Theoretical Physicist On the Implausibility of the Multiverse

_{Barry Arrington

April 19, 2016

Intelligent Design, Multiverse, Physics}

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Barbara Drossell is a professor of theoretical physics at the University of Darmstadt in Germany. In this article she talks about the origin of the universe, the fine tuning argument and the implausibility of the multiverse theory.

The fine-tuning argument is not proof. It is not science to conclude that God exists because the Universe appears to be finely tuned. But it’s a very convincing philosophical interpretation of the observation of fine-tuning. . . . If you start with the assumption that there is no God, then matter and natural laws are the ultimate reality. Therefore, it is not unnatural to conclude that there is a multiverse. It is always dangerous to attribute motives to other people, but I think some people are using it as an alternative to the God narrative. I cannot completely rule out the existence of the multiverse but I just don’t think that it is plausible. And I see no reason why we should assume it exists.

HT: 0812681

Comments

Querius @ 22
...It’s neither observable nor falsifiable!” Currently popular metaphysical explanations attribute the big bang to a “quantum fluctuation.” However to have something “fluctate,” you need time to exist (without time, nothing changes). You also need a place for it to appear—space (think of the appearance of virtual particles). So tell me how time got started?
After effects of multiverse collision, energy signature of one universe leaving another are ways to detect multiverse. Nature doesn't have 'time'-there is only Arrow of time, which is nothing but entropy. Entropy comes in as soon as particles are created. Fluctuation in Quantum field happens about their zero point energy- there is no need for concept of time to exist for fluctuation. Coming to Space, whatever was there before universe (Nothing, void) was the substrate for quantum fields.Me_Think_{April 21, 2016
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@JDH I am sorry and a bit disappointed at your compliance to what a 'world view' of what a multi-verse should stand for. If you were to hold the truth in one hand and the multitude of speculations and opinions in another...the truth would prevail... given time. Why give up on owning and directing the narrative of a multiverse so easily? You are limiting God by your blindness. I am not bound by your perception that a multi-verse is God limiting... for example: imagine a factory that can produce every imaginable item and more.... what power and reverence would you therefor belay to that 'Factory'.... this is nothing more that a shade of the Watch Maker. Sure there will be many that doubt (in this case you) but I'm not swayed by the attempts to distract from the truth. If I can somehow show you a path to understanding that it is possible ...and assuming a multi-verse is one of those possibilities without conceding that the concept of God might not exist in one of them then maybe you would be willing to change your narrative on it...and then others too.Trumper_{April 21, 2016
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Querius, "Of course. But the belief in the possibility of multiple universes doesn’t conform to the constraints of scientific investigation. It’s neither observable nor falsifiable!" So you don't believe in God? are you trying to make a belief in God only plausible if God is "observable" or "falsifiable"? "fluctuate"? you mean like expansion and contraction and expansion...etc.... -Well I would think that entropy would negate that idea. I don't quite agree with your point "without time, nothing changes" Time is a man-made concept. True or false? Current time (our concept and tracking of) did not exist until the moment of the Big Bang. True of course. Under our concept of time, if time freezes we freeze....but that is only a portion of the view...what about God. Surely you don't believe that God must also be bound by time also? I certainly do not. As the author of time I would think that God easily transcends the fabric of the time concept (as the creator)...."For a thousand years are ...... like a day" Psalm 90:4 "So tell me how time got started?" -I would love to but you should already know this. Who winds the intricate watch of our knowable existence?Trumper_{April 21, 2016
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Trumper,
Have you not even considered all that God is capable of? Why limit God? The ” I am who [I] am”..capable of anything and all things all at once.
Of course. But the belief in the possibility of multiple universes doesn't conform to the constraints of scientific investigation. It's neither observable nor falsifiable! Currently popular metaphysical explanations attribute the big bang to a "quantum fluctuation." However to have something "fluctate," you need time to exist (without time, nothing changes). You also need a place for it to appear---space (think of the appearance of virtual particles). So tell me how time got started? -QQuerius_{April 21, 2016
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@Trumper Please don't play games. The proposal of the multiverse is not about are there two, three, five... Be honest about the motivation for the multiverse theory. Brian Greene is.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bf7BXwVeyWw Check out about 6:16. The multiverse is NOT a speculation that people find interesting. It is a deliberate dodge to avoid the fact of fine-tuning and to continue to doubt God. God is not going to judge anyone for being naive. He is going to judge people for their willing ignorance. I invite you to stop believing in wild speculations which you can not possibly know. Consider the evidence - and come believe in God. Your life will improve.JDH_{April 20, 2016
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@Querius in 16.... Have you not even considered all that God is capable of? Why limit God? The " I am who am"..capable of anything and all things all at once.Trumper_{April 20, 2016
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@JDH post 10- Not so much believe in a Multiverse but understand it's possibility. Unlike the Theoretical Scientists I don't assume that it does not exist. it makes more sense to make an allowance for it's possibility. 1- How many universes have a Trumper? -Impossible to say. If taken to the extreme then there could be many Trumpers in many different states (theoretically speaking)...and many more w/o a Trumper. If however a multiverse is just two (one flipped dimension) then there would only be two Trumpers, as a counter to the opposite position. 2. Unknowable/provable...could be one to many given the current scientific hypothesis on multi-verse. 3. If proven true, then this would be one of those....right? (just one though). "The fact that you can not give an adequate answer to that question should make you see that the multiverse, although a possibility, is not a very satisfying argument." -Funny that you would presume an answer before even hearing a response to it...this points to a pre-contrived notion / answer... this is a slight flaw in your reasoning...and yes I get the counter point. Nobody is trying to get around any 'fine-tuning'. I actually fully agree to the fine-Tuning view. I also disagree with your opinion that any other 'verse' would not require free will...after all a choice would of had to have been made...to this you can't disagree. A multi-verse does not presuppose a bound and determined path....rather it would show an alternate outcomes to choices not taken in an alter verse. "Not a very satisfying intellectual position" Yet it is a position that exists regardless of your sanctification or lack thereof. Instead of "by chance" I would like to believe it out of necessity. Do you really thing the Big Bang was by chance?Trumper_{April 20, 2016
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How about if one starts with the "assumption" that things exist? How about considering whether or not one could read a post or write a post if one did not exist? So we have: If nothing ever was, there would still be nothing. But there is something. So nothing never was. There is an eternal creator being we call God. This isn't science it's just good philosophy and it's not just a philosophical interpretation of the fine-tuning observation. Should one wish to quibble with the conclusion, since the argument is valid, one can argue with either premise. That things exist or that I could write this or you could read this if we didn't exist. Good luck with that. It is necessarily true that an eternal Being exist.tgpeeler_{April 20, 2016
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The German Physicist gave a good article, but why would she allow a website like Darkmoon have her on there? Did anybody look at the racist, anti semitic and revisionist conspiracy nonsense on there? There was one article about a holocaust denier wanting to shoot and kill illegal aliens. They halfway acted like they agreed with the nut. Protocols Of Zion article? Wow. If they had me in an article like that interview (I don't know that she approved or knew where it was going to be published) on a site like that I would demand they take me the heck off of there, but that's just me. Looks more like a Nazi Positive christian site. Hitler's positive christianity was everything but Christian.jimmontg_{April 20, 2016
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As you're all pointing out, either purposely or inadvertently, the multiverse is not science. It cannot be falsified any more than Thor or the Easter bunny. And we haven't even begun to explore the physics in the hypothesized additional *dimensions* that coexist in our own universe, where undetectable probabilities can run rampant---or from where all random events in our dimensions might be controlled! Additional dimensions can be the refuge of all gods, demons, angels, ghosts, and monsters. They can host deterministic mechanisms for the origin of life. I will call this the Glut of Dimensions(tm) hypothesis. Whenever a scientific difficulty that challenges our understanding occurs, we rely on the Glut of Dimensions to account for it. Of course, with the Glut of Dimensions (tm) hypothesis, we no longer need GoD, right? Oh, look. Here's a universe with three space dimensions, two time dimensions, a luck dimension, and a mass dimension. Cool! The multiverse obviates all rational inquiry since all possible outcomes, all possible physical laws, all non-euclidean geometries, and all systems of logic are distributed among them, so we simply can assign luck as the the ultimate reality. "Why did this hydrolyze? Luck. In some other universe spawned by the choices available, it didn't." You might also notice the philosophical parallel between the multiverse hypothesis to the many-worlds interpretation (MWI) in quantum mechanics conjured by Schroedinger and Everett to avoid wavefunction collapse due to observation. -QQuerius_{April 20, 2016
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Truth Will Set You Free @ 13
“why wouldn’t…” questioning/reasoning is exactly the sort of irrational thinking that Barbara Dorssell is trying to stop. You are making the very common atheist mistake of cutting the branch you are sitting on. Bad atheist!
Why would I care about what some random Prof in a German institute and a member of Christians in Science thinks ?Me_Think_{April 20, 2016
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groovamos @ 12,
As far as I know there are only two, Allah and the creator God everyone else believes in.....
Well, then you know very little. Just one religion- Hinduism - has hundreds of God!Me_Think_{April 20, 2016
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Great points, JDH. Me_Think @ 11, your "why wouldn't..." questioning/reasoning is exactly the sort of irrational thinking that Barbara Dorssell is trying to stop. You are making the very common atheist mistake of cutting the branch you are sitting on. Bad atheist!Truth Will Set You Free_{April 20, 2016
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Me_Think: For all we know, hundreds of Gods of other religions might have created their own universes. As far as I know there are only two, Allah and the creator God everyone else believes in, except for the people too bright, you know smarter than the rest of us, who say it's better that they believe in their own absolute and inevitable obliteration god.groovamos_{April 20, 2016
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JDH @ 10,
I would much rather believe that fine-tuning is the evidence for His existence planted for people like you and me that enjoy science. Otherwise, what you are conceding is that you really did not “reason” at all to get to the conclusion of the multiverse, it was just by chance.
Why wouldn't God create multiverse? What proof do you have that He didn't create a multiverse? For all we know, hundreds of Gods of other religions might have created their own universes.Me_Think_{April 20, 2016
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@Trumper - So, Trumper you believe in the multiverse. You propose that fine-tuning demands not just a few universes, but billions upon billions of universes. 3. Questions: 1. How many of those universes have a Trumper in them? 2. In how many of those universes which contain a Trumper, does Trumper believe in God and not believe in the multiiverse. 3. Why is this not one of those? The fact that you can not give an adequate answer to that question should make you see that the multiverse, although a possibility, is not a very satisfying argument. To get around fine-tuning you "reason" to a multiverse, but problem is that denial of God's ability to grant free will to his creatures, and substitution of a multiverse makes it possible that you might as well be in a universe where you "reason" to God. After all, it must be possible in the multiverse that there exists some percentage of universes in which Trumper believes in God. Not a very satisfying intellectual position. I would much rather believe that fine-tuning is the evidence for His existence planted for people like you and me that enjoy science. Otherwise, what you are conceding is that you really did not "reason" at all to get to the conclusion of the multiverse, it was just by chance.JDH_{April 20, 2016
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BA, sorry bout trying to simplify this position in my mind but not so much in text. Couple points that should help. (keeping in mind that while your comment about our only known universe is empirically accessible is nearly the case, there is much that we cannot see of it): -Do you believe that there was a time where a few believed that we existed in a 'cluster' of planetary 'systems' if you will. A yet unnamed galaxy. No other 'galaxies' were know yet...our vision was just not there yet. empirically speaking. - Only by testing for something empirically can we know that it is true? Hmmm (scientifically speaking of course ) how does that work for black hole theories about their interiors? There are extra dimensions that we can never observe, let alone test...and we accept them as an assumption. My whole point being is that as a theoretical science champion, why close the door on that....I've never been to a black hole...can't test what goes on inside (nobody can of course)..yet I still believe that we can formulate assumptions. Better science may later lead us to abandon those assumptions or build upon them. Just as better science lead us to map our galaxies beyond a helio-centric one. Thanks for keeping me better focused BA....I admit I was a bit sloppy in that first postTrumper_{April 19, 2016
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If any scientific explanation was ever pulled straight out of Alice in Wonderland, the multiverse is that 'scientific' explanation. Fine Tuning, Pink Unicorns, and The Triune God – video https://www.facebook.com/philip.cunningham.73/videos/vb.100000088262100/1145151962164402/?type=2&theaterbornagain77_{April 19, 2016
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Exactly Barry. The Andromeda Galaxy can be seen with the naked eye. That's evidence a Neanderthal could have looked at. And while Christian theology was comfortable with the heavens stretching out - it has only recently been scientifically verified (1990's). And And scientists now realize this stretching puts parts of the Universe forever out of observational reach, let alone a multiverse that would lie beyond. And And And don't get me started of the incredible implausible fine tuning required for that stretching that was also scientifically verified.ppolish_{April 19, 2016
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Trumper, "I think I rather nailed it by using her own words" Actually, what you wrote demonstrated that you did not understand her words. "Now, substitute 'Milky Way galaxy' for “Matrix'" No, Trumper. You still don't get it. The hypothesis "we live in the Milky Way Galaxy" is scientific because it is falsifiable. In other words, in principle the hypothesis could be tested and found to be empirically false. Now contrast that with "we are in the Matrix" or "the multiverse exists." Neither of these statements can be falsified. We cannot test for the Matrix because any test we conducted would be part of the Matrix. We cannot test for the existence of any universe beyond the one in which we live, because the universe in which we live is, by definition, the only universe empirically accessible to us. You seem to be laboring under the error that the multiverse is like the Milky Way before the concept of galaxies was understood. No, before the existence of other galaxies was understood, they were nevertheless out there waiting for us to perform scientific tests to confirm or falsify their existence. They were always accessible to us empirically even before we understood they were accessible to us empirically. In contrast, even if the multiverse were true, there is no way for us to ever know that it true because we cannot test empirically for it.Barry Arrington_{April 19, 2016
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Thanks BA - but I think I rather nailed it by using her own words. And forgive my cynicism at the end there... I actually believe that it is possible it could exist...(er multiverse that is). I highly doubt that 'it' would mean the end of science. If, as you stated, causality is at the core of science... it would not stop there....as that still begs further searching. I get your point though about her...outside of the assuming part: "Certainly, there is no compelling reason to assume we live in the Matrix." Now, substitute " Milky Way galaxy" for "Matrix" and you might see where I was coming from....as we had no concept of modern physics until recently, we had no concept of the galaxies..until we did, and we refined them...still refining.Trumper_{April 19, 2016
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Trumper, You seem to be having a hard time parsing her statement. Let me help you out. I cannot rule out that we are all in the Matrix. But while I cannot rule it out, it does not seem to be plausible to me. Certainly, an unfalsifiable, semi-religious speculation such as the Matrix is not helpful from a scientific perspective. Taken to an extreme, the Matrix hypothesis could explain everything, and therefore nothing. It could mean the end of science, because it would undermine the search for causality that is at the core of the scientific enterprise. Certainly, there is no compelling reason to assume we live in the Matrix. Now, substitute "multiverse" for "Matrix" and you will understand what she is saying.Barry Arrington_{April 19, 2016
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So...if one "cannot completely rule out the existence of the multiverse"...then one should therefore see no reason that it exists....hmmmmm. I find it hard to believe a theoretical scientist actually said this. After all, it was not that long ago that we learned about other galaxies. Lots of unknown "stuff" out there....and even more unknowable. Thank God it does not exist.Trumper_{April 19, 2016
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Poor Darwinists. Must be difficult to watch their beloved multiverse theory continue its slow fade into irrelevancy. It was always just a silly notion anyway, a desperate appeal to some magical "quantum foam." It will be fun to see what their next pipe dream is.Truth Will Set You Free_{April 19, 2016
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Multiverse Denialism. The final refuge for The flat earthers.Mung_{April 19, 2016
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