Here’s Sean Carroll at Uncommon Descent before he was clearly a convert to the multiverse

It is also very interesting to note that this strange higher dimensional, eternal, framework for time, found in special relativity, and general relativity, finds corroboration in Near Death Experience testimonies:

'In the 'spirit world,,, instantly, there was no sense of time. See, everything on earth is related to time. You got up this morning, you are going to go to bed tonight. Something is new, it will get old. Something is born, it's going to die. Everything on the physical plane is relative to time, but everything in the spiritual plane is relative to eternity. Instantly I was in total consciousness and awareness of eternity, and you and I as we live in this earth cannot even comprehend it, because everything that we have here is filled within the veil of the temporal life. In the spirit life that is more real than anything else and it is awesome. Eternity as a concept is awesome. There is no such thing as time. I knew that whatever happened was going to go on and on.' Mickey Robinson - Near Death Experience testimony 'When you die, you enter eternity. It feels like you were always there, and you will always be there. You realize that existence on Earth is only just a brief instant.' Dr. Ken Ring - has extensively studied Near Death Experiences 'Earthly time has no meaning in the spirit realm. There is no concept of before or after. Everything - past, present, future - exists simultaneously.' - Kimberly Clark Sharp - NDE Experiencer 'There is no way to tell whether minutes, hours or years go by. Existence is the only reality and it is inseparable from the eternal now.' - John Star - NDE Experiencer What Will Heaven be Like? by Rich Deem Excerpt: Since heaven is where God lives, it must contain more physical and temporal dimensions than those found in this physical universe that God created. We cannot imagine, nor can we experience in our current bodies, what these extra dimensions might be like. http://www.godandscience.org/doctrine/heaven.html

It is also very interesting to point out that the 'light at the end of the tunnel', reported in many Near Death Experiences(NDEs), is also corroborated by Special Relativity when considering the optical effects for traveling at the speed of light. Please compare the similarity of the optical effect, noted at the 3:22 minute mark of the following video, when the 3-Dimensional world ‘folds and collapses’ into a tunnel shape around the direction of travel as a 'hypothetical' observer moves towards the ‘higher dimension’ of the speed of light, with the ‘light at the end of the tunnel’ reported in very many Near Death Experiences: (Of note: This following video was made by two Australian University Physics Professors with a supercomputer.)

Traveling At The Speed Of Light - Optical Effects - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/5733303/

Here is the interactive website, with link to the relativistic math at the bottom of the page, related to the preceding video;

Seeing Relativity http://www.anu.edu.au/Physics/Searle/

Substantiating evidence from NDE testimonies:

The NDE and the Tunnel - Kevin Williams' research conclusions Excerpt: I started to move toward the light. The way I moved, the physics, was completely different than it is here on Earth. It was something I had never felt before and never felt since. It was a whole different sensation of motion. I obviously wasn't walking or skipping or crawling. I was not floating. I was flowing. I was flowing toward the light. I was accelerating and I knew I was accelerating, but then again, I didn't really feel the acceleration. I just knew I was accelerating toward the light. Again, the physics was different - the physics of motion of time, space, travel. It was completely different in that tunnel, than it is here on Earth. I came out into the light and when I came out into the light, I realized that I was in heaven.(Barbara Springer) Near Death Experience – The Tunnel, The Light, The Life Review – video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4200200/

As well, hypothetically traveling at the speed of light in this universe would be instantaneous travel for the person going at the speed of light. This is because time does not pass for them, yet, and this is a very big ‘yet’ to take note of; this ‘timeless’ travel is still not instantaneous and transcendent to our temporal framework of time, i.e. Speed of light travel, to our temporal frame of reference, is still not completely transcendent of our framework since light appears to take time to travel from our perspective. Yet, in quantum teleportation of information, the ‘time not passing’, i.e. ‘eternal’, framework is not only achieved in the speed of light framework/dimension, but is also ‘instantaneously’ achieved in our temporal framework. That is to say, the instantaneous teleportation/travel of information is instantaneous to both the temporal and speed of light frameworks, not just the speed of light framework. Information teleportation/travel is not limited by time, nor space, in any way, shape or form, in any frame of reference, as light is seemingly limited to us. Thus ‘pure transcendent information’ is shown to be timeless (eternal) and completely transcendent of all material frameworks. Moreover, concluding from all lines of evidence we have now examined; transcendent, eternal, infinite information is indeed real and the framework in which ‘It’ resides is the primary reality (highest dimension) that can exist, (in so far as our limited perception of a primary reality, highest dimension, can be discerned).

"An illusion can never go faster than the speed limit of reality" Akiane - Child Prodigy - Artwork video set to music http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4204586

Logic also dictates 'a decision' must have been made, by the 'transcendent, eternal, infinite information' from the primary timeless (eternal) reality 'It' inhabits, in order to purposely create a temporal reality with highly specified, irreducible complex, parameters from a infinite set of possibilities in the proper sequential order. Thus this infinite transcendent information, which is the primary reality of our reality, is shown to be alive by yet another line of evidence besides the necessity for a ‘first mover’ to explain quantum wave collapse.

The First Cause Must Be A Personal Being - William Lane Craig - video http://www.metacafe.com/w/4813914

As a side light to this, leading quantum physicist Anton Zeilinger has followed in John Archibald Wheeler's footsteps (1911-2008) by insisting reality, at its most foundational level, is 'information'.

"It from bit symbolizes the idea that every item of the physical world has at bottom - at a very deep bottom, in most instances - an immaterial source and explanation; that which we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes-no questions and the registering of equipment-evoked responses; in short, that things physical are information-theoretic in origin." John Archibald Wheeler Why the Quantum? It from Bit? A Participatory Universe? Excerpt: In conclusion, it may very well be said that information is the irreducible kernel from which everything else flows. Thence the question why nature appears quantized is simply a consequence of the fact that information itself is quantized by necessity. It might even be fair to observe that the concept that information is fundamental is very old knowledge of humanity, witness for example the beginning of gospel according to John: "In the beginning was the Word." Anton Zeilinger - a leading expert in quantum teleportation: http://www.metanexus.net/Magazine/ArticleDetail/tabid/68/id/8638/Default.aspx

As well, as to the reconciliation of General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics, which set string theorists to chasing their tail in a circle in the first place, Christian Theists, surprisingly, have fairly strong empirical purchase in that area;

Centrality of Each Individual Observer In The Universe and Christ’s Plausible Reconciliation Of General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics https://docs.google.com/document/d/17SDgYPHPcrl1XX39EXhaQzk7M0zmANKdYIetpZ-WB5Y/edit?hl=en_US

Verse and Music:

Matthew 28:18 And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and upon earth." Kutless - Take Me In (Holy Of Holies) – http://www.metacafe.com/w/4716801/

bornagain77

rhampton7

If String theory as a whole fails, then so be it, but the theory itself is an attempt to bridge Quantum Physics with General Relativity not some nefarious attempt by atheists to convert people.

rhampton7, funny the only people I've heard repeatedly bring up this extremely extravagant metaphysics, which has not one Iota of substantiating evidence, is atheists trying to do a end run around the extreme fine-tuning of the universe (which as pointed out before, the 10^500 universes, 'falling out' of string theory, does not even come anywhere near close to dealing with the 1 in 10^10^123 fine tuning of the initial entropy of the universe). So go figure?!? Anyways, though atheists have no evidence for any of the 10^500 multiverse from string (M) theory, (or any other parallel universes for that matter), the Theist actually does have fairly strong empirical evidence that shows him that his overall Theistic view of reality is probably, in all likelihood, correct; notes: reflection on the quantum teleportation experiment: That a photon would actually be destroyed upon the teleportation (separation) of its 'infinite' information to another photon is a direct controlled violation of the first law of thermodynamics. (i.e. a photon 'disappeared' from the 'material' universe when the entire information content of a photon was 'transcendently displaced' from the material universe by the experiment, when photon “c” transcendently became transmitted photon “a”). Thus, Quantum teleportation is direct empirical validation for the primary tenet of the Law of Conservation of Information (i.e. 'transcendent' information cannot be created or destroyed). This conclusion is warranted because information exercises direct dominion of energy, telling energy exactly what to be and do in the experiment. Thus, this experiment provides a direct line of logic that transcendent information cannot be created or destroyed and, in information demonstrating transcendence, and dominion, of space-time and matter-energy, becomes the only known entity that can satisfactorily explain where all energy came from as far as the origination of the universe is concerned. That is transcendent information is the only known entity which can explain where all the energy came from in the Big Bang without leaving the bounds of empirical science as the postulated multiverse does. Clearly anything that exercises dominion of the fundamental entity of this physical universe, a photon of energy, as transcendent information does in teleportation, must of necessity possess the same, as well as greater, qualities as energy does possess in the first law of thermodynamics (i.e. Energy cannot be created or destroyed by any known material means according to the first law). To reiterate, since information exercises dominion of energy in quantum teleportation then all information that can exist, for all past, present and future events of energy, already must exist. Reflections on the 'infinite transcendent information' framework, as well as on the 'eternal' and 'temporal' frameworks: The weight of mass becomes infinite at the speed of light, thus mass will never go the speed of light. Yet, mass would disappear from our sight if it could go the speed of light, because, from our non-speed of light perspective, distance in direction of travel will shrink to zero for the mass going the speed of light. Whereas conversely, if mass could travel at the speed of light, its size will stay the same while all other frames of reference not traveling the speed of light will disappear from its sight.

Special Relativity - Time Dilation and Length Contraction - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSRIyDfo_mY

Moreover time, as we understand it, would come to a complete stop at the speed of light. To grasp the whole 'time coming to a complete stop at the speed of light' concept a little more easily, imagine moving away from the face of a clock at the speed of light. Would not the hands on the clock stay stationary as you moved away from the face of the clock at the speed of light? Moving away from the face of a clock at the speed of light happens to be the same 'thought experiment' that gave Einstein his breakthrough insight into e=mc2.

Albert Einstein - Special Relativity - Insight Into Eternity - 'thought experiment' video http://www.metacafe.com/w/6545941/

,,,Yet, even though light has this 'eternal' attribute in regards to our temporal framework of time, for us to hypothetically travel at the speed of light, in this universe, will still only get us to first base as far as the transcendence of quantum entanglement, or teleportation, is concerned.

Light and Quantum Entanglement Reflect Some Characteristics Of God - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4102182

That is to say, traveling at the speed of light will only get us to the place where time, as we understand it, comes to complete stop for light, i.e. gets us to the eternal, 'past and future folding into now', framework of time. This higher dimension, 'eternal', inference for the time framework of light is warranted because light is not 'frozen within time' yet it is shown that time, as we understand it, does not pass for light.

"I've just developed a new theory of eternity." Albert Einstein - The Einstein Factor - Reader's Digest "The laws of relativity have changed timeless existence from a theological claim to a physical reality. Light, you see, is outside of time, a fact of nature proven in thousands of experiments at hundreds of universities. I don’t pretend to know how tomorrow can exist simultaneously with today and yesterday. But at the speed of light they actually and rigorously do. Time does not pass." Richard Swenson - More Than Meets The Eye, Chpt. 12 Experimental confirmation of Time Dilation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_dilation#Experimental_confirmation

It is also very interesting to note that we have two very different qualities of ‘eternality of time’ revealed by our time dilation experiments;

Time Dilation - General and Special Relativity - Chuck Missler - video http://www.metacafe.com/w/7013215/ Time dilation Excerpt: Time dilation: special vs. general theories of relativity: In Albert Einstein's theories of relativity, time dilation in these two circumstances can be summarized: 1. --In special relativity (or, hypothetically far from all gravitational mass), clocks that are moving with respect to an inertial system of observation are measured to be running slower. (i.e. For any observer accelerating, hypothetically, to the speed of light, time, as we understand it, will come to a complete stop). 2.--In general relativity, clocks at lower potentials in a gravitational field—such as in closer proximity to a planet—are found to be running slower. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_dilation i.e. As with any observer accelerating to the speed of light, it is found that for any observer falling into the event horizon of a black hole, that time, as we understand it, will come to a complete stop for them. — But of particular interest to the ‘eternal framework’ found for General Relativity at black holes;… It is interesting to note that entropic decay (Randomness), which is the primary reason why things grow old and eventually die in this universe, is found to be greatest at black holes. Thus the ‘eternality of time’ at black holes can rightly be called ‘eternalities of decay and/or eternalities of destruction’. Entropy of the Universe - Hugh Ross - May 2010 Excerpt: Egan and Lineweaver found that supermassive black holes are the largest contributor to the observable universe’s entropy. They showed that these supermassive black holes contribute about 30 times more entropy than what the previous research teams estimated. http://www.reasons.org/entropy-universe Thermodynamics – 3.1 Entropy Excerpt: Entropy – A measure of the amount of randomness or disorder in a system. http://www.saskschools.ca/curr_content/chem30_05/1_energy/energy3_1.htm Roger Penrose – How Special Was The Big Bang? “But why was the big bang so precisely organized, whereas the big crunch (or the singularities in black holes) would be expected to be totally chaotic? It would appear that this question can be phrased in terms of the behaviour of the WEYL part of the space-time curvature at space-time singularities. What we appear to find is that there is a constraint WEYL = 0 (or something very like this) at initial space-time singularities-but not at final singularities-and this seems to be what confines the Creator’s choice to this very tiny region of phase space."

i.e. Black Holes are found to be ‘timeless’ singularities of destruction and disorder rather than singularities of creation and order such as the extreme order we see at the creation event of the Big Bang. Needless to say, the implications of this ‘eternality of destruction’ should be fairly disturbing for those of us who are of the ‘spiritually minded' persuasion!

Matthew 10:28 “Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. On the Mystery, and Plasticity, Of Space-Time https://docs.google.com/document/d/1FFKL3FeyebpNNyal1DQ64y20zlplVrjkaLXrM0P5ES4/edit?hl=en_US

bornagain77

The SuperString model (M theory) that Brian Greene was referring to yields membranes universes, the collisions of which are detectable in the leaking of energy. The other (previous) versions of String theory do not posit the existence of "branes". None the less, should observations fail to detect the correct energy leakage, M-theory would be falsified. In which case physicists/mathematicians would see if the theory could be reworked to explain the new data - as is often the case. For example, Einstein's use a cosmological constant was an attempt to make General Relativity agree with the prevailing notion of a steady state universe, and was later rejected to make his theory agree with Hubble's doppler shift observations. rhampton7

If String theory as a whole fails, then so be it, but the theory itself is an attempt to bridge Quantum Physics with General Relativity not some nefarious attempt by atheists to convert people. That's actually far from clear, especially given a quote like this from Bernard Carr: "If you don’t want God, you’d better have a multiverse." In truth there are probably various motivations at work in the multiverse hype, and it seems that its use as a weapon against certain types of religious belief certainly rank. Doubly so since just about everyone, including the proponents, admit that any multiverse will never be observable or testable in principle, and indirect evidence at best extremely remote and faded. And yet the desire is to change the rules of science to start including this level of metaphysical and philosophical speculation as science. At which point the most trumpeted reasons to argue ID is incompatible with science, vanish. nullasalus

bornagain77, If String theory as a whole fails, then so be it, but the theory itself is an attempt to bridge Quantum Physics with General Relativity not some nefarious attempt by atheists to convert people. The fact that various kinds of hypothetical multiverses arise from it was simply a byproduct of the math just as the predicition of black holes were a byproduct of Einstein's math. Lastly, please remember that Intelligent Design theory is agnostic on the existence of other universes. Their hypothetical existence does not explain the appearance of life on Earth nor does it disprove the existence of intelligent designer(s) outside our own. rhampton7

No, but the SuperString model that made the predicted would be falsified. Remember, multiverses (of which there are several categorical types) arise from predictions of current theories in Quantum Mechanics and the like. First: no, the model would not necessarily be falsified. Read what Greene is saying again. He's mentioning that, in the multitude of universes present in that string theory model, it's possible we're living a universe of that type. If a test is carried out and yields that result, well then, that means - assuming the string theory model - this lends credence to the claim 'we happen to live in a universe of this type. And if it doesn't yield that result, well... that would just mean, given string theory, that we live in one of the other universes the model allows for. The model isn't falsified by any result, nor is the multiverse. But absolutely, if this sort of thing qualifies as science, then ID is science, absolutely. nullasalus

And if there’s not a little less, multiverses are falsified, right?

No, but the SuperString model that made the predicted would be falsified. Remember, multiverses (of which there are several categorical types) arise from predictions of current theories in Quantum Mechanics and the like. An analogy: suppose that an experiment like Lenski's Long-term Experimental Evolution project sufficiently demonstrated one example of an irreducibly complex feature arising through a series of natural mutations. While that might upset a few ID proponents, Intelligent Design itself would not be falsified - after all, ID theory is inclusive of Darwinian evolution. For example, it's certainly plausible that one or more intelligent designers operate(d) in conjunction with evolution. Furthermore, such a hypothetical result would not explain the origin of cellular life. rhampton7

rh7,

This Week’s Hype - November 3, 2011 by Peter Woit (Ph.D. in theoretical physics and a lecturer in mathematics at Columbia) Excerpt: Now that the LHC has turned out to be dud, producing no black holes or extra dimensions, the latest news is that physicists are planning a new machine, “to follow in the footsteps of the Large Hadron Collider”. This one will be based on “A laser powerful enough to tear apart the fabric of space”, able to “rip a hole in spacetime”, and it will do this much more cheaply than the LHC ($1.6 billion). http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=4118 String Theory Fails Another Test, the “Supertest” Excerpt:It looks like string theory has failed the “supertest”. If you believe that string theory “predicts” low-energy supersymmetry, this is a serious failure. http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=3338

bornagain77

So if we measure the amount of energy just before the protons collide and compare it with the amount of energy just after they collide, if there’s a little less after — and it’s less in just the right way — it would indicate that some had flown off, indicating that this membrane picture is correct. And if there's not a little less, multiverses are falsified, right? Well, no. Then it's back to the drawing board to tweak the idea a bit, or to tweak another multiverse model. Because no observation of another multiverse is possible, and no data can falsify the concept. That's part of the reason Greene in that quote is talking about 'indicating', and why Ellis - writing his article in response to the book Greene was promoting in that quote - said what he did about the theories:

But probabilistic arguments only make sense if these parallel universes actually exist. And logic cannot prove their existence. For instance, a multiverse model may predict a likely value of the cosmological constant, but the reverse is not true. A particular measurement of the cosmological constant does not require a multiverse. Nor can the multiverse concept be disproved by any specific observationally determined value of the cosmological constant, for multiverses can accommodate any value. These arguments can only provide probabilistic consistency tests for some kinds of multiverse. So one can motivate multiverse hypotheses as plausible, but they are not observationally or experimentally testable — and never will be. It is easy to support your favourite model over others because no one can prove you wrong — you can simply adjust its parameters to fit the latest information.

nullasalus

A Physicist Explains Why Parallel Universes May Exist NPR, January 24, 2011 If we are living on one of these giant membranes, then the following can happen: When you slam particles together — which is what happens at the LHC — some debris from those collisions can be ejected off of our membrane and be ejected into the greater cosmos in which our membrane floats,” he says. “If that happens, that debris will take away some energy. So if we measure the amount of energy just before the protons collide and compare it with the amount of energy just after they collide, if there’s a little less after — and it’s less in just the right way — it would indicate that some had flown off, indicating that this membrane picture is correct.

rhampton7

If that is so, while my guess is that this idea of multiverses will indeed be shown to be false, I’m willing to back off on my criticism of this as an escape from the obvious. It can't be shown to be false, and that's part of the problem Ellis is referring to. Notice that Tegmark in that quote talks about 'weakening or strenghtening' cases, more than falsifying. This alludes to what Ellis says - you can have situations which make one particular multiverse model (of which they are a near unlimited number) more or less plausible. But the multiverse never gets falsified. You can perpetually tweak your theories, and forever find more space for multiverses. On the flipside, of multiverse speculation counts as science, it becomes far more easy to argue that intelligent design is science as well. nullasalus

I should quantify what I said above with one condition. That condition being that "the theories of cosmological inflation and unitary quantum mechanics" are true scientific theories as opposed to hypotheses. I'm not sure they quite make the theory grade - certainly not in the same way that Einstein’s theory of General Relativity does. So I'm not sure yet whether this argument applies here. tjguy

rhampton wrote: "Because Einstein’s theory of General Relativity has successfully predicted many things that we can observe, we also take seriously its predictions for things we cannot observe, e.g., that space continues inside black hole event horizons and that (contrary to early misconceptions) nothing funny happens right at the horizon." I'm not a fan of the multiverse idea because it seems to me just an attempt to escape from the obvious, but he seems to be saying it is more than that. If that is so, while my guess is that this idea of multiverses will indeed be shown to be false, I'm willing to back off on my criticism of this as an escape from the obvious. I'll leave it in the unverifiable column at this point. I hope like he seems to think that progress will be made on this in the future so that we can be more certain about whether this idea holds any merit. That was a helpful explanation for me. As Christians, we use the same type of reasoning when it comes to the Bible. There are certain things that we can verify because they have to do with this world. If those things check out then it is reasonable to have faith that the things we cannot check out are also trustworthy - ie heaven, God, angels, Satan, etc. That is why Christianity is not blind faith. But for now, while this multiverse theory remains unproven - if indeed it can ever really be proven 100% - those who hold this position exercise faith just as we Christians exercise faith in the unverifiable parts of the Bible. These parts will never be able to be verified until we die. Faith is a fact of life that all of us use on a daily basis. tjguy

as to this quote:

parallel universes are not a theory, but a prediction of certain theories.

If these certain theories may even be called theories: Notes:

'What is referred to as M-theory isn’t even a theory. It’s a collection of ideas, hopes, aspirations. It’s not even a theory and I think the book is a bit misleading in that respect. It gives you the impression that here is this new theory which is going to explain everything. It is nothing of the sort. It is not even a theory and certainly has no observational (evidence),,, I think the book suffers rather more strongly than many (other books). It’s not a uncommon thing in popular descriptions of science to latch onto some idea, particularly things to do with string theory, which have absolutely no support from observations.,,, They are very far from any kind of observational (testability). Yes, they (the ideas of M-theory) are hardly science." – Roger Penrose – former close colleague of Stephen Hawking – in critique of Hawking’s new book ‘The Grand Design’ the exact quote in the following video clip: Roger Penrose Debunks Stephen Hawking's New Book 'The Grand Design' - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/5278793/ Baron Münchhausen and the Self-Creating Universe: Roger Penrose has calculated that the entropy of the big bang itself, in order to give rise to the life-permitting universe we observe, must be fine-tuned to one part in e10exp(123)?10^10exp(123). Such complex specified conditions do not arise by chance, even in a string-theoretic multiverse with 10^500 different configurations of laws and constants, so an intelligent cause may be inferred. What is more, since it is the big bang itself that is fine-tuned to this degree, the intelligence that explains it as an effect must be logically prior to it and independent of it – in short, an immaterial intelligence that transcends matter, energy and space-time. (of note: 10^10^123 minus 10^500 is still, for all practical purposes, 10^10^123) http://www.evolutionnews.org/2007/06/baron_munchausen_and_the_selfc.html Not Even Wrong: The Failure of String Theory and the Search for Unity in Physical Law: Peter Woit, a PhD. in theoretical physics and a lecturer in mathematics at Columbia, points out—again and again—that string theory, despite its two decades of dominance, is just a hunch aspiring to be a theory. It hasn't predicted anything, as theories are required to do, and its practitioners have become so desperate, says Woit, that they're willing to redefine what doing science means in order to justify their labors. http://www.amazon.com/Not-Even-Wrong-Failure-Physical/dp/0465092756

As to the other parallel universe 'theory':

Quantum mechanics Excerpt: The Everett many-worlds interpretation, formulated in 1956, holds that all the possibilities described by quantum theory simultaneously occur in a multiverse composed of mostly independent parallel universes.[39] This is not accomplished by introducing some new axiom to quantum mechanics, but on the contrary by removing the axiom of the collapse of the wave packet: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_mechanics

It is important to note that the following experiment actually encoded information into a photon while it was in its 'infinite dimensional' quantum wave state, thus destroying the notion, held by the Everette Many World's hypothesis, that the wave function was not 'physically real' but was merely 'abstract'. i.e. How can information possibly be encoded into something that is not physically real but merely abstract?

Ultra-Dense Optical Storage - on One Photon Excerpt: Researchers at the University of Rochester have made an optics breakthrough that allows them to encode an entire image's worth of data into a photon, slow the image down for storage, and then retrieve the image intact. http://www.physorg.com/news88439430.html

further note: To clearly illustrate the stunning degree of fine-tuning we are dealing with in the universe, that spawned the desperate appeal to multiverses by the new-Atheists, Dr. Ross has used the illustration of adding or subtracting a single dime's worth of mass in the observable universe, during the Big Bang, would have been enough of a change in the mass density of the universe to make life impossible in this universe. This word picture he uses, with the dime, helps to demonstrate a number used to quantify that fine-tuning of mass for the universe, namely 1 part in 10^60 for mass density. Compared to the total mass of the observable universe, 1 part in 10^60 works out to about a tenth part of a dime, if not smaller.

Where Is the Cosmic Density Fine-Tuning? - Hugh Ross http://www.reasons.org/where-cosmic-density-fine-tuning

Actually 1 in 10 to the 60th for the fine-tuning of the mass density for the universe may be equal to just 1 grain of sand instead of a tenth of a dime! https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/intelligent-design/this-might-make-you-feel-rather-small/#comment-394591 Music and verse:

Mandisa - Waiting for Tomorrow - (lyrics) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ezrFxWjyZQ John 14:2 In my Father's house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you.

bornagain77

Excerpt from George Ellis, Nature Magazine 1/20/11, "The Untestable Multiverse"

Greene cites indirect evidence to support the multiverse idea. The values of the physical parameters seem to be fine-tuned to allow life. For example, if the strength of the cosmological constant — currently causing the accelerated expansionof the Universe — was much different, then galaxies would not exist and we would not be here to make measurements. Similarly, the strength of the strong nuclear force permits atoms, and hence humans, to exist. Such anthropic reasoning invokes multiverses where there is some likelihood that physical constants take on different values in each. But probabilistic arguments only make sense if these parallel universes actually exist. And logic cannot prove their existence. For instance, a multiverse model may predict a likely value of the cosmological constant, but the reverse is not true. A particular measurement of the cosmological constant does not require a multiverse. Nor can the multiverse concept be disproved by any specific observationally determined value of the cosmological constant, for multiverses can accommodate any value. These arguments can only provide probabilistic consistency tests for some kinds of multiverse. So one can motivate multiverse hypotheses as plausible, but they are not observationally or experimentally testable — and never will be. It is easy to support your favourite model over others because no one can prove you wrong — you can simply adjust its parameters to fit the latest information.

nullasalus

The Multiverse Hierarchy (2009 update) Max Tegmark ...the key point to remember is that parallel universes are not a theory, but a prediction of certain theories. For a theory to be falsifiable, we need not be able to observe and test all its predictions, merely at least one of them. Consider the following analogy: Theory > Prediction ----------------------------------------------------------- General Relativity > Black hole interiors Inflation > Level I parallel universes Unitary quantum mechanics > Level III parallel universes Because Einstein’s theory of General Relativity has successfully predicted many things that we can observe, we also take seriously its predictions for things we cannot observe, e.g., that space continues inside black hole event horizons and that (contrary to early misconceptions) nothing funny happens right at the horizon. Likewise, successful predictions of the theories of cosmological inflation and unitary quantum mechanics have made some scientists take more seriously their other predictions, including various types of parallel universes. ...There are ample future prospects for testing and perhaps ruling out these multiverse theories. In the coming decade, dramatically improved cosmologicalmeasurements of the microwave background radiation, the large scale matter distribution, etc., will test Level I by further constraining the curvature and topology of space and will test level II by providing stringent tests of inflation. Progress in both astrophysics and high-energy physics should also clarify the extent to which various physical constants are fine-tuned, thereby weakening or strengthening the case for Level II. If the current world-wide effort to build quantum computers succeeds, it will provide further evidence for Level III, since they would, in essence, be exploiting the parallelism of the Level III multiverse for parallel computation (Deutsch 1997). Conversely, experimental evidence of unitarity violation would rule out Level III. Finally, success or failure in the grand challenge of modern physics, unifying general relativity and quantum field theory, will shed more light on Level IV. Either we will eventually find a mathematical structure matching our universe, or we will bump up against a limit to the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics and have to abandon Level IV.

rhampton7