Apparently, the respectful reception Max Tegmark’s universe of universes book received wasn’t enough. Mathematicians and scientists haven’t just converted en masse. So he offers, via Scientific American, a primer on how to critique his theory:
Many physicists have explored various types of parallel universes in recent books, including Sean Carroll, David Deutsch, Brian Greene, Michio Kaku, Martin Rees, Leonard Susskind and Alexander Vilenkin. Interestingly, not a single one of these books (my own included) makes any outright claims that parallel universes exist. Instead, all their arguments involve what logicians know as “modus ponens”: that if X implies Y and X is true, then Y must also be true. Specifically, they argue that if some scientific theory X has enough experimental support for us to take it seriously, then we must take seriously also all its predictions Y, even if these predictions are themselves untestable (involving parallel universes, for example).
…
In summary, there is no shortage of potential weaknesses in the arguments for parallel universes. Attacking all these weaknesses involves doing interesting experimental and theoretical physics research. If any of the attacks succeed, the corresponding multiverse evidence is discredited. Conversely, if all the attacks fail, then we’ll be forced to take parallel universes more seriously whether we like them or not – such are the rules of science. In this way, parallel universes are no different from any other scientific idea.
Multiverse skeptic Peter Woit fails to find Tegmark’s list of his options for disagreement quite comprehensive enough and a heated exchange follows in the comments, where Tegmark ends up replying,
In my opinion, science shouldn’t be about emotions and sociology, but about logic and experimental facts. So why are you bringing emotions into the discussion (“if I’m not happy”, “enjoy”, “happily continue”)?
Do you really feel that scientific ideas should be judged by how “prominent” their advocates are rather than by the quality of the arguments and evidence? This and your talk of a “publicity campaign” seems to assume a scientific paradigm where you and I have strong emotional preferences for what we want to discover and are guided by these rather than by logic and facts. I’m sorry, but I strongly disagree with this approach. I feel that my job as a scientist isn’t to try to reach conclusions that I find emotionally pleasing or sociologically popular, but to follow the trail of evidence wherever it leads.
Yet the multiverse was never about evidence, and even Tegmark didn’t make that claim.
Woit replies,
I’ve made detailed arguments about exactly what the problem is with your Level IV multiverse in the WSJ review, on my blog, and here. You’ve completely ignored them, in favor of personal attacks on me as “unscientific” and “emotional”, driven by “hate”.
“Hate” is a big one these days. You “hate” people when you identify weaknesses in whatever they are saying or doing.
As I unpack in the Science Fictions series” of posts, multiverse theory exists in order to get around evidence in our universe that points to creation or design. It’s a pretty extravagant alternative, but emotionally very satisfying to its proponents, to judge from their other interests. Tegmark is no different. But he is much better funded.
One senses that mathematician Woit is at the disadvantage of not understanding that the multiverse is a frenzied new religious outlook, and the zeal of its proponents will generally be greater than the zeal of people like him, who like their fields of study to proceed by rationally comprehensible axioms.
See also: Peter Woit, this is your call to conversion
Multiverse skeptic Peter Woit clarifies, he is NOT a creationist
Mathematician wonders about the respectful reception new multiverse book is getting
The Science Fictions series at your fingertips
Follow UD News at Twitter!
Tegmark emotes:
The exact opposite is the truth here. The lady does protest too much.
Scratch on the surface of any multiverse scenario and you will find, not any substantiating evidence as Professor Woit points out in his disagreement with Tegmark, but you will instead find a random infinity that was conjectured in the imagination of an atheist so as to avoid an inference to God.
for instance from Max Tegmark himself,,,
we find that the ‘Level I multiverse’ is,,
Yet no matter how reasonable it may seem to Tegmark to infer that parallel universes exist outside our ability to observe them, (i.e. outside the Cosmic Background Radiation), he simply is not justified in imagining that they exist apart from our observation of them. Moreover, in his haste to cast ‘observational evidence’ to the side, he has neglected to realize just how important our ‘conscious observation’ is in reality in the first place. Case in point,
The preceding interactive graph points out that the smallest scale visible to the human eye (as well as a human egg) is at 10^-4 meters, which ‘just so happens’ to be directly in the exponential center of all possible sizes of our physical reality (not just ‘nearly’ in the exponential center!). i.e. 10^-4 is, exponentially, right in the middle of 10^-35 meters, which is the smallest possible unit of length, which is Planck length, and 10^27 meters, which is the largest possible unit of ‘observable’ length since space-time was created in the Big Bang, which is the diameter of the universe. This is very interesting for, as far as I can tell, the limits to human vision (as well as the size of the human egg) could have, theoretically, been at very different positions than directly in the exponential middle;
Also of note: Just as it makes no sense, from a space-time perspective, to ask, ‘What was before the Big Bang?’, it also makes no sense, from a space-time perspective, to ask, ‘What is below the Planck length?’
Max Tegmark goes on to imagine a,,,
Level II Multiverse (i.e. inflation), as Tegmark himself admits, was invented in the imagination of atheists to ‘explain away’ why we live in a finely tuned universe:
Yet as Dr. Sheldon, others, and even one of the originators of inflation theory itself, have repeatedly pointed out, the observational evidence we do have undermines any claim inflation theory had to being true as to ‘explaining away’ that fine tuning;
Moreover, the fine-tuning, regardless of what Tegmark may think, certainly does not point to ‘random’ processes as to necessitating the inflationary model:
Tegmark goes on to,,
Yet many worlds is dependent on the wave function being merely an abstract description of reality. In fact, many worlds gets rid of the axiom of wave function collapse altogether and gives primary consideration to the particle. In fact the particle is given so much unmerited power in the many worlds interpretation of Quantum Mechanics that every time someone observes a particle, instead of the wave function merely collapsing, the particle instead creates a virtual infinity of parallel universes. i.e. Many worlds is basically saying that, instead of God, the material particle has bestowed within itself the power to create as many universes as it wants or needs to! And I am not overstating the case in the least! Moreover, the wave function is now shown not to be an ‘abstract’ element, as is held in many worlds, but the wave function is now shown to be a ‘real’ entity that cannot be interpreted purely statistically as is required in Many Words:
The following paper mathematically corroborated the preceding experiments and cleaned up some pretty nasty probabilistic incongruities. Particularly incongruities with quantum entanglement that arose from a purely statistical, ‘abstract’, interpretation of the wave function.
The preceding mathematical interpretation was empirically corroborated:
The following experiment went even further:
The following establishes the quantum wave function as ‘real’ from another angle of logic;
Yet, it is also important to note that even the ‘real’ wave function must interpreted in a ‘non-local’, beyond space and time, manner:
Also of interest, completely contrary to the many worlds materialistic presupposition that holds no beyond space and time actions are possible, without consideration of the particles first, it is now found to be possible to entangle particles without the particles even interacting first!:
Tegmark goes on to,,,
Why sure, if an atheist imagines another random infinity I guess he can imagine he has ‘explained away’ mathematics too. Personally, methinks Tegmark needs to ask himself just what he has REALLY ‘explained away’ with all his random infinities, especially his additional one that is suppose to explain mathematics?:
Also of note: The materialistic/atheistic conjecture of an infinity of universes to ‘explain away’ the fine tuning of this universe also insures, through the ontological argument, the 100% probability of the existence of God:
Where this argument has gained purchase is in the materialist/atheist appeal to the multiverse (an infinity of possible worlds) to try to ‘explain away’ the extreme fine tuning we find for this universe. The materialist/atheist, without even realizing it, ends up conceding the necessary premise to the ontological argument and thus guarantees the success of the argument and thus insures the 100% probability of God’s existence!
I like the concluding comment about the ontological argument from the following Dr. Plantinga video:
Verse and Music:
bornagain77 @2:
How does Tegmark know that the properties of the universe “were established by random processes during the birth of our universe?” Where is the science?
Tegmark is a typical atheist crackpot. There are a lot of those in the physics community. They’re a dime a dozen.
Exactly Mapou, the randomness postulate of atheists is always the metaphysical add on that never has any substantiating evidence (or clear definition). In fact, when their base randomness postulate is examined closely it is always found to undermine our ability to practice science rationally. This is found to be true in both the Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism and in Boltzmann’s Brain (to name falsifications two right off the top of my head):
A fascinating “error” from…
4 bornagain77 February 9, 2014 at 4:51 pm …
I like the concluding comment about the ontological argument from the following Dr. Plantinga video:
“God then is the Being that couldn’t possibly not exit.”
Ontological Argument – Dr. Plantinga (3:50 minute mark)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCXvVcWFrGQ
“Unscientific” is too benign.
“Creationist Nonsense” is better at grabbing headlines.
There is no “error” in the logic since the premise of the argument is granted in the atheist’s appeal to an infinite number of possible worlds to explain the fine tuning of this one! i.e. If the premise of the argument is granted the conclusion follows necessarily! For the atheist to deny the premise of the argument he undercuts his own argument for a multiverse. i.e. Dog meet tail!
Regarding randomness and chance, ran across this assertion:
Any thoughts?
equate65, IMHO, they are confusing what drives the randomness, i.e. information and free will, with the entirely random aspect resultant from information and free will:
In the beginning was the bit – New Scientist
Excerpt: Zeilinger’s principle leads to the intrinsic randomness found in the quantum world. Consider the spin of an electron. Say it is measured along a vertical axis (call it the z axis) and found to be pointing up. Because one bit of information has been used to make that statement, no more information can be carried by the electron’s spin. Consequently, no information is available to predict the amounts of spin in the two horizontal directions (x and y axes), so they are of necessity entirely random. If you then measure the spin in one of these directions, there is an equal chance of its pointing right or left, forward or back. This fundamental randomness is what we call Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_.....302101.php
So, unlike the entropic randomness of space-time which is governed/bounded by Boltzmann’s constant, the ‘unbounded’ randomness found in Quantum Mechanics is a necessary consequence of the fact that the universe is ‘quantized information’ at it most foundational level, and we may only freely choose how we may consciously observe a particle for any one particular characteristic at any given time.
To solidify this theistic claim for the importance of free will in driving the ‘randomness’ inherent in quantum mechanics,,,
Can quantum theory be improved? – July 23, 2012
Excerpt: Being correct 50% of the time when calling heads or tails on a coin toss won’t impress anyone. So when quantum theory predicts that an entangled particle will reach one of two detectors with just a 50% probability, many physicists have naturally sought better predictions. The predictive power of quantum theory is, in this case, equal to a random guess. Building on nearly a century of investigative work on this topic, a team of physicists has recently performed an experiment whose results show that, despite its imperfections, quantum theory still seems to be the optimal way to predict measurement outcomes.,
However, in the new paper, the physicists have experimentally demonstrated that there cannot exist any alternative theory that increases the predictive probability of quantum theory by more than 0.165, with the only assumption being that measurement (*conscious observation) parameters can be chosen independently (free choice/free will assumption) of the other parameters of the theory.,,,
,, the experimental results provide the tightest constraints yet on alternatives to quantum theory. The findings imply that quantum theory is close to optimal in terms of its predictive power, even when the predictions are completely random.
http://phys.org/news/2012-07-quantum-theory.html
*What does the term “measurement” mean in quantum mechanics?
“Measurement” or “observation” in a quantum mechanics context are really just other ways of saying that the observer is interacting with the quantum system and measuring the result in toto.
http://boards.straightdope.com.....p?t=597846
So it is found that a required (axiomatic) assumption of ‘free will’ in quantum mechanics is what necessarily drives the completely random (non-deterministic) aspect of quantum mechanics. Moreover, it was shown in the paper that one cannot ever improve the predictive power of quantum mechanics by ever removing free will as a starting assumption in Quantum Mechanics!
also of note: in the following experiment, the claim that past material states determine future conscious choices (determinism) is falsified by the fact that present conscious choices effect past material states:
Quantum physics mimics spooky action into the past – April 23, 2012
Excerpt: The authors experimentally realized a “Gedankenexperiment” called “delayed-choice entanglement swapping”, formulated by Asher Peres in the year 2000. Two pairs of entangled photons are produced, and one photon from each pair is sent to a party called Victor. Of the two remaining photons, one photon is sent to the party Alice and one is sent to the party Bob. Victor can now choose between two kinds of measurements. If he decides to measure his two photons in a way such that they are forced to be in an entangled state, then also Alice’s and Bob’s photon pair becomes entangled. If Victor chooses to measure his particles individually, Alice’s and Bob’s photon pair ends up in a separable state. Modern quantum optics technology allowed the team to delay Victor’s choice and measurement with respect to the measurements which Alice and Bob perform on their photons. “We found that whether Alice’s and Bob’s photons are entangled and show quantum correlations or are separable and show classical correlations can be decided after they have been measured”, explains Xiao-song Ma, lead author of the study.
According to the famous words of Albert Einstein, the effects of quantum entanglement appear as “spooky action at a distance”. The recent experiment has gone one remarkable step further. “Within a naïve classical world view, quantum mechanics can even mimic an influence of future actions on past events”, says Anton Zeilinger.
http://phys.org/news/2012-04-q.....ction.html
i.e. The preceding experiment clearly shows, and removes any doubt whatsoever, that the ‘material’ detector recording information in the double slit is secondary to the experiment and that a conscious observer being able to consciously know the ‘which path’ information of a photon with local certainty, is of primary importance in the experiment. You can see a more complete explanation of the startling results of the experiment at the 9:11 minute mark of the following video
Delayed Choice Quantum Eraser Experiment Explained – 2014 video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6HLjpj4Nt4
I am approaching this whole topic with some mixed feelings. Please correct if I am wrong but from what I have read Einstein’s theory of relativity was born out of pure mathematics without any real evidence as was quantum mechanics. Even the Higgs boson was entirely theoretical until experimentation with the large hadron collider. So I wonder if everyone is really justified in condemning the theory because there is no evidence at this point. In fact as has been stated the likelihood of it ever being proven seems rather doubtful and perhaps on that point we can nix the whole thing.
To me it seems more appropriate at this point, though harder to prove, to reject it on the grounds of the intent of the theory as a matter of religion as the article points out.
Wouldn’t it be simpler to just ask: ‘Where did the multiverse come from?” Without a God you fall into an infinite regress, which acccording to Dawkins is a sufficient discredit the idea.