Sabine Hossenfelder argues that the multiverse is “no better than God”

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August 1, 2021

Intelligent Design, Multiverse, theism

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Multiverse
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It’s not just theists who have problems with the multiverse. Sabine Hossenfelder explains her reservations.
The Big Conversation is a video series from Unbelievable? featuring world-class thinkers across the religious and non-religious community. Exploring science, faith, philosophy and what it means to be human. The Big Conversation is produced by Premier in partnership with John Templeton Foundation.
Luke Barnes, “The Multiverse is no better than God” at The Big Conversation (July 31, 2021)

Here’s the full version, with over 2700 comments:

Many physicists have pointed out the extraordinary ‘fine tuning’ of the physical laws of the universe that have allowed life to develop within the cosmos.
Luke Barnes believes it gives evidence for a designer behind the cosmos, whereas Sabine Hossenfelder disagrees, questioning whether we can even speak of ‘fine tuning’ as a phenomenon.
Luke Barnes, “The fine tuning of the Universe: Was the cosmos made for us?” at The Big Conversation (July 31, 2021)

See also: Sabine Hossenfelder: Is math real? Hossenfelder: The physicists who believe in this argue that unobservable universes are real because they are in their math. But just because you have math for something doesn’t mean it’s real. You can just assume it’s real, but this is unnecessary to describe what we observe and therefore unscientific.

Comments

KF, I didn't really expect you to directly answer the question, but from your indirect answer, I'll assume that your answer is either "yes" or "I don't know." This allows us to proceed (at least arguendo) under the premise that monistic mind is capable of producing everything we currently experience. Thus, we come to the 2nd aspect of your attempt to prove your claim against "all possible monisms:" that described in your comment above thusly:
Simulation worlds imply profound discredit to the rationality of minds of actors within the simulations, whether Boltzmann brains or networked panpsychism or some scientist’s hypercomputer world, etc.
However, under a monistic mind premise, we are not talking about a "simulation" world. A simulation is an imitation of something else, a fake version of the real thing. If we live in a mental monism, the mind is not "simulating" anything; the experiences we have are the reality of what existence in a mental monism is like.
Monism tries to reduce the many to the one and thus becomes problematic in accounting for rational, responsible freedom and embodiment.
Unless you are going to say that monism cannot produce our experience of embodiment, the "embodiment" aspect of this now irrelevant. This is why I asked you to directly answer the prior question. Are you saying that mental monism cannot produce our embodiment experience? This leaves us with "rational, responsible freedom."
From the monism of the physical, mind becomes dubious software on a computational substrate.
I don't think this is well said, because you insist on conflating "physical" with "material." Material monism eliminates free will and thus rationality.
From the idealistic side it becomes a false or dubious local world-picture.
But, you fail to explain why. Please explain why idealism, or mental monism, "becomes a false or dubious local world-picture."William J Murray_{August 5, 2021
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WJM, you have had an adequate answer to the material issue. Simulation worlds imply profound discredit to the rationality of minds of actors within the simulations, whether Boltzmann brains or networked panpsychism or some scientist's hypercomputer world, etc. Monism tries to reduce the many to the one and thus becomes problematic in accounting for rational, responsible freedom and embodiment. From the monism of the physical, mind becomes dubious software on a computational substrate. From the idealistic side it becomes a false or dubious local world-picture. We need a worldview that balances one and many while preserving rational, responsible, morally guided freedom and intelligibility of truth for us. Otherwise, intellectual discussion -- the context for what is going on here -- evaporates and arguments become literally meaningless. Plato is knocking and says he wants his cave back. KF PS: The cease breathing for an hour thought exercise is decisive on distinct identity. The experience of an embodied individual ceasing to breathe will differ decisively from a dream or vision or simulation etc. A super-mind contemplating a world with simulated individuals in it is different in another way, e.g. simulated individuals are not actualised free agents. Free means free.kairosfocus_{August 5, 2021
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KF, Actually, the question is extremely pertinent to the issue of whether or not you can make good on your assertion about "all monisms." The question is: is it possible for a monistic mind to produce all of our experiences? Have you ever had a dream where you were drowning? The sensation that you are going to die is quite real, complete with panic and fear and a desperate desire to get to the surface and take a breath. I know, you'll say, "but you don't actually die in a dream," but this is where your objection to the dream comparison fails: you haven't actually died, so you don't have any experience or evidence that, for the person experiencing death in the dream, experiencing death in our waking life is not something comparable. In fact, NDE evidence supports the idea that "dying" in our waking life is very similar to dying in a dream. People often feel like they have (1)"woken up," (2) the afterlife "feels" more real than this life, (3) afterward, no longer fear death, but know it is a continuation of their existence, and (4) experience the continuation and enhancement of a completely physical existence. You are not arguing in good faith, KF. You and I both know that the mind is fully capable of producing everything we currently experience or else we would not experience it. The only argument is about where the information comes from. So, please respond in good faith with a simple, direct answer so we can move forward: is it possible for a monistic mind to produce everything we currently experience? I'll make it easy for you. Here are the three all-inclusive answers to that particular question: yes, no, and "I don't know."William J Murray_{August 5, 2021
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WJM, the issue is not as phrased, whether a mind can project the full orbed experiences of embodiment in our world but whether our admittedly fallible minds are held to be currently doing so. If so, the possibility of error is globalised, there is no difference between waking reality, dreamscapes and outright full bore delusions, logic becomes as dubious as anything else etc, in short, grand delusion cascade absurdity. The answer is, cease breathing for one hour, what happens. Dreams of embodiment etc, nil, on to the next dream. Actual embodiment, death; that's a thought exercise test, a proof. The plain truth is, our first fact through which we perceive others is of embodiment as a rational, responsible creature. Once that is dissolved by the acid of hyperskepticism -- needlessly -- all else dissolves as the fundamental discredit of mind and self-aware consciousness has been put in place. Therefore, the responsible thing is to accept common sense realism starting with our being living bodies intersecting physicality and the life of the ensouled, with mind a key faculty. Dreamscapes and visions or delusions are different from physical reality, and minds routinely differentiate. I recall the movie scene with John Nash waving goodbye to the little girl, who never grew up as she was a figment, and would ask students if strange figures are there for them too. We could go on but the point is made. KFkairosfocus_{August 4, 2021
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KF, I challenge you to directly answer this question: Is it possible or not possible for the mind to produce all the qualities of experience of what we call our waking life absent any material or substance other than mind? IOW, is a monistic world a possible world, and could it provide all of the physical experiences, including embodiment, that we have?William J Murray_{August 4, 2021
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Murray was challenged months ago if he ate, drank or breathed. He refused to answer. He does have ice cream preferences though. But he claimed to have published books in the make believe world and was a successful businessman in this make believe world.jerry_{August 4, 2021
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WJM, reducing awake consciousness to comparability to dreams says it all, inadvertently. I have used the thought exercise -- don't try this at home -- of ceasing from breathing for one hour . . . feasible in a dream or imagination but not in full embodied reality without death. The point remains. KFkairosfocus_{August 4, 2021
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Multiverse won't explain the "emergence" of information(that is mind dependent) and don't escape of explaining how appeared something from nothing or /and don't escape of bringing scientific evidences for existence of a "perpetuum mobile" mechanism that would prove a cyclical infinity of multiverse. Desperation and Insanity of materialists need a "miracle".Lieutenant Commander Data_{August 4, 2021
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William J Murray do you interpret that dream experience differently than you interpret your waking state experience of physical embodiment in a physical world?
:) Everybody knows that dreams are not reality and are irrelevant . Except you.
This clearly demonstrates that your “first fact” is not a “first fact” at all;
This clearly demonstrates that you shouldn't drink too much alcohol before posting a message.Lieutenant Commander Data_{August 4, 2021
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Given the evidence provided by dreams, it is clearly possible that our waking experience is also produced in mind by immaterial information. So, what KF is left with is how this monistic interpretation necessarily puts us at greater risk of "self-referential grand delusion." To make that claim, KF needs to adequately define what he means by "self-referential absurdity" or "grand delusion" or "self-referential grand delusion," and then make his case how this monistic model indicates that outcome. Further, he claims that this interpretation "undermines the credibility of reason." He needs to explain why this is so. As far as I've been able to understand, his arguments about "grand delusion" and "undermining of reason" all stem from what he calls the "denial" of what he calls the "first fact of physical embodiment in a physical world." Yet, as I've demonstrated in #22, that's not actually a first fact; it is his interpretation of our physical experience and what it means. It seems to me that his arguments about grand delusion, self-referential absurdity and the breakdown of the credibility of reason all stem from a simple error on KF's part: mistaking his interpretation of a fact for the fact itself. Indeed, KF's argument about "all monisms" begins with asserting as "fact" an interpretation of experience that definitionally puts monism at odds with that "fact." Only, as we can clearly see, what he claims to be a fact is not a fact at all. If the experience of being consciously embodied and operating in an external, physical environment necessarily means actual embodiment in an actual, physical external world, then dreams would be proof that other worlds exist and that we can somehow visit them.William J Murray_{August 4, 2021
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Let's look at KF's "first fact," that he uses in #18:
As for the monist idealist, s/he then faces the first fact of self-aware consciousness, physical embodiment in a physical world,
A couple of questions can easily show the problem with this so-called "first fact:" First question: do you factually experience being a self-aware consciousness physically embodied in a physical world in a dream? I'll assume the answer is "yes." Second question: do you interpret that dream experience differently than you interpret your waking state experience of physical embodiment in a physical world? Again, I'll assume your answer is "yes." I'm assuming these answers because I don't expect you to answer them directly, since you never have before. This clearly demonstrates that your "first fact" is not a "first fact" at all; it is an interpretation of a fact. The actual "first fact" is that we have the experience of being physically embodied in a physical world, but the fact of that experience does not necessarily mean we are actually embodied in an actual physical world, because we interpret that same experience differently when they occur in different contexts. This means the experience is open to interpretation, and to the exploration of various contexts that might provide for those experiences that differ from your particular interpretation. You don't get your particular contextual interpretation of those experiences as included in "all monisms" because not all monisms share that interpretation. You have to make your case, wrt my monistic theory, according to how it interprets and contextualizes that experience, on its own terms. That is why you have failed. Care to try again?William J Murray_{August 4, 2021
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KF, My monism doesn't include the same "first fact" you refer to. You said all monisms. Therefore, you have failed. We can do this here, if you like, or make a thread for it. Your choice.William J Murray_{August 4, 2021
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WJM, the just above gives a substantial answer in a nutshell. KFkairosfocus_{August 4, 2021
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KF, I'll take that as you being unwilling to take up the challenge. Not really a surprise.William J Murray_{August 4, 2021
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Q, sadly yes. He knows that monism is one of the attempted answers to the core phil problem of the one and the many . . . one is the number of truth, two that of error . . . so all is reduced to one substance or entity. He knows that materialism reduces mind to a GIGO-limited dynamic-stochastic computational substrate so that it loses freedom to be rational, which then swings back on the materialist thinker. As for the monist idealist, s/he then faces the first fact of self-aware consciousness, physical embodiment in a physical world, leading to implied grand delusion, thus self-referential self-defeat through rendering mind dubious. We need instead a unified view that can handle unity and diversity in all its guises. KFkairosfocus_{August 4, 2021
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Please note that William J Murray is handing out homework assignments again . . . -QQuerius_{August 4, 2021
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Also, you might want to define what you mean by "Monism." Just to get the basic definitions out of the way.William J Murray_{August 4, 2021
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KF said:
Monisms all end in self-referential absurdity, undermining credibility of reason.
I challenge you to put your money where your mouth is. Start a post and title it "All Monisms Are Self-Referentially Absurd." Begin with a definition of "self-referentially absurd." Make your case. Let's see how it holds up.William J Murray_{August 4, 2021
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Monisms all end in self-referential absurdity, undermining credibility of reason. We need a worldview that embraces both our embodiment and our rational, responsible, morally governed freedom.kairosfocus_{August 4, 2021
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It appears dualists are the new materialists. No amount of evidence can pry them from their beliefs.William J Murray_{August 4, 2021
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TLH, most physics is not about cosmology and multiverse models. Those models are in a sense invited by the math, though for especially infini-verse speculations esp dynamically branching ones, I wonder if people have thought through issues of playing with claimed actualised infinities. Quasi-infinite is more reasonable, translating to practically countless. KF PS: Not even an infini-verse would eliminate implications of grounding reality. We have good reason to see that our cosmos is at so rare a node that to get to it you have to explain why the cosmos bakery pops up such as opposed to the far more likely Boltzmann Brain type fluctuation or why it doesn't simply skip or miss this. Such, is Leslie's fly on wall smacked by a bullet point. Even were there patches on a long, long wall with fly carpets so hitting one there is easy, hitting a lone deeply isolated fly calls for a marksman wielding a tack driver of a rifle properly sighted in. PPS: Walker and Davies:
In physics, particularly in statistical mechanics, we base many of our calculations on the assumption of metric transitivity, which asserts that a system’s trajectory will eventually [--> given "enough time and search resources"] explore the entirety of its state space – thus everything that is phys-ically possible will eventually happen. It should then be trivially true that one could choose an arbitrary “final state” (e.g., a living organism) and “explain” it by evolving the system backwards in time choosing an appropriate state at some ’start’ time t_0 (fine-tuning the initial state). In the case of a chaotic system the initial state must be specified to arbitrarily high precision. But this account amounts to no more than saying that the world is as it is because it was as it was, and our current narrative therefore scarcely constitutes an explanation in the true scientific sense. We are left in a bit of a conundrum with respect to the problem of specifying the initial conditions necessary to explain our world. A key point is that if we require specialness in our initial state (such that we observe the current state of the world and not any other state) metric transitivity cannot hold true, as it blurs any dependency on initial conditions – that is, it makes little sense for us to single out any particular state as special by calling it the ’initial’ state. If we instead relax the assumption of metric transitivity (which seems more realistic for many real world physical systems – including life), then our phase space will consist of isolated pocket regions and it is not necessarily possible to get to any other physically possible state (see e.g. Fig. 1 for a cellular automata example).
[--> or, there may not be "enough" time and/or resources for the relevant exploration, i.e. we see the 500 - 1,000 bit complexity threshold at work vs 10^57 - 10^80 atoms with fast rxn rates at about 10^-13 to 10^-15 s leading to inability to explore more than a vanishingly small fraction on the gamut of Sol system or observed cosmos . . . the only actually, credibly observed cosmos]
Thus the initial state must be tuned to be in the region of phase space in which we find ourselves [--> notice, fine tuning], and there are regions of the configuration space our physical universe would be excluded from accessing, even if those states may be equally consistent and permissible under the microscopic laws of physics (starting from a different initial state). Thus according to the standard picture, we require special initial conditions to explain the complexity of the world, but also have a sense that we should not be on a particularly special trajectory to get here (or anywhere else) as it would be a sign of fine–tuning of the initial conditions. [ --> notice, the "loading"] Stated most simply, a potential problem with the way we currently formulate physics is that you can’t necessarily get everywhere from anywhere (see Walker [31] for discussion). ["The “Hard Problem” of Life," June 23, 2016, a discussion by Sara Imari Walker and Paul C.W. Davies at Arxiv.]
kairosfocus_{August 4, 2021
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WJM, perceiving is not creating, even were there good reason to infer systematic grand delusion so that the perception was internal and on the whole false and utterly misleading as opposed to limited. Or in being limited, having local errors or distortions etc. KF PS: You again underscore the summary: simulationism as noted, panpsychism, distributed network mind with nodes and perceiving at individual level.kairosfocus_{August 4, 2021
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We have experimental evidence that each individual consciousness is "creating the universe" with each observation and thought. Not only do countless universes exist; countless designers exist as well.William J Murray_{August 4, 2021
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Great points, TAMMIE LEE HAYNES and ET. One might as well argue that to get away from a Designer, one can easily hide behind an infinite number of random universes miraculously appearing by chance over an infinite amount of time. And Stephen Hawkins claimed that all one needs is gravity. So where ya gonna get gravity before the universe existed? All this beggars credibility far more than any other option and sounds like a materialistic version of God at best or simply a fantasy creation myth on par with Greek mythology at worst. -QQuerius_{August 3, 2021
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A multiverse would be just more evidence for Intelligent Design. Materialism can't account for a universe, so a multiverse would increase the impossibility. :cool: :)ET_{August 3, 2021
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Dr Hossenfelder is, at the bottom line, just another Atheist, misleading us. She says the that The Multiverse Is “No Better Than God” True enough. So she's not lying. But she is misleading. Here's why The multiverse is "no better than God". As an explanation of reality, it is far far worse than God. In olden days, Physics depended on empirical evidence. But that was then and now is now. In about 1930, Physics began supporting to Creationism. So the top Atheist Physicists like Brian Greene, Alan Guth, Steven Hawking etc etc, they came up with nonsense, with zero empirical evidence. Like the Multiverse. What nonsense.? Here's what nonsense, straight from MIT's very Dr. Guth "In the infinite multiverse anything that can happen, consistent with the laws of conservation, will happen, infinitely many times. Atheist Physics, isn't it a howl?. So if you don't approve of pompous and arrogant agenda drive activists milking the public, modern Physicists are scamsters, like internet con men. But then if believe that its good to milk the public with nonsensical grants from the NSF, then modern Physics is great. .TAMMIE LEE HAYNES_{August 2, 2021
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necessary guiding qualities of experience do all the high-resolution fine tuning automatically.”
Yay magical thinking!
When the fine tuning of the cosmos for humans is understood as the non-linear, necessary product of human consciousness, at least those of us who find ourselves “here,” it makes a great deal of sense.
Yeah, exactly. I know it might be really improbable that all the matter that makes up planet earth and the flora and fauna which exist therein could have arranged itself last Thursday. We are, after all, no more than arrangements of matter. I know it's really, really improbable. But we're here, so it makes sense.Yarrgonaut_{August 2, 2021
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And how does one go about testing this bold conjecture? Or is testing no longer needed for the science that we're now supposed to follow? -QQuerius_{August 2, 2021
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There is nothing wrong in speculating about multiverses. Even if the concept turns out to be a dead end, ruling out "bad' theories is still useful to science. If there is no obvious way of testing the idea then there is nothing wrong with people playing around with it. The only problem might be if it were found that it was distracting attention and diverting resources from potentially more fruitful lines of inquiry. Remember that Popper encouraged scientists to be bold in their conjectures.Seversky_{August 2, 2021
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HMMM,,, "No need to invoke “God” as a super-intelligent designer when logic and math as innate, necessary guiding qualities of experience do all the high-resolution fine tuning automatically." One just isn't enough https://twinsdaily.com/gallery/image/702-facepalm-double/bornagain77_{August 2, 2021
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