taking the multiverse theory at face value, therefore, means accepting that virtual worlds are more numerous than ''real'' ones. There is no reason to expect our world -- the one in which you are reading this right now -- to be real as opposed to a simulation. And the simulated inhabitants of a virtual world stand in the same relationship to the simulating system as human beings stand in relation to the traditional Creator.
Far from doing away with a transcendent Creator, the multiverse theory actually injects that very concept at almost every level of its logical structure. Gods and worlds, creators and creatures, lie embedded in each other, forming an infinite regress in unbounded space.
This reductio ad absurdum of the multiverse theory reveals what a very slippery slope it is indeed. Since Copernicus, our view of the universe has enlarged by a factor of a billion billion. The cosmic vista stretches one hundred billion trillion miles in all directions -- that's a 1 with 23 zeros. Now we are being urged to accept that even this vast region is just a minuscule fragment of the whole.
https://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/12/opinion/a-brief-history-of-the-multiverse.html
Koonin, the logic of chance, page 384:
This profound difficulty of the origin of life problem might appear effectively insurmountable, compelling one to ask extremely general questions that go beyond the realm of biology. Did certain factors that were critical at the time of the origin of life but that are hidden from our view now significantly change these numbers and make the origin of life much more likely? Or is it possible that the processes that form the foundation for the origin of life are as difficult as we imagine, but the number of trials is so huge that the appearance of life forms in one or more of them is likely or even inevitable? In other words, is it conceivable that our very concepts of probability are inadequate? The first possibility has to do with finding conditions that existed on primitive Earth and somehow made the origin of life “easy.” Russell’s compartments go some way in that direction, but apparently not far enough: Even in these flow reactors rich in energy and catalysts, the combination of all the necessary processes would be an extreme rarity. The second possibility may be addressed in the context of the entire universe by asking, how many planets are there with conditions conducive to the origin of life? That is, how many trials for the origin of life were there altogether? In this section, we pursue this second line of inquiry from the perspective of modern physical cosmology. During the twentieth century, cosmology has undergone a complete transformation, from a quaint (and not particularly reputable) philosophical endeavor to a vibrant physical field deeply steeped in observation. The leading direction in cosmology these days centers on the so-called inflation, a period of exponentially fast initial expansion of a universe (Carroll, 2010; Guth, 1998a; Guth and Kaiser, 2005; Vilenkin, 2007). In the most plausible, self-consistent models, inflation is eternal, with an infinite number of island (pocket) universes (or simply universes) emerging through the decay of small regions of the primordial “sea” of false (high-energy) vacuum and comprising the infinite multiverse (see Appendix B). The many worlds in one (MWO) model makes the startling prediction that all macroscopic, “coarsegrain” histories of events that are not forbidden by conservation laws of physics have been realized (or will be realized) somewhere in the infinite multiverse—and not just once, but an infinite number of times (Garriga and Vilenkin, 2001; Vilenkin, 2007). For example, there are an infinite number of (macroscopically) exact copies of the Earth, with everything that exists on it, although the probability that a given observable region of the universe contains one of these copies is vanishingly small. This picture appears extremely counterintuitive (“crazy”), but it is a direct consequence of eternal inflation, the dominant model for the evolution of the multiverse in modern cosmology.
Kirk Durston: Confusing Fantasy with Science August 3, 2015
Science is also advancing our understanding of just how fantastically improbable the origin of life is. Evolutionary biologist, Eugene Koonin, looking at the possibility that life arose through the popular “RNA-world” scenario, calculates that the probability of just RNA replication and translation is 1 chance in 10 with 1,017 zeros after it. Koonin’s solution is to propose an infinite multiverse. With an infinite number of possible universes, the emergence of life will becomes inevitable, no matter how improbable.
So the multiverse has become atheism’s “god of the gaps” but some scientists point out that multiverse “science” is not science at all. Mathematician George Ellis wrote of multiverse models, “they are not observationally or experimentally testable — and never will be.”
https://evolutionnews.org/2015/08/confusing_fanta/#sthash.I8c5Bofm.dpuf
Thomas Naumann: Do We Live in the Best of All Possible Worlds? The Fine-Tuning of the Constants of Nature 1 August 2017
From Universe to Multiverse
The problem of the uniqueness of our Universe can be avoided going from a single and unique universe to a multiverse consisting of a huge number of different universes. At the extreme energy densities at Planck time (~10−43 s) immediately after the Big Bang, due to quantum gravity the Universe is thought to be dominated by vacuum fluctuations of space-time. Soon (~10−36 s) after, in the cosmological model of inflation, vacuum fluctuations of a scalar (Higgs-like) inflaton field of the size of a tiny fraction of a proton radius could have inflated by many orders of magnitude to a region larger than the event horizon which later expanded to today’s observable Universe. At these extreme energies, all non-gravitational interactions are still thought to be unified to one primordial force. At decreasing energies, these grand unified symmetries can break down to the symmetries of separate forces in many different ways. On top of that, the superstring theory developed in the 1980s by Green, Schwarz, Witten, and others assumes six (or seven) extra spatial dimensions which are curled up at the small distance scales relevant in the early Universe. These theories give rise to a huge (~10^500) number of possible compactifications to the three dimensions which we observe at the low energies in our Universe today. Each of the inflationary bubbles may have evolved into a universe with a different realization of the physics potential hidden in grand unified and superstring theories. So, the physics in these universes can be different from the physics in our Universe. Susskind called this vast field of possibilities “The anthropic landscape of string theory”.
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017EPJWC.16407011N/abstract
Philip Goff: Our Improbable Existence Is No Evidence for a Multiverse Experts in probability have spotted a logical flaw in theorists’ reasoning January 10, 2021
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/our-improbable-existence-is-no-evidence-for-a-multiverse/
MICHAEL EGNOR:WE DON’T LIVE IN A MULTIVERSE BECAUSE THE CONCEPT MAKES NO SENSE FEBRUARY 28, 2021
https://mindmatters.ai/2021/02/we-dont-live-in-a-multiverse-because-the-concept-makes-no-sense/
ALBERT MCKEON: Despite the Hype, There’s No Proof of a Parallel Universe Sep 2nd 2020
The idea of parallel universes was first conceived through the study of quantum physics, but they are hard to prove.
https://now.northropgrumman.com/despite-the-hype-theres-no-proof-of-a-parallel-universe/
C. Renee James:Evidence of the Multiverse? MARCH 23, 2021
The problem with treating multiverse ideas scientifically is that there seems to be no place to start. Our observations are, as far as we can tell, restricted to this universe. Oh, sure, in the spring of 2020, there was quite a lot of excitement that NASA had somehow found evidence for a parallel universe in which particles move backward in time — at least that was the story if you believe the tabloids. Apparently one energetic particle had somehow escaped the bounds of its universe, its wreckage discovered by NASA’s balloon craft, the Antarctic Impulsive Transient Antenna. Except… that’s not what the discovery’s announcement suggested at all. It was merely pointing out the curious case of a signal similar to the high-energy particles from a cosmic ray shower that appeared to be going up instead of down. While there are several dozen more mundane explanations that should be ticked off the list long before invoking “proof of parallel universes,” the whole notion of co-mingling universes has actually been at the forefront of many instructors’ minds this year. I mean…face it. There really is no other explanation for 2020.
https://astrosociety.org/news-publications/mercury-online/mercury-online.html/article/2021/03/23/evidence-of-the-multiverse-
Sabine Hossenfelder: Sorry, 'Flash' Fans - There's No Evidence For A Multiverse Yet Oct 25, 2016,
The multiverse – a conjectured endless collection of universes – was once the realm of science fiction, but now it’s science. Not only would anything that could happen actually happen in some universe within the multiverse, but anything that can happen would happen infinitely many times. Therefore, the multiverse also contains infinitely many universes that are almost exactly like our own, including our planet, and me, and you. But in some of these other universes, a dark matter particle gave you cancer ten years ago. Don’t worry that you might accidentally get condolences for your other self, though. The universes aren’t causally connected and information exchange not possible. The LHC hasn’t shown we live in a multiverse.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2016/10/25/no-the-lhc-hasnt-shown-that-we-live-in-a-multiverse/?sh=730014c441aa
Flying Spaghetti Monster
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Fun:Flying_Spaghetti_Monster
Teaching about the Flying Spaghetti Monster alongside other theories
Pasta strainers and pirates: how the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster was born
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/may/18/pasta-strainers-and-pirates-how-the-church-of-the-flying-spaghetti-monster-was-born
“I fully expect, then, that this FSM theory will be admitted into accepted science with a minimum of apparently unnecessary bureaucratic nonsense, including the peer-review process.”
Multiverse Theory, Explained
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVvcOQk6G0Q
MULTIVERSE THEORY EXPLAINED
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNIhCRB8ZlE
Multiverse
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiverse
Any conceivable parallel universe theory can be described at Level IV
What is the Multiverse Theory?
https://www.universetoday.com/77523/multiverse/
After death, Hawking cuts 'multiverse' theory down to size
https://phys.org/news/2018-05-death-hawking-multiverse-theory-size.html
Multiverse Theory
http://www.academia.edu/Documents/in/Multiverse_Theory
It is remarkable to what extent scientists go to keep the materialist Zombie alive, just for sake of personal preference.
Paul Davies - Do Multiple Universes Surely Exist?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGtb-6WOpuk
The Multiverse - reasons, why it's not a good explanation for the existence of our fine-tuned universe.
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t1282-multiverse
1. https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnfarrell/2017/01/29/a-physicist-talks-god-and-the-quantum/#6f9172582c86
2. https://philosopherscocoon.typepad.com/blog/2015/05/vacuum-stability-and-fine-tuning.html
SECRET ORIGINS OF THE MULTIVERSE
https://legionofandy.com/2019/08/15/secret-origins-of-the-multiverse/
http://www.focus.org.uk/lennox.php
Last edited by Otangelo on Sun Apr 07, 2024 4:58 am; edited 45 times in total
