Guy who really, really wants to believe in the multiverse:
At the moment, there are too many ifs and maybes in this story.
Observations do not uniquely favour inflation though the BICEP2 results are an impressive step in this direction. It is a matter of some debate whether inflation naturally generates a multiverse.
Further, many multiverse theories struggle to predict anything, so clearly there is much much more to be done.
But positing the multiverse is not, as claimed by some, the end of science. It may be the start of the biggest scientific adventure of all.
Of course the multiverse would not be the end of science if all you mean is what people can be forced to pay for and call “science.” It is merely the end of reason, evidence, and fact.
For more, go to The Science Fictions series at your fingertips (cosmology).
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That great paragon of American philosophy, Don Meredith once said:
If ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’ were candy and nuts, we’d all be having a merry Christmas.”
@News
Of course the multiverse would not be the end of science if all you mean is what people can be forced to pay for and call “science.” It is merely the end of reason, evidence, and fact.
Eh, it’s only such if the multiverse is past eternal, which would essentially mean that the sum totality of reality is just a brute fact ultimately inexplicable in its existence and would give Nihilism the greatest boost it’s ever seen.
OT: Einstein – General Relativity – Thought Experiment – video
https://vimeo.com/95417559
“Guy who really, really wants to believe in the multiverse”.
False.
@lukebarnes
If the multiverse is past eternal, what do you think of the implications for Nihilism?
Multiverse theories are conjectured by atheists every time there is a Theistic implication that atheists want to ‘explain away’. Scratch on the surface of any multiverse scenario and you will find a random infinity that was conjectured in the imagination of some atheist so as to avoid any inference to God!
For instance, in Tegmark’s ‘LEVEL I MULTIVERSE’ we find that direct observational evidence is immediately cast to the side,,
Yet no matter how reasonable it may seem to Tegmark to infer that parallel universes exist outside our ability to directly observe them, (i.e. outside the Cosmic Background Radiation), he simply is not justified, scientifically, 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. It is certainly a point of evidence that I am willing to say ‘well the reason we observe as such is because there are a quasi-infinity of other unobservable universes where the observation/value could have been very different’.
As an aside to the interactive graph I cited: Just as it makes no sense, from a space-time perspective, to ask, ‘What was “before” the Big Bang?’ since there was no space-time 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:
Moreover, as Tegmark himself grudgingly admits, these inflationary models lead to the epistemological failure of science itself:
(*actually the ‘incorrect assumption’ that needs to be retired is the materialistic/naturalistic philosophy which leads to the epistemological failure of science: also see A.Plantinga ‘evolutionary argument against naturalism’)
Moreover, the fine-tuning, particularly of light, regardless of what Tegmark may prefer to believe, certainly does not point to ‘random’ processes creating this universe:
Moreover, in the recent debate between Craig and Carrol, whilst Carrol was busy using the atheist’s infamous ‘nothing to see here’ argument to ‘explain away’ the fine tuning of the universe,,
Whilst Carrol was busy with all that, at the same forum/debate, Collins quietly delivered the this following paper which, unlike the ‘anything goes’ multiverse, demonstrated the predictive power of Intelligent Design for science:
Thus, whilst multiverse conjectures lead to the epistemological failure of science, presupposing intelligent design in science is a fruitful heuristic in science and has led to a successful prediction in science.
etc.. etc.. etc…
correction: It is certainly NOT a point of evidence that I am willing to say ‘well the reason we observe as such is because there are a quasi-infinity of other unobservable universes where the observation/value could have been very different’.
@Bornagain
“Multiverse theories are conjectured by atheists every time there is a Theistic implication that atheists want to ‘explain away’. Scratch on the surface of any multiverse scenario and you will find a random infinity that was conjectured in the imagination of some atheist so as to avoid any inference to God!”
Tone down the rhetoric, okay?
Also, why do folks think that, if the level-1 multiverse exists, that it’s spatially infinite? Wouldn’t it be more correct and less jumping to conclusions to merely say that the universe is larger than the observable universe? I mean, considering that space is expanding, how does it even make sense for the universe to be infinite? Isn’t infinity really just the limits of how far space can expand, even though it will never reach it since it didn’t start of infinite?
Tone down the rhetoric, okay?
First, I don’t consider it rhetoric, but an observation of fact
i.e.
fine-tuning = infinite multiverses
wave collapse to conscious observer = many worlds
etc.. etc..
second, I was not saying it in a mean spirited way to any particular person, but to those who may hold their atheism near and dear, so there is nothing to ‘tone down’.
Thus, as much as I appreciate some of your insights, I would appreciate it if you would stop trying to be my censor.
@bornagain
Explain to me the thing about Lot’s wife.
The current price of tea in China is: 1.40
with a max bid of … 70.67
disclaimer: not to be confused with a butterfly’s wings flapping in China. This price is scientifically derived from numbers only tangentially related to the actual price of tea in China, which we have found is profoundly more accurate than actual prices paid for tea in China. How this affects you, your child, or an acquaintance is derived, again, scientifically, by a patent-pending method we’d love to discuss, but can’t, at this time
http://supertart.com/priceofteainchina/index.php
Price of Tea in China – graph
http://supertart.com/priceofte.....aChart.png