From John D. Norton:
(2018) Eternal Inflation: When Probabilities Fail. [Preprint]
In eternally inflating cosmology, infinitely many pocket universes are seeded. Attempts to show that universes like our observable universe are probable amongst them have failed, since no unique probability measure is recoverable. This lack of definite probabilities is taken to reveal a complete predictive failure. Inductive inference over the pocket universes, it would seem, is impossible. I argue that this conclusion of impossibility mistakes the nature of the problem. It confuses the case in which no inductive inference is possible, with another in which a weaker inductive logic applies. The alternative, applicable inductive logic is determined by background conditions and is the same, non-probabilistic logic as applies to an infinite lottery. This inductive logic does not preclude all predictions, but does affirm that predictions useful to deciding for or against eternal inflation are precluded. More.
Here’s the pdf (public access).
See also: Cosmic inflation theory loses hangups about the scientific method What if naturalism changes the role of a science program? Perhaps stubbornly contrary evidence merely shows the need for more drive and zeal in generating new naturalist theories, not more reflection and evaluation of that direction.
The paper concludes with:
I will freely admit that understanding the explanation between the introduction of the paper that was cited in this UD article and its conclusion is well beyond the capabilities of this amateur.
I have a few questions, though, for anyone who would be kind enough to answer them:
The paper begins with the assertion that “In eternally inflating cosmology, infinitely many pocket universes are seeded.”
There is no hard evidence that there are any other universes, of the “pocket” type or any other kind, right?
That which is available to science for observation is restricted to our Universe. So there cannot ever be hard evidence for the existence of other universes, right?
If time, space, matter and energy began with the Big Bang then the origin of the one Universe we can observe must remain a mystery to science, since science is restricted to observations of natural realities such as time, space, matter and energy. It can only speculate about the nature of the necessarily existing supernatural reality that brings natural realities into being.
For my purposes here, by “supernatural reality,” I only mean one that necessarily exists if the Big Bang theory is correct, and the notion of an eternally existing Universe in a “steady state” is incorrect. It is a supernatural reality in the sense that it is a reality to which the laws of physics as we know them do not apply, and must exist since rationality demands that we acknowledge that the Universe didn’t begin without a cause. I am not asserting here that this reality is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, only that its nature is beyond that which can be known by science, and that its existence cannot be rationally denied if the Big Bang theory is correct.
If space began with the Big Bang, where are other “pocket universes”?
If time itself began with the Big Bang, and since any event requires time to take place — a “before” the event, a change of some kind, and then the new state of things “after” the event — how did anything else ever happen in other universes without time?
If one answers that each of an infinity of universes has its own space and time, what exactly is it that separates these universes? Something supernatural and unknowable by science.
It seems to me that papers such as the one being discussed here create enormous, complex arguments that begin with premises that have no scientific foundation whatsoever.
So, the odds of another universe like our own existing is “the same as the chance of drawing an even number from a fair, infinite lottery.” Oh really? Anything and everything will eventually take place in an infinite lottery. What does that even mean?
I have worked for several huge companies in my life. I am reminded of meetings I attended throughout my career the subject matter of which was extremely technical, and the decisions made at them would have significant ramifications for the company I was working for at the time. There was often someone attending who had an agenda of his own who would spew forth official sounding acronyms nobody else was familiar with to intimidate them into agreeing with him. The perpetrator of such fraud was counting on them thinking to themselves “Gosh! I didn’t even know about the QRGP project, much less all that company learned from it about the X29 factor! I didn’t even know there was an X29 factor! I had better just go along with this guy!” There are people who are masters at using “expertise” as a weapon of intimidation until somebody calls their bluff. They are world class smoke-blowers with an agenda.
Is it my imagination or is some world class smoke-blowing going on with this article and others regarding the existence of other universes?
harry @ 1:
It reads to me like analytical philosophy, self referenced as “weaker inductive logic” with respect to probability. It’s basically banging on epistemological boundaries with a hammer and noting the sound.
It seems to be detailing why probability fails when dealing with the product universes of an inflationary superuniverse; that no probabilities can be supported empirically, but must be produced theoretically, or “their expression by probabilities will, in each case, require background conditions that specifically favor it”; and that such a superuniverse is unfalsifiable, or “The alternative, applicable inductive logic…does affirm that predictions useful to deciding for or against eternal inflation are precluded”.
It sounds to me like a technical confirmation for every fair skepticism held against such a model, though sufficiently wordy to be misreferenced in support of arguments it contradicts.
If there are an infinity of universes and every possible universe is represented then it follows that there’s an infinity of universes in which the decomposition of a corpse is reversed and the dead man is revivified.
Such a reversal is possible, just as it’s possible that all of the low energy molecules of water in a tub of warm water and all the high energy molecules could segregate themselves.
Since such a revivification must occur somewhere in the multiverse landscape, and an infinite number of times, there’s no reason to think that it didn’t occur in our world.
We can thank the multiverse theorists for providing us with an answer to Hume. Happy Easter.
The initial purpose of cosmological inflation was to try to explain why the universe is surprisingly flat and so smoothly distributed, or homogeneous.
Yet, Paul Steinhardt of Princeton University, who helped develop inflationary theory but is now scathing of it, states that the idea that inflationary theory produces any observable predictions at all,,, is based on a simplification of the theory that simply does not hold true.
“The deeper problem is that once inflation starts, it doesn’t end the way these simplistic calculations suggest,” he says. “Instead, due to quantum physics it leads to a multiverse where the universe breaks up into an infinite number of patches. The patches explore all conceivable properties as you go from patch to patch. So that means it doesn’t make any sense to say what inflation predicts, except to say it predicts everything.
Thus the theory that was suppose to explain why the universe is so flat and homogeneous, (i.e. round), doesn’t actually predict the universe to be flat and homogeneous, (i.e. round).
And as the old saying goes, a scientific theory that predicts everything predicts nothing at all.
Max Tegmark himself also admitted that inflation sabotages our ability to make useful predictions. In fact, he stated that because of inflation “we physicists are no longer able to predict anything at all!”
Bruce Gordon also has an excellent critique of the inflation model:
Moreover, the inflationary model is now contradicted by the latest Planck findings.
What is curious about these ‘anomalies’ (that cannot be explained by the ‘simple’ inflation model of materialists), is that these ‘anomalies’ in the Cosmic Background Radiation strangely line up with the earth and solar system.
At the 13:55 minute mark of this following video, Max Tegmark, an atheist, finally admits, post Planck 2013, that the CMBR anomalies do indeed line up with the earth and solar system
Moreover, it is important to note just how ‘flat’ the universe is.
The topology of the universe is now found to be the least likely of all topologies. Absolute flatness. John Gribbin commented that “Finding the Universe in a state of even approximate flatness today is even less likely than finding a perfectly sharpened pencil balancing on its point for millions of years,,, any deviation of the Universe from flatness in the Big Bang would have grown, and grown markedly, as the Universe expanded and aged.”
Moreover, by analyzing the tiny variations in the temperature of this background radiation researchers have now found that “These tiny temperature variations correspond to the largest scale structures of the observable universe. A region that was a fraction of a degree warmer become a vast galaxy cluster, hundreds of millions of light-years across.”
The researchers go on to state, “if the universe was curved in any way, these temperature variations would appear distorted compared to the actual size than we see these structures today.
But they’re not.
Our best scientific instruments can’t detect any distortion at all between the tiny temperature variations in the microwave background and the largest scale structures of the observable universe.
As well, the researchers go on to state that, the universe must have been flat to 1 part within 1×10^57 parts over its entire 13.8 billion years of expansion.,,, Which seems like an insane coincidence.
Thus, the Theist, with the 1 part within 1×10^57 parts finding for the flatness of the universe can claim another fairly incredible piece of evidence for the fine tuning of the universe.
As the following author commented,,, there are,,, no laws of physics that predict or restrict the topology of the universe to be flat.
Besides inflation theory’s abject failure to predict such an ‘insane coincidence’ of 1 part within 1×10^57 flatness for the universe over its entire history, (or to predict anything else that is useful for science), under Atheistic Naturalism there is no reason to presuppose that the constants of physics should remain constant in the first place. As the following astronomer commented, “There is absolutely no reason these constants should be constant,”
One final note, in inflation theory’s abject failure to explain why the universe is smooth and flat, or to ‘predict’ anything else about the universe that is useful for science, it is interesting to note that the Bible successfully predicted that the universe is flat and also happened to predict that it is round and/or homogeneous.
And here is a illustration of the Microwave Background where you can clearly see for yourself the ‘circle of the universe’
Thus, since lack of predictability is considered one of the primary failures of the inflationary model as a scientific theory, then why is not the success of the Theistic model in predicting the homogeneity, (i.e. roundness), and flatness of the universe not considered a stunning confirmation for Theism?
Perhaps for the same exact reason that atheistic astrophysicists have rejected the Big Bang as stunning confirmation for the Theistic prediction for the beginning of the universe. Such evidence simply does not fit into their a-priori atheistic worldview: