Not just aliens: The multiverse has gotta be out there too!

According to Tim Folger in Discover Magazine (November 10, 2008), "Science's Alternative to an Intelligent Creator:" is "the Multiverse Theory."

The staggering challenge is to think of a way to confirm the existence of other universes when every conceivable experiment or observation must be confined to our own. Does it make sense to talk about other universes if they can never be detected?

[ ... ]

The credibility of string theory and the multiverse may get a boost within the next year or two, once physicists start analyzing results from the Large Hadron Collider, the new, $8 billion particle accelerator built on the Swiss-French border. If string theory is right, the collider should produce a host of new particles. There is even a small chance that it may find evidence for the mysterious extra dimensions of string theory. “If you measure something which confirms certain elaborations of string theory, then you’ve got indirect evidence for the multiverse,” says Bernard Carr, a cosmologist at Queen Mary University of London.

[ ... ]

When I ask Linde whether physicists will ever be able to prove that the multiverse is real, he has a simple answer. “Nothing else fits the data,” he tells me. “We don’t have any alternative explanation for the dark energy; we don’t have any alternative explanation for the smallness of the mass of the electron; we don’t have any alternative explanation for many properties of particles.

“What I am saying is, look at it with open eyes. These are experimental facts, and these facts fit one theory: the multiverse theory. They do not fit any other theory so far. I’m not saying these properties necessarily imply the multiverse theory is right, but you asked me if there is any experimental evidence, and the answer is yes. It was Arthur Conan Doyle who said, ‘When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."

A story like this leaves me with three key questions:

1. What is the likelihood - given that the article makes clear that so much is speculative - that small amounts of ambiguous data will be over-interpreted and professions of faith in the multiverse demanded - the way Darwinian evolutionists must believe in the Peppered Myth. In that case, the data are ambiguous, but the call to conversion is not.

It is overwhelmingly clear is that most of the people interviewed have an emotional aversion to the idea of design in our universe, which would make them unreliable judges of ambiguous data from the Large Hadron Collider (which is currently out of commission for a couple of months due to a superconductor failure).

2. The mantra "we don't have any alternative ... " is downright spooky. It sounds like these people are preparing themselves to interpret anything they do find as evidence for what they need to believe.

3. If they do not find anything that even they can interpret as evidence for a multiverse, does that count against the theory or must it be true anyway? (I fear I know the answer to that one. It likely means building an even bigger Collider ... )

Note: If you like this and other related posts here at Colliding Universes, you can vote for Colliding Unverses at the Canadian Blogger Awards, sci-tech division. Vote early, vote often, and vote for me, of course.

See also: No escape from philosophy through equations?

Now, remind me again why we need this multiverse theory in the first place ...

Letter: Multiverses are nonsense but so is much contemporary physics

The universe has the hallmarks of design and what can anyone do about it?

Quantum mechanics and popular culture: Artist's lot offers chance to produce trillions of universes

No escape from philosophy through equations?

Big physics could end up putting physicists out of a job?

Will it be a disaster for physics if the Higgs boson is the ONLY thing the Large Hadron Collider finds?

And so forth (Other stuff I have written on the bleeping multiverse, for which It, (Inc.) is suing me ... But the writ was sent to an infinite number of wrong universes, so ... )

(Note: The image is from Taking a Closer Look at LHC, and it represents "time between bunches.")

Multiverse: Recent studies suggest that some alternative universes "may not be so inhospitable" - assuming they exist

In "Looking for Life in the Multiverse: Universes with different physical laws might still be habitable" Scientific American Magazine (December 16, 2009) By Alejandro Jenkins and Gilad Perez make clear what is and is not accepted in science (as they understand it) and why:

The laws of physics-and in particular the constants of nature that enter into those laws, such as the strengths of the fundamental forces-might therefore seem finely tuned to make our existence possible. Short of invoking a supernatural explanation, which would be by definition outside the scope of science, a number of physicists and cosmologists began in the1970s to try solving the puzzle by hypothesizing that our universe is just one of many existing universes, each with its own laws. According to this"anthropic" reasoning, we might just occupy the rare universe where the right conditions happen to have come together to make life possible. Amazingly, the prevailing theory in modern cosmology, which emerged in the1980s, suggests that such "parallel universes" may really exist-in fact, that a multitude of universes would incessantly pop out of a primordial vacuum the way ours did in the big bang. Our universe would be but one of many pocket universes within a wider expanse called the multiverse. In the overwhelming majority of those universes, the laws of physics might not allow the formation of matter as we know it or of galaxies, stars, planets and life. But given the sheer number of possibilities, nature would have had a good chance to get the "right" set of laws at least once. Our recent studies, however, suggest that some of these other universes-assuming they exist-may not be so inhospitable after all. Remarkably, we have found examples of alternative values of the fundamental constants, and thus of alternative sets of physical laws, that might still lead to very interesting worlds and perhaps to life. The basic idea is to change one aspect of the laws of nature and then make compensatory changes to other aspects.

Our work did not address the most serious fine-tuning problem in theoretical physics: the smallness of the "cosmological constant," thanks to which our universe neither recollapsed into nothingness a fraction of a second after the big bang, nor was ripped part by an exponentially accelerating expansion. Nevertheless, the examples of alternative, potentially habitable universes raise interesting questions and motivate further research into how unique our own universe might be.

Well, the supernatural may be "outside the scope of science," but universes whose existence is not demonstrated, which are imagined principally to get out of a jam with the evidence from this universe, are reasonably doubted, despite thought experiments. The tentative tone here is well justified. It should be used more often.

See other multiverse and fine tuning stories:

Multiverse:

Cosmology: If you needn't worry about paying the rent Friday, you can worry about this stuff

Cosmology: Science's leader in things that don't make sense

Cosmology: Crisis of the month: gravitation

Cosmology: Multiverse - getting comfortable with a zillion of everything that is unique.

Cosmology: I seem to have yanked particle physicist Lawrence Krauss's chain

Cosmology: Wow. It takes guts to wage warwith Stephen Hawking. He appeared in Star Trek

Cosmology: Arguments against flatness (plus exposing sloppy science writing)

Cosmology: If the universe has free will, where do I go to file a claim for damages?

Fine tuning:

New podcasts on fine tuning of the universe

Also: Gravity doesn't make sense? Hold on to that thought!

Multiverse: Getting comfortable with a zillion of everything that is unique?

Can the laws of physics evolve?

Like clouds in our coffee, all these other universes

Major media, imagining themselves sober, think there are many universes, not just double vision

The Big Bang exploded; seriously, is there room for reasonable skepticism about the Big Bang?

Could God live in an infinite sea of universes? It depends.

Will the cosmic multiverse landscape ensure the triumph of intelligent design?

Now, remind me again why we need multiverse theory in the first place?

Multiverse theory: Replacing the big fix with the sure thing?

Multiverse incompatible with naturalism (materialism)?

Just as extraterrestrial life is a key theme of the grand narrative of atheistic materialism, infinite universes (the multiverse) is fast becoming another. One hears it more and more - it props up theses that would otherwise be entirely dismissable, and in turn it is propped up by the tiniest whiff of possibility. A friend points me to philosopher William Lane Craig's justifiably skeptical response:

Roger Penrose of Oxford University has calculated that the odds of our universe’s low entropy condition obtaining by chance alone are on the order of 1:1010(123), an inconceivable number. If our universe were but one member of a multiverse of randomly ordered worlds, then it is vastly more probable that we should be observing a much smaller universe. For example, the odds of our solar system’s being formed instantly by the random collision of particles is about 1:1010(60), a vast number, but inconceivably smaller than 1010(123). (Penrose calls it “utter chicken feed” by comparison [The Road to Reality (Knopf, 2005), pp. 762-5]). Or again, if our universe is but one member of a multiverse, then we ought to be observing highly extraordinary events, like horses’ popping into and out of existence by random collisions, or perpetual motion machines, since these are vastly more probable than all of nature’s constants and quantities’ falling by chance into the virtually infinitesimal life-permitting range. Observable universes like those strange worlds are simply much more plenteous in the ensemble of universes than worlds like ours and, therefore, ought to be observed by us if the universe were but a random member of a multiverse of worlds. Since we do not have such observations, that fact strongly disconfirms the multiverse hypothesis. On naturalism, at least, it is therefore highly probable that there is no multiverse.

So naturalism both needs it, and disconfirms it? Well then, contrary to the grand narrative, neither naturalism nor the multiverse is true or well-founded.

Multiverse: Getting comfortable with a zillion of everything that is unique?

In "How to map the multiverse" (04 May 2009), Anil Ananthaswamy explains:

Greene's transformation is emblematic of a profound change among the majority of physicists. Until recently, many were reluctant to accept this idea of the "multiverse", or were even belligerent towards it. However, recent progress in both cosmology and string theory is bringing about a major shift in thinking. Gone is the grudging acceptance or outright loathing of the multiverse. Instead, physicists are starting to look at ways of working with it, and maybe even trying to prove its existence.

If such ventures succeed, our universe will go the way of Earth - from seeming to be the centre of everything to being exposed as just a backwater in a far vaster cosmos. And just as we are unable to deduce certain aspects of Earth from first principles - such as its radius or distance from the sun - we will have to accept that some things about our universe are a random accident, inexplicable except in the context of the multiverse.

Also

However, if our universe is part of a multiverse then we can ascribe the value of the cosmological constant to an accident. The same goes for other aspects of our universe, such as the mass of the electron. The idea is simply that each universe's laws of physics and fundamental constants are randomly determined, and we just happen to live in one where these are suited for life. "If not for the multiverse, you would have these unsolved problems at every corner," says Linde.

Let's see. We don't need to prove fine tuning. It's just there. But there's no evidence for the multiverse; it is an attractive idea because it makes our current cosmological values and fine tuning appear random. I love this line: " ... starting to look at ways of working with it, and maybe even trying to prove its existence".

Question: How fit are people in this state of mind to evaluate what they are seeing?

New podcasts on fine tuning of the universe

Two interesting ones here, from the Discovery Institute:

Cosmological Fine Tuning and the Multiverse Model

On this episode of ID the Future, Casey Luskin interviews Dr. Scott Chambers, who discusses his current research and his interest in the debate over evolution, which began in college and continues through this day.

Dr. Chambers explains how the evidence for intelligent design from the fine-tuning of the universe and the fundamental constants of physics "smacks of design," and he addresses the multiverse hypothesis.

Click here to listen.

Also, Is the earth uniquely situated for scientific observation? Do we live on a privileged planet?

On this episode of ID The Future we have a short clip about the book The Privileged Planet. In the book, authors Jay Richards and Guillermo Gonzalez suggest that earth was designed for scientific discovery. They introduce a new idea that more than just being rare in the universe, the earth is ideally located for scientific observation.

Go here to listen.

Here are some other stories on the controversy over whether the universe is fine tuned or whether there are many universes:

Gravity doesn't make sense? Hold on to that thought!

Multiverse: Getting comfortable with a zillion of everything that is unique?

Can the laws of physics evolve?

Like clouds in our coffee, all these other universes

Major media, imagining themselves sober, think there are many universes, not just double vision

The Big Bang exploded; seriously, is there room for reasonable skepticism about the Big Bang?

Could God live in an infinite sea of universes? It depends.

Will the cosmic multiverse landscape ensure the triumph of intelligent design?

Now, remind me again why we need multiverse theory in the first place?

Multiverse theory: Replacing the big fix with the sure thing?

(Note: If you follow me at Twitter, you will get regular notice of new Colliding Universes posts, usually when I have posted five or so stories.)

Hello, and welcome to Colliding Universes!

First, if you just want to read some stories and don't care why I started this blog, here are links to stories I have already posted:

A friend fondly recalls physicist John Wheeler

Life on Mars?: Yes, when the Mars Hilton Convention Centre finally opens

Sure as the law of gravity, you say? Okay then, better check the refund policy ...

Stuff I have written elsewhere on the bleeping multiverse, for which the multiverse (Inc.) is suing me for defamation ... But not to worry, the writ went to zillions of wrong universes.

Now ...

What is this blog about?

As noted top left, I want to write a book with a physicist that explains why the multiverse - the idea that there is an infinity of flopped universes out there - is a crock. (He would say the idea is "deeply problematic.")

Some publishers - mine in particular - think that no one would be interested because everyone who could care less knows that the multiverse is a crock, dreamed up to avoid confronting the significance of the fact that our universe is exquisitely fine-tuned for life.

I disagree, because I have noticed that the concept is becoming quite mainstream, as this abstract for a recent talk by Neil Turok at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics shows:

The evidence that the universe emerged 14 billion years ago from an event called \'the big bang\' is overwhelming. Yet the cause of this event remains deeply mysterious. In the conventional picture, the \'initial singularity\' is unexplained. It is simply assumed that the universe somehow sprang into existence full of \'inflationary\' energy, blowing up the universe into the large, smooth state we observe today. While this picture is in excellent agreement with current observations, it is both contrived and incomplete, leading us to suspect that it is not the final word. In this lecture, the standard inflationary picture will be contrasted with a new view of the initial singularity suggested by string and M-theory, in which the bang is a far more normal, albeit violent, event which occurred in a pre-existing universe. According to the new picture, a cyclical model of the universe becomes feasible in which one bang is followed by another, in a potentially endless series of cosmic cycles. The presentation will also review exciting recent theoretical developments and forthcoming observational tests which could distinguish between the rival inflationary and cyclical hypotheses.

What mainstreams the multiverse is the prospect of getting tested. But that raises the question - if a fair test shows that there is no multiverse, what about our own universe's exquisite fine-tuning?

I contend that a vast and exceptionally brilliant market out there would love to read a book by a physicist explaining why this is a deeply problematic idea, co-written by a person whose language level is stuck at "crock."

So, thank you for patronizing this blog. You are helping me win the argument with a publisher. (The physicist is too busy to blog, but he thanks you all the same. The physics ideas are all his.)

Our book will - in some ways - resemble The Spiritual Brain, which I co-authored with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard (Harper One 2007) , explaining why materialist neuroscience is a crock.



In what ways will it resemble The Spiritual Brain?

It will be fun and funny as well as hopeful and illuminating.

In what ways will it not resemble The Spiritual Brain?

It will use lots of examples, anecdotes, and illustrations from science fiction, for inventive but accurate explanations. The Spiritual Brain mostly uses other interesting stuff.

My other blogs

The Mindful Hack supports The Spiritual Brain, and non-materialist neuroscience generally.

The Post-Darwinist supports By Design or by Chance?, detailing events in the exploding intelligent design controversy.



Heck, you can even be mad about - or enjoy - my first book, Faith@Science: Why science needs faith in the 21st century (Winnipeg: J. Gordon Shillingford, 2001):



Why no Comments box?

I'd love to allow Comments, but have had to stop, owing to problems with the "human rights commissions" in Canada, who have taken to prowling the Internet. Bizarre incidents involving comboxes have resulted in the blog owner getting charged with a human rights offense - both expensive and embarrassing.

Yes, I know it sounds loopy - loopier than a barrel of multiverses - but you can read all about it here and in a growing number of other places as well, including the Free Mark Steyn blog. It is NOT a joke. Currently, our national police (the Mounties) are investigating the Canadian Human Rights Commission.

Honestly, I don't know how things will turn out. A certain sort of middle-aged person is currently a growing power in the land in Canada - a leftover, real or imaginary, from the "flower power" Trudeau era - for whom traditional civil liberties are an impediment to the icebound utopia of their dreams

where never is heard
an insensitive word
and the therapy goes on all day

If it becomes safe again for a Canadian who is willing to entertain controversial ideas to allow Comments, I will. In the meantime, it is simply too much of a risk and time sink, and I can only offer my apologies for what internationally known Canadian columnist Mark Steyn, himself charged and certain of conviction, increasingly calls the "deranged Dominion."

Can the laws of physics evolve?

A friend writes to say that in "The unique universe" (PhysicsWorld.com, 2 June 2009), Toronto-based cosmologist Lee Smolin attempts to develop a different view of time that allows him the laws of physics tp evolve in time. My friend wonders, "Presumably this is an alternative way of addressing the design challenge of fine tuning?"

Here's the essay's At a Glance:

Against the timeless multiverse

- Many cosmologists today believe that we live in a timeless multiverse - a universe where ours is just one of an ensemble of universes, and where time does not exist

- The timeless multiverse, however, presents a lot of problems. Our laws of physics are no longer determinable from experiment and it is unclear what the connection is between fundamental and effective laws

- Furthermore, theories that do not posit time to be a fundamental property fail to reproduce the space-time that we are familiar with

- Many of these puzzles can be avoided if we adopt a different set of principles that postulates that there is only one universe and that time is a fundamental property of nature. This scenario also opens the way to the possibility that the laws of physics evolve in time.

Well, some people go to a lot of trouble to evade the implications of fine tuning of the universe (= design).

Here is what I wrote about Lee Smolin's work in By Design or by Chance?:

New Universes Sprout Only in Black Holes?

Cosmologist Lee Smolin is a bit more conservative than Tegmark. He speculates that new universes might erupt—but not just anywhere that a particle goes one way rather than the other. Perhaps only in the middles of cosmic black holes. The new universes are disconnected from our universe, because the laws of physics break down in black holes. That is why we don’t know about them.

Smolin believes that the eruption of new universes in black holes follows the principles of Darwinism (natural selection). He explains:

"It seemed to me that the only principle powerful enough to explain the high degree of organization of our universe—compared to a universe with the particles and forces chosen randomly—was natural selection itself. The question then became: Could there be any mechanism by which natural selection could work on the scale of the whole universe?"

In other words, natural selection (the outcome of law acting on chance), lurking in a black hole, organizes a complex universe, excruciatingly fine-tuned for life. Smolin does not claim that the black hole spouts millions of them. Alternatively, he is attracted to the idea that the universe organizes itself:

"I believe more in the general idea that there must be mechanisms of self-organization involved in the selection of the parameters of the laws of nature than I do in this particular mechanism, which is only the first one I was able to invent. "

All these universes popping up in the clouds in our coffee, in the torment of a black hole, in the futility of an escaped balloon—their existence guarantees that our universe is a product of chance. If only they would exist . . . if only they would exist . . . (pp. 34-35)

Here are some more fine tuning stories:

Astronomer vs. pop science TV

Materialism strikes back: We create the universe, not God

The universe has hallmarks of desgn: And what can anyone do about it?

Like clouds in our coffee, all these other universes

Major media, imagining themselves sober, think there are many universes, not just double vision

The Big Bang exploded; seriously, is there room for reasonable skepticism about the Big Bang?

Could God live in an infinite sea of universes? It depends.

Will the cosmic multiverse landscape ensure the triumph of intelligent design?

Now, remind me again why we need multiverse theory in the first place?

Multiverse theory: Replacing the big fix with the sure thing?

"Now remind me again why we needed this multiverse theory in the first place?"

Physicist Rob Sheldon writes,

I have a blog where I ramble far too long on these things, and an academic web site, back when the WWW was academic.

So all that by way of introduction to your plea for a physicist to discuss multi-verses. I'm sorely tempted to recite Lewis Carroll's "Walrus and the Carpenter", where we could discuss

"ships and sealing wax, cabbages and kings.
Why the sea is boiling hot and whether pigs have wings."

But if I can't interest you in horticulture and paparazzi, perhaps I can be compelled to discuss porcine cosmology.

This is my brief answer to multiverse theory:

a) Suppose everything that the multiverse people say is right, including their mangling of the language.

b) Now suppose one of those gadzillion universes (I mean multiverses) has a very smart, self-assembling computer-life that has converted a galaxy or two into a giant brain. Obviously, since there are an infinite number of universes, this isn't a hard thing to imagine at all for a TV addict, and something that obviously perfect would be even more perfect if it existed, therefore it has to exist....

c) Now suppose that since the existence of these multiverses is as plain as the nose on your face to every intelligent astrophysicist, that this super-intelligence knows about your existence too, and knows how to communicate across multiverses. (It's a quantum thing, so don't argue with
me, besides, I told you that it was more intelligent than you.)

d) So, like, it's trying to convince you that it exists, and you're so overwhelmed by its intelligence that to you it appears to be God.

Ergo, multiverses prove that God exists and has a plan for your universe.

Now, remind me again why we needed this multiverse theory in the first place?

Denyse replies: We needed the multiverse theory because if we wanted to have a learned congress abut the universe we would be asked to narrow our topic a bit, right? The nice thing about the multiverse is that since absolutely everything is true, there is no such need.

Multiverse: Comic vid mocks the paradoxes

If you have decided that a multiverse makes more sense than a designed universe, chances are, you will rethink after you see this:



"Time Travelling the Universe," produced by Rob Bryanton of What You Ought to Know.

See also:

Science fiction scores big - on the reference shelf?

Science fiction: Reflections on the nature of time

Physicist to pop science writer: In a hole? Stop digging

Materialism strikes back: We create the universe, not God?

Not just aliens: The multiverse gotta be out there too!

No escape from philosophy through equations?

Now, remind me again why we need this multiverse theory in the first place ...

Letter: Multiverses are nonsense but so is much contemporary physics

The universe has the hallmarks of design and what can anyone do about it?

Quantum mechanics and popular culture: Artist's lot offers chance to produce trillions of universes

No escape from philosophy through equations?

Big physics could end up putting physicists out of a job?

Will it be a disaster for physics if the Higgs boson is the ONLY thing the Large Hadron Collider finds?

And so forth (Other stuff I have written on the bleeping multiverse, for which It, (Inc.) is suing me ... But the writ was sent to an infinite number of wrong universes, so ... )

Stuff I have already written on the bleeping multiverse, for which It, (Inc.) is suing me ...

So don't you bother.

Anyway, nothing is urgent. The writ went to zillions of wrong universes and will not be back here for, like, billions of years. I guess I have time to compose a reply.

Here are the articles for which I am charged:

Why science without God destroys itself: Because the alternative idea of a multiverse is a step into magic, that's why.

Here's my review of Frank Tipler's multiverse theories, which I treat with some affection because they are just bizarre enough to be fun - unlike the superserious duds I skewer.

Jewish physicist Gerald Schroeder's look at the Science of God, including slams at the multiverse (which it was his JOB to support, no less, at one time!). Hey, how does it feel to be wiser now?

The large hadron collider: Gateway to other universes, or just another wicked-sass toy?

God is a cosmic computer? Yes, the universe looks fixed, but that doesn't mean that a god fixed it, says cosmologist Paul Davies, in a Guardian article, so titled. He dismisses both intelligent design and the idea that there are zillions of flopped universes: Davies is good at exploring all possible and impossible options. Good for cosmology, I guess, but I would NOT want him organizing the staff picnic.

My review of a film promoting the multiverse theory: What the Bleep Do We Know?: Well, somehow, I don't think we know this bleep, anyway , and here's why.

Also, why the bleep did they go and wreck it all? Sequels are the devil's dirty sox, surely?

Arguments for multiverse mutually exclusive?

Some of us have long wondered when it would become more generally apparent that most "multiverse" stuff is really just playing games around theories. Maybe now?

In Nature (19 January 2011), "George Ellis reminds us that Brian Greene's beguiling book on parallel worlds is more theory than fact.

The book is The Hidden Reality: Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos (Allen Lane: 2011), and Ellis comments,

... Greene's nine types of multiverse are as follows. First, if space extends forever, an infinite number of domains similar to ours might lie beyond the part of the Universe that we can see. Second, some versions of inflationary theory — the idea that the newborn Universe had a fleeting period of super-fast accelerating expansion — predict the existence of innumerable other universes, with different characteristics from our own. Third, string theory, the pre-eminent theory of quantum gravity, suggests that our Universe might be one of many four-dimensional 'braneworlds' floating in a higher-dimensional space-time.

This option is developed further in the fourth and fifth proposals, which involve cyclic universes, or variations on physical parameters that are possible in the string-theory landscape. The sixth is a quantum mechanics idea that many worlds simultaneously exist as branches of the wave function of the Universe. The seventh suggests that the Universe is a holographic projection. The eighth states that we live in one of a set of artificial universes created as simulations on a super-advanced computer. The ninth argues that it is a philosophical necessity that every possible universe must be realized somewhere, in “the grandest of all multiverses”.

By presenting this plethora of theories, Greene gives the impression that the multiverse is on a sound scientific footing, but these nine arguments are mutually exclusive.

Yes but, in a multiverse, "mutually exclusive" is meaningless by definition.

More fine tuning stories here

New podcasts on fine tuning of the universe

Also: Gravity doesn't make sense? Hold on to that thought!

Multiverse: Getting comfortable with a zillion of everything that is unique?

Can the laws of physics evolve?

Like clouds in our coffee, all these other universes

Major media, imagining themselves sober, think there are many universes, not just double vision

The Big Bang exploded; seriously, is there room for reasonable skepticism about the Big Bang?

Could God live in an infinite sea of universes? It depends.

Will the cosmic multiverse landscape ensure the triumph of intelligent design?

Now, remind me again why we need multiverse theory in the first place?

Multiverse theory: Replacing the big fix with the sure thing?

Contest Question 1: Does the multiverse help science make sense - or simply destroy science?

This is Contest Question 1 for Earn Free Stuff: Does the multiverse help science make sense - or simply destroy science?

To help you decide, here’s a classic pop science article by Anil Ananthaswamy of New Scientist, fronting the multiverse:

Today’s measurements show the universe to be flat, but the uncertainty in
those measurements still leaves room for space-time to be slightly curved -
either like a saddle (negatively curved) or like a sphere (positively curved).
“If we originated from a tunnelling event from an ancestor vacuum, the bet would
be that the universe is negatively curved,” says Susskind. “If it turns out to
be positively curved, we’d be very confused. That would be a setback for these
ideas, no question about it.”

Until any such setback the smart money will remain with the multiverse
and string theory. “It has the best chance of anything we know to be right,”
Weinberg says of string theory. “There’s an old joke about a gambler playing a
game of poker,” he adds. “His friend says, ‘Don’t you know this game is crooked,
and you are bound to lose?’ The gambler says, ‘Yes, but what can I do, it’s the
only game in town.’ We don’t know if we are bound to lose, but even if we
suspect we may, it is the only game in town.”

Question: For a free copy of Expelled, is this a way to do science? Note, you must register at Uncommon Descent to comment.

Like clouds in our coffee ... all these other universes ...

In Darwinian Universes And Colliding Branes: Eschewing A Cosmic Singularity, Access Research Network correspondent Robert Deyes comments on cosmologist Lee Smolin's "Darwinian universe" theory:

Cosmologist Lee Smolin has developed his own Multiverse theory conjecturing that within the confines of black holes, there might be other universes forming and expanding just like our own that would never be visible to us because of the limited horizon of black holes (their gravitational pull is so strong that even visible light cannot escape) (Ref 4). Smolin's ideas would certainly make good science fiction. Universes that originate from explosions that are hidden from sight in black holes make a backdrop for a great story in which intelligent beings such as us are oblivious to the origin of their cosmos, believing it to be in some way unique (Ref 4, p.89). With so many universes spawning from black holes, Smolin argues, it becomes more probable that at least one of them will have laws of physics that are fine-tuned for the formation of stars, planetary systems and eventually life. Or does it?

Smolin's idea of universe progeny spawning from black holes within parent universes bears striking similarities to the evolutionary tree of common descent that Darwin provided as the sole picture in 'The Origin Of Species'. According to Smolin, as universes 'improve' their ability to generate more stars and thereby produce more black holes, 'fitter' universes will swamp out those that are less finely tuned, have fewer stars and therefore produce less progeny (Ref 4, p.90-100). Given time, enough universes will have produced enough stars to generate enough black holes to produce more progeny universes with life-supporting, physical parameters such as our own.

But what is to say that fine-tuning will necessarily improve to the phenomenal level that we find in the laws of physics that under gird our own cosmos? Smolin's theory relies on the early parent universe going through expansion-collapse cycles before it becomes 'fit' enough to produce stars and consequently black holes for its progeny to form (Ref 4, p.97). For such a cosmos, the mechanical energy needed for expansion-collapse would eventually decay just as a ball bouncing on a living room floor would eventually stop bouncing. Such observations are consistent with the second law of thermodynamics. So for Smolin's parent universes to generate progeny, they would have to get fit before the bouncing energy ran out.

Oddly enough Smolin's theory also suffers from a lack of testability and falsifiability. We have no way of testing whether or not a host of universes and other worlds actually exist behind black holes.

About all that, I said, in By Design or by Chance?:

All these universes popping up in the clouds in our coffee, in the torment of a black hole, in the futility of an escaped balloon—their existence guarantees that our universe is a product of chance. If only they would exist . . . if only they would exist . . .

See also: Major media, imagining themselves sober, think there are many universes, not just double vision.

The Big Bang exploded; seriously, is there room for reasonable skepticism about the Big Bang?

Could God live in an infinite sea of universes? It depends.

Will thecosmic multiverse landscape ensure the triumph of intelligent design?

Now, remind me again why we need multiverse theory in the first place?

Multiverse theory: Replacing the big fix with the sure thing?

Hawking and Mlodinow: Firing God and hiring the multiverse

British physicist David Tyler comments:

Stephen Hawking has achieved the status of 'celebrity scientist'. He writes books that sell well and has both presented and performed in television series.

His latest book, The Grand Design, co-authored with Leonard Mlodinow, has been reviewed widely by both popular press and scientific journals. According to Michael Turner, who wrote the Nature review, these authors:

"offer a brief but thrilling account of some of the boldest ideas in physics - including M-theory and the multiverse - and what these have to say about our existence and the nature of the Universe."

The media appeared to be stimulated primarily by the claim that physics has made God redundant. "God is unnecessary, science can explain the universe without the need for a creator" (BBC News), "Why God Did Not Create the Universe. There is a sound scientific explanation for the making of our world - no gods required." (Wall Street Journal). The Guardian responded by conducting a poll among its readers, asking the question:

"Is physicist Stephen Hawking right that physics, not God, created the universe?" This theme is also picked out in the Nature review: "No miracle in the Multiverse". Some might find the argument to be artificially polarised - for did not the pioneers of science link the existence of laws of nature with the reality of a supreme Lawgiver? More recent research has unearthed evidence for the "fine-tuning" of the Cosmos, so the evidences of design have become more prominent with time. Hawking and Mlodinow recognise this when they write:

"Newton believed that our strangely habitable solar system did not "arise out of chaos by the mere laws of nature." Instead, he maintained that the order in the universe was "created by God at first and conserved by him to this Day in the same state and condition." The discovery recently of the extreme fine-tuning of so many laws of nature could lead some back to the idea that this grand design is the work of some grand Designer."

This brings us to the heart of the argument presented by Hawking and Mlodinow: they are endorsing M-theory and the Multiverse cosmological model. This is how Turner puts it:

"In searching for the holy grail, Hawking and others pinned their hopes first on super-gravity and then on string theory. Both are now seen as different regimes of a grander mathematical framework called M-theory, where M is yet to be determined - is it master, miracle or mirage? M-theory unifies gravity with the other fundamental forces (weak and strong nuclear and electromagnetism), predicts seven additional dimensions of space and suggests that space and time might be emergent phenomena rather than fundamental. It is exciting and important, but much of it remains to be explored."

For more, go here.

Will it be a disaster for physics if the Higgs boson is the ONLY thing the Large Hadron Collider finds?

Physicist Stephen Barr, author of Student's Guide to Natural Science, thinks so. At First Things's On the Square, he writes,

Some people say that the LHC will discover something called the Higgs particle. It almost surely will, but if that is all it discovers, it will be a huge disappointment and in fact a disaster for physics. It is (almost) certain that the Higgs particle is there. That in itself is no big deal.

But here's the big deal:

What people really are hoping to see at the LHC is evidence of these new kinds of matter predicted by supersymmetry. Until recently, most theorists probably thought that the chances were much greater than 50 percent that the supersymmetry solution of the Higgs problem is correct, and that evidence for it would be seen at the LHC. Some doubts are creeping in, however.

First of all, theories based on the supersymmetry idea are not without serious difficulties. But what has made the doubts increase in many physicist’s minds recently (including many top physicists) is the possibility that the Higgs puzzle may be explained anthropically rather than by supersymmetry. If we live in a multiverse, it is possible that, in different places in the multiverse, the Higgs field has different strengths. In most places it might have its natural strength. But in rare places it may happen to have the much smaller value that it has where we are. And—it can be argued convincingly—only in those rare places can there be life. We see a strangely small value of the Higgs field, because we are living in a highly atypical part of the multiverse, namely a part where the Higgs field has a value that allows life to exist.

By "multiverse", I gather that Barr does not mean "many universes" but rather that in our universe, conditions may be very different in one region than in another.

Most scientists have assumed that the universe is much the same everywhere, but that is an assumption, not a finding.

If indeed, the conditions in our region might be specialized to allow life, I suppose that would be another instance of fine tuning of the universe for life.

See also: From the "missing the point" diaries: Anthropic topic? Or anthropic flopic?

All things are possible through the scientist who postulates very large numbers?

Vox Day, a Christian libertarian opinion columnist and author of The Irrational Atheist has this to say recently (January 28, 2008) about Richard Dawkins's embrace of multiverse theory (a delusion bigger than God?):

Dawkins visits the wreckage of his train of thought, pours lighter fluid over it and sets it on fire by bringing up the multiverse concept, an utterly non-scientific theory invented solely to get around the problem of the anthropic principle. ... Those indisposed to accept the anthropic principle attempt to get around the massive improbability problem it presents by imagining that there are billions and billions of universes, for all things are possible through the scientist who postulates very large numbers. Only by postulating a potentially infinite number of universes can our wildly improbable universe become mathematically probable. Of course, there are no signs of any of these other universes, nor did science ever take the idea of parallel universes seriously until the alternative was accepting the apparent evidence for a universal designer. But not only is multiverse theory every bit as unfalsifiable and untestable as the God Hypothesis, it is demonstrably more improbable. If we accept Dawkins's naked assertion that a universal designer is more complex than the one known universe, a designer is probably less complex than any two universes and infinitely less complex than an infinity of them. ...

Of course, one way of simplifying a problem is to make it so complex as to be beyond any possible solution. That's not satisfactory, but it does have a certain grandness about it.

Podcast: Cosmologist Paul Davies versus both the designed universe and the multiverse

Here's a podcast of Paul Davies, explaining his hypothesis of a non-ID non-multiverse hypothesis.

See also:

From the "missing the point" diaries: Anthropic topic? Or anthropic flopic?

Stuff I have already written on the bleeping multiverse, for which It, (Inc.) is suing me ... But the writ was sent to an infinite number of wrong universes, so ...

The universe has the hallmarks of design: And what can anyone do about it?

From British physicist David Tyler:

Ever since the 'anthropic principle' entered the language of science, the case for the universe having the hallmarks of design has become progressively stronger. There is a consensus in the thinking of physicists and cosmologists that far exceeds the alleged consensus about anthropogenic global warming, and also the alleged consensus that natural selection is the mechanism for explaining design in living things. Author Tim Folger elevates the principle to "an extraordinary fact" about the universe: "Its basic properties are uncannily suited for life. Tweak the laws of physics in just about any way and - in this universe, anyway - life as we know it would not exist."

Folger's article is based on an interview with physicist Andrei Linde, who says: "We have a lot of really, really strange coincidences, and all of these coincidences are such that they make life possible." Many of these are sketched out for the benefit of readers, and Folger comments: "There are many such examples of the universe's life-friendly properties - so many, in fact, that physicists can't dismiss them all as mere accidents."

If we apply Dembski's design filter approach, we have three avenues to explore: Law, Chance and Design. Law gets very little attention from Folger, despite the intense search for grand Unification Theories (GUT) or Theories of Everything (ToE). The reason is that GUT have not delivered. We cannot explain why the universe is like it is. No progress has been made in showing why the fine-tuning of fundamental constants should be a feature of the physical world. Indeed, the pendulum has swung away from GUT because of the interest in string theory - which has served to underline how extraordinary the evidences of fine-tuning actually are. "[Polchinski and Bousso]calculated that the basic equations of string theory have an astronomical number of different possible solutions, perhaps as many as [10 to the power 1000]. Each solution represents a unique way to describe the universe."

Go here for more.

See also:

Like clouds in our coffee, all these other universes

See also: Major media, imagining themselves sober, think there are many universes, not just double vision.

The Big Bang exploded; seriously, is there room for reasonable skepticism about the Big Bang?

Could God live in an infinite sea of universes? It depends.

Will the cosmic multiverse landscape ensure the triumph of intelligent design?

Now, remind me again why we need multiverse theory in the first place?

Multiverse theory: Replacing the big fix with the sure thing?

Uncommon Descent Contest 4: Can we save physics by dumping the Copernican principle? - Winner announced

The question is here. It looks at “Does Dark Energy Really Exist? Or does Earth occupy a very unusual place in the universe?” by physicist Timothy Clifton and astrophysicist Pedro G. Ferreira, who argue just that: If we give up the Copernican principle, we do not need dark energy to explain the composition of the universe.(Scientific American, March 23, 2009)

The winning entry is by KeithDP:

I liked it because he made a number of pertinent points that less often raised than they should be:

- "The problem with the principle is how do you define special?" The fact that Earth is the only known home of life should cause it to be classified as special, at least for now.

- "Unlike the multiverse, the theory [re the existence or necessity of dark energy] is testable and efforts are underway to confirm or dismiss it." Indeed. Consider the upcoming SNO+ experiment in Sudbury, Canada, whose awesome facilities I toured recently - which aims to trap a particle of dark matter. That would be a good beginning.

- " ... will we also discover that Earth’s place in the centre of a vast cosmic void is another necessary precondition for life?" That too would be useful, because we could revise current estimates of where to look for life. Too many estimates have been Drake equation-style "choose your own parameters." Fun, sure, but science fiction.

So KeithDP needs to provide me with a current postal address at oleary@sympatico.ca to receive his free copy of the Privileged Planet DVD.

I will shortly judge Question 5: Darwinian fairy tales: Why middle-aged men have shiny scalps: "What is the down side for serious Darwinists to just cutting the “evolutionary psychology” psychodrama loose, and focusing on what real science can say about evolution?"

Now here is KeithDP's entry:

Copernicus’ modest proposition was that the solar system is heliocentric and not geocentric. Centuries later came the Copernican principle: the idea that Earth does not occupy any special position in the universe. In the last few decades this principle has been expanded to include the idea that there is nothing special about humans or the Earth. This idea is often called the Copernican principle of mediocrity. In recent years some astronomers have taken the idea further still and have popularized the notion that there is nothing special about our universe, as it is just one among an infinite number of other universes: a multiverse. Although no evidence supports the theory, and as it is not testable no evidence is ever likely to, it is considered the natural and ultimate culmination of the Copernican principle.

The problem with the principle is how do you define special? In the Rare Earth hypothesis, scientists Ward and Brownlee identify no less than a dozen factors that make complex life possible on Earth. In their view these factors make the Earth, if not special, than certainly very rare. Astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez goes further and identifies factors that make the Earth particularly suitable for scientific discovery. In his view the Earth is more than a rare planet; it is a privileged one. Recently some astronomers have questioned the standard model of the universe that holds that at least 70% of the universe is composed of mystery material. They propose this material is unnecessary if we ignore the Copernican principle and assume instead that the Earth lies at or near the centre of a vast cosmic void with far lower density than other regions of space.

Unlike the multiverse, the theory is testable and efforts are underway to confirm or dismiss it. Considering what we have learned about what makes the Earth’s particular location in the solar system and in the galaxy especially suitable for life, will we also discover that Earth’s place in the centre of a vast cosmic void is another necessary precondition for life?

Do we have further need of the Copernican principle? Or is it instead merely a personal philosophical position about humanity’s place? Does it tell us more about the belief system of those who hold it than it does about the universe?