Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

Salvo: The war on falsifiability

Share
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Flipboard
Print
Email

My (O’Leary for News)’s new piece at Salvo:

Proving Grounded Multiverse Supporters Put the Brakes on Falsifiability

… today, some scientists want to throw falsifiability overboard. They hope by doing this to protect the concept of the multiverse. Put simply, there is currently no evidence for the existence of any universes other than our own, making the theory of the multiverse unfalsifiable. But if the proposal to dispense with falsifiability were accepted, that would be very convenient for naturalist atheists. They could then argue that any stream of events that occurs in our universe may well have occurred differently in any one of an infinite number of other universes. So no inferences (other than their own) could be drawn from a given state of affairs here in the only world for which we have information.

Thus, falsifiability was one of the ideas included in This Idea Must Die (2015), a recent book on scientific theories that are allegedly blocking progress. As cosmologist Sean Carroll cheerily explains in his essay in the book: More.

As I have noted elsewhere, a lot of today’s “cosmology” could have been thunk up by a mystic sitting on a prayer mat thousands of years ago.

See also: Why the multiverse has become more important than falsifiability.

and

Will there still be science in 2020?

Note: ” … falsifiability was one of the ideas included in This Idea Must Die (2015), a recent book on Scientific Theories That Are Blocking Progress.” It is blocking progress, if progress means a gradual retreat from the demands of evidence.

Barry Arrington writes to say:

You write, “Put simply, there is currently no evidence for the existence of any universes other than our own, making the theory of the multiverse unfalsifiable.”

That is not quite right. Absence of evidence for a proposition does not make it unfalsifiable. A proposition is unfalsifiable if, in principle, there can be no empirical test that would disprove it.

In other words, the multiverse is unfalsifiable because all scientific experiments are limited to testing phenomena in this universe. We cannot, in principle, test the proposition that another universe exists.

Good to get that straight.

Follow UD News at Twitter!

Comments
Continuity Origin: Latin continuus, from contin?re to hold together. (1673) Is there a continuity to life, existence, given the discontinuous events called the death of the physical body? If life, existence is physically discontinuous how is it the case we persist to compulsively search for the continuity of life, existence? E.g., life after death, the world to come, common ancestry, cladistics, fossil record, extraterrestrial intelligence, life on other planets, transmigration of aggregates, reincarnation. What is this continuity, this holding together, which is apparently populated by discontinuities? The discontinuities have not dissuaded us from wanting to convince there is ontological continuity ... have not dissuaded evolutionary thinkers nor supernatural believers. Philosophical naturalism (materialists) and theistic proponents (immaterialists) appear to share a belief in the fundamental continuity of existence. And a fundamental continuity to time. Otherwise, how could one make the case for the transformation of living organisms from simple to complex? How could one make the case for the life of the soul? If the continuities of existence and time are fundamental to materialism and immaterialism and both accept the discontinuous events called death, what is (are) the critical point(s) in thinking which severs materialism and immaterialism?redwave
June 16, 2015
June
06
Jun
16
16
2015
08:32 AM
8
08
32
AM
PDT
Mung
You either have life or you do not. You are either alive or you are dead.
"You are ... or you are ..." So there are three elements in that construction. You. Life. Death. In one case, You 'have life'. In the other case, You 'have death'. If "you are dead" then "you aren't". So, it might be more accurate to say "either you exist or you don't". If you're alive, you exist in that idea. So, "you" come into existence at some point, and then go out of existence with death. So, "you" would be identified with the physical body. But there's no evidence of where a self comes from or that it is a product of physicality. ... if we lost all ID enemies, now we can debate each other. :-)Silver Asiatic
June 16, 2015
June
06
Jun
16
16
2015
05:39 AM
5
05
39
AM
PDT
Mung:
There is no life after death.
There are documented cases of people who were dead that came back to life- life after deathVirgil Cain
June 16, 2015
June
06
Jun
16
16
2015
03:07 AM
3
03
07
AM
PDT
John 1:3-5 All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.bornagain77
June 15, 2015
June
06
Jun
15
15
2015
05:49 PM
5
05
49
PM
PDT
There is no life after death. You either have life or you do not. You are either alive or you are dead.Mung
June 15, 2015
June
06
Jun
15
15
2015
04:54 PM
4
04
54
PM
PDT
of related interest: Is there Life After Death ? - Scientific Research Facts - Jeffrey Long MD. - video (May 2015) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HhOZLN_9FM Is there life after death ? Near Death Experience Researcher Dr. Jeffery Long shares his expertise after studying over 4000 NDE's through his website: http://www.nderf.org 07:40 - Negative Near Death Experiences 11:09 - On Love 14:14 - New abilities after an NDE 33:40 - What we look like on the other side 34:22 - Dr.Long How has researching NDE's affected your life? 40:12 - Special information brought from the other-side 41:12 - Why do people return & our purpose 42:55 - A typical ending scenario of an NDE why some come back 45:01 - Shown future events of their choice if they don't return. 50:00 - Who are the beings people see? 51:08 - Time in the afterlife 55:07 - Do people reincarnate when they cross over? 59:33 - After effects of a Near-Death Experience 1:03:15 - What happens when you commit suicide? 1:06:48 - Description of the 1% of NDE's that are hellish. 1:08:14 - Does everyone get a choice to stay or return? 1:14:46 - After Death Communications 1:20:04 - Do animals have Near-Death experiences? 1:21:17 - Do people have more that one NDE 1:22:52 - Are NDE's just hallucinations of a dying brain?bornagain77
June 15, 2015
June
06
Jun
15
15
2015
04:44 PM
4
04
44
PM
PDT
Classical and Quantum Information Channels in Protein Chain - Dj. Koruga, A. Tomi?, Z. Ratkaj, L. Matija - 2006 Abstract: Investigation of the properties of peptide plane in protein chain from both classical and quantum approach is presented. We calculated interatomic force constants for peptide plane and hydrogen bonds between peptide planes in protein chain. On the basis of force constants, displacements of each atom in peptide plane, and time of action we found that the value of the peptide plane action is close to the Planck constant. This indicates that peptide plane from the energy viewpoint possesses synergetic classical/quantum properties. Consideration of peptide planes in protein chain from information viewpoint also shows that protein chain possesses classical and quantum properties. So, it appears that protein chain behaves as a triple dual system: (1) structural - amino acids and peptide planes, (2) energy - classical and quantum state, and (3) information - classical and quantum coding. Based on experimental facts of protein chain, we proposed from the structure-energy-information viewpoint its synergetic code system. http://www.scientific.net/MSF.518.491 Coherent Intrachain energy migration at room temperature – Elisabetta Collini and Gregory Scholes – University of Toronto – Science, 323, (2009), pp. 369-73 Excerpt: The authors conducted an experiment to observe quantum coherence dynamics in relation to energy transfer. The experiment, conducted at room temperature, examined chain conformations, such as those found in the proteins of living cells. Neighbouring molecules along the backbone of a protein chain were seen to have coherent energy transfer. Where this happens quantum decoherence (the underlying tendency to loss of coherence due to interaction with the environment) is able to be resisted, and the evolution of the system remains entangled as a single quantum state. http://www.scimednet.org/quantum-coherence-living-cells-and-protein/ Physicists Discover Quantum Law of Protein Folding – February 22, 2011 Quantum mechanics finally explains why protein folding depends on temperature in such a strange way. Excerpt: First, a little background on protein folding. Proteins are long chains of amino acids that become biologically active only when they fold into specific, highly complex shapes. The puzzle is how proteins do this so quickly when they have so many possible configurations to choose from. To put this in perspective, a relatively small protein of only 100 amino acids can take some 10^100 different configurations. If it tried these shapes at the rate of 100 billion a second, it would take longer than the age of the universe to find the correct one. Just how these molecules do the job in nanoseconds, nobody knows.,,, Their astonishing result is that this quantum transition model fits the folding curves of 15 different proteins and even explains the difference in folding and unfolding rates of the same proteins. That’s a significant breakthrough. Luo and Lo’s equations amount to the first universal laws of protein folding. That’s the equivalent in biology to something like the thermodynamic laws in physics. http://www.technologyreview.com/view/423087/physicists-discover-quantum-law-of-protein/
And here is the evidence that quantum information is in fact ‘conserved’ (i.e. cannot be destroyed);,,,
Quantum no-hiding theorem experimentally confirmed for first time Excerpt: In the classical world, information can be copied and deleted at will. In the quantum world, however, the conservation of quantum information means that information cannot be created nor destroyed. This concept stems from two fundamental theorems of quantum mechanics: the no-cloning theorem and the no-deleting theorem. A third and related theorem, called the no-hiding theorem, addresses information loss in the quantum world. According to the no-hiding theorem, if information is missing from one system (which may happen when the system interacts with the environment), then the information is simply residing somewhere else in the Universe; in other words, the missing information cannot be hidden in the correlations between a system and its environment. http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-03-quantum-no-hiding-theorem-experimentally.html Quantum no-deleting theorem Excerpt: A stronger version of the no-cloning theorem and the no-deleting theorem provide permanence to quantum information. To create a copy one must import the information from some part of the universe and to delete a state one needs to export it to another part of the universe where it will continue to exist. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_no-deleting_theorem#Consequence
Besides providing direct empirical falsification of neo-Darwinian claims as to the generation of information from a material basis, the implication of finding ‘non-local’, beyond space and time, and ‘conserved’ quantum information in molecular biology, on such a massive scale, is fairly, and pleasantly, obvious:
Quantum Entangled Consciousness – Life After Death – Stuart Hameroff – video http://vimeo.com/39982578 Does Quantum Biology Support A Quantum Soul? – Stuart Hameroff – video (notes in description) http://vimeo.com/29895068
Verse and Music:
Luke 23:43 Jesus answered him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.” Third Day – Tunnel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7V5t9ECZXo
Of supplemental note: Regardless of how much energy we pour into a particle of matter, we can never ‘push’ the particle of matter to the higher dimension of the speed of light:
Question: If a particle with rest-mass were to, in theory, travel at the speed of light, would its mass actually be infinite, or just very, very, very, large, just like it would supposedly take an infinite amount of energy to accelerate the particle to the speed of light in the first place? How can you calculate this? Answer 4: A particle with non-zero rest-mass cannot be accelerated to the speed of light. Put in other terms, the energy of a moving particle with rest-mass m equals E=(r-1)mc2, where the factor r=1/sqrt(1-(v/c)2), with v the speed of the particle and c the speed of light. You can use this formula in an Excel sheet to try different values of rest-mass m and speed v. This equation tells you that you need an infinite amount of energy to accelerate a particle to (exactly) the speed of light, however, you can always take it to, say 99.99999% the speed of light with a finite (but huge) amount of energy. http://scienceline.ucsb.edu/getkey.php?key=1571 “By special relativity, the energy needed to accelerate a particle (with mass) grow super-quadratically when the speed is close to c, and is infinite when it is c. Since you can’t supply infinite energy to the particle, it is not possible to get (a particle with mass) to 100% c.”
bornagain77
June 15, 2015
June
06
Jun
15
15
2015
03:59 PM
3
03
59
PM
PDT
And here is testimony from Near Death Experiencers experiencing the ‘tunnel’ attribute of special relativity:
“Very often as they’re moving through the tunnel, there’s a very bright mystical light … not like a light we’re used to in our earthly lives. People call this mystical light, brilliant like a million times a million suns…” - Jeffrey Long M.D. – has studied NDE’s extensively “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 – video https://vimeo.com/79072924 Life After Life – Raymond Moody – Near Death Experience – The Tunnel, The Light, The Life Review – video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z56u4wMxNlg
Vicky Noratuk's, who is physically blind, ‘tunnel’ testimony is interesting to look at because her testimony also includes testimony of her being ‘a body of energy, or of light’:
“I was in a body, and the only way that I can describe it was a body of energy, or of light. And this body had a form. It had a head, it had arms and it had legs. And it was like it was made out of light. And it was everything that was me. All of my memories, my consciousness, everything.”,,, “And then this vehicle formed itself around me. Vehicle is the only thing, or tube, or something, but it was a mode of transportation that’s for sure! And it formed around me. And there was no one in it with me. I was in it alone. But I knew there were other people ahead of me and behind me. What they were doing I don’t know, but there were people ahead of me and people behind me, but I was alone in my particular conveyance. And I could see out of it. And it went at a tremendously, horrifically, rapid rate of speed. But it wasn’t unpleasant. It was beautiful in fact. I was reclining in this thing, I wasn’t sitting straight up, but I wasn’t lying down either. I was sitting back. And it was just so fast. I can’t even begin to tell you where it went or whatever it was just fast!” – Vicki’s NDE – Blind since birth – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e65KhcCS5-Y
But do we have scientific evidence that humans can be ”a body of energy, or of light’? The answer to that question is, surprisingly, yes! Yes, we do now have scientific evidence that humans can be ‘beings of light’:
Are humans really beings of light? Excerpt: “We now know, today, that man is essentially a being of light.”,,, “There are about 100,000 chemical reactions happening in every cell each second. The chemical reaction can only happen if the molecule which is reacting is excited by a photon… Once the photon has excited a reaction it returns to the field and is available for more reactions… We are swimming in an ocean of light.” http://viewzone2.com/dna.html The Real Bioinformatics Revolution – Proteins and Nucleic Acids ‘Singing’ to One Another? Excerpt: the molecules send out specific frequencies of electromagnetic waves which not only enable them to ‘see’ and ‘hear’ each other, as both photon and phonon modes exist for electromagnetic waves, but also to influence each other at a distance and become ineluctably drawn to each other if vibrating out of phase (in a complementary way).,,, More than 1 000 proteins from over 30 functional groups have been analysed. Remarkably, the results showed that proteins with the same biological function share a single frequency peak while there is no significant peak in common for proteins with different functions; furthermore the characteristic peak frequency differs for different biological functions. ,,, The same results were obtained when regulatory DNA sequences were analysed. http://www.i-sis.org.uk/TheRealBioinformaticsRevolution.php
You can see an actual picture of humans emitting the weak ‘biophotonic’ light here:
Strange! Humans Glow in Visible Light – Charles Q. Choi – July 22, 2009 Schematic illustration of experimental setup that found the human body, especially the face, emits visible light in small quantities that vary during the day. B is one of the test subjects. The other images show the weak emissions of visible light during totally dark conditions. The chart corresponds to the images and shows how the emissions varied during the day. The last image (I) is an infrared image of the subject showing heat emissions. http://i.livescience.com/images/i/000/006/481/original/090722-body-glow-02.jpg?1296086873
Moreover, this light coming from the human body is found to a emitted by a quantum process, it is not emitted by a classical process:
Photocount distribution of photons emitted from three sites of a human body – 2006 Excerpt: Signals from three representative sites of low, intermediate and high intensities are selected for further analysis. Fluctuations in these signals are measured by the probabilities of detecting different numbers of photons in a bin. The probabilities have non-classical features and are well described by the signal in a quantum squeezed state of photons. Measurements with bins of three sizes yield same values of three parameters of the squeezed state. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16520060
Thus Vicky Noratuk’s testimony that she was ”a body of energy, or of light’ during her NDE finds strong support from our present scientific evidence for biophotonics in our material bodies. Moreover, besides the finding of massive biophotonic communication within, and emission from, our material bodies, it is now found that transcendent, and ‘conserved’, (cannot be created or destroyed), ‘non-local’, (beyond space-time matter-energy), quantum entanglement/information, which is not reducible to matter-energy space-time, is now found in our material bodies on a massive scale (in every DNA and protein molecule).
Quantum entanglement holds together life’s blueprint – 2010 Excerpt: When the researchers analysed the DNA without its helical structure, they found that the electron clouds were not entangled. But when they incorporated DNA’s helical structure into the model, they saw that the electron clouds of each base pair became entangled with those of its neighbours. “If you didn’t have entanglement, then DNA would have a simple flat structure, and you would never get the twist that seems to be important to the functioning of DNA,” says team member Vlatko Vedral of the University of Oxford. http://neshealthblog.wordpress.com/2010/09/15/quantum-entanglement-holds-together-lifes-blueprint/ Quantum Information/Entanglement In DNA – short video https://vimeo.com/92405752
bornagain77
June 15, 2015
June
06
Jun
15
15
2015
03:58 PM
3
03
58
PM
PDT
In regards to the untestable multiverse conjectures of atheists, it is interesting to note that we have far more empirical evidence for higher, 'heavenly', dimensions above this one than we have evidence for the imaginary multiverses of atheists. Higher Dimensional Special Relativity, Near Death Experiences, Biophotons, and the Quantum Soul One of the more fascinating branches of Near Death Studies have been the studies of people who were born blind who have had NDE’s, who could see for the first time in their life during their NDE. This simply has no explanation within the materialistic framework, whereas, in the theistic framework, this is expected:
Blind Woman Can See During Near Death Experience (NDE) - Pim von Lommel - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKyQJDZuMHE Kenneth Ring and Sharon Cooper (1997) conducted a study of 31 blind people, many of who reported vision during their Near Death Experiences (NDEs). 21 of these people had had an NDE while the remaining 10 had had an out-of-body experience (OBE), but no NDE. It was found that in the NDE sample, about half had been blind from birth. (of note: This 'anomaly' is also found for deaf people who can hear sound during their Near Death Experiences(NDEs).) http://www.newdualism.org/nde-papers/Ring/Ring-Journal%20of%20Near-Death%20Studies_1997-16-101-147-1.pdf
The reason why blind people can see during Near Death Experiences, and not while they are in their material bodies, is related to the reason why we cannot see higher dimensions while our souls are embodied within our material bodies, and yet people having NDEs can see higher dimensions during their NDEs. Simply put, higher dimensions are invisible to our ’3-Dimensional’ sight, but are not invisible to our 'spiritual sight'. This following video gets this ‘we are blind to higher dimensions’ point across quite clearly:
Dr. Quantum in Flatland – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5yxZ5I-zsE&feature=player_detailpage#t=25
of note: The preceding video is the lead off video on the outreach page of Dr. Anton Zeilinger’s quantum group in Vienna: https://vcq.quantum.at/outreach/multimedia/videos.html Some people may think we have no empirical evidence for higher dimensions above this one. They would be wrong in that presupposition. In fact, we have far more evidence for a higher dimension(s) above this one than we have for the infinite universes that are postulated by materialists to try to get around the theistic implications of fine-tuning for this universe. In Theism, particularly Christian Theism, it is held there are two ultimate destinies for our eternal souls. Heaven or Hell. And in physics we find two very different higher dimensional ‘eternities’ just as Theism has held for millennia. An orderly eternity associated with Special Relativity and a destructive eternity associated with General Relativity. In this post I will focus on the orderly eternity associated with Special Relativity. One higher dimensional eternity in physics is found ‘if’ a hypothetical observer were to accelerate to the speed of light. In this scenario, time, as we understand it, would come to a complete stop for the hypothetical observer. 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 https://vimeo.com/93101738 “I’ve just developed a new theory of eternity.” Albert Einstein – The Einstein Factor – Reader’s Digest – 2005
Some may think that time, as we understand it, coming to a complete stop at the speed of light is pure science fiction, but, as incredible as it sounds, Einstein’s famous thought experiment has many lines of evidence now supporting it.
Velocity time dilation tests http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_dilation#Velocity_time_dilation_tests “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
This following confirmation of time dilation is my favorite since they have actually caught time dilation on film: (of note: light travels approximately 1 foot in a nanosecond (billionth of a second) whilst the camera used in the experiment takes a trillion pictures a second):
Amazing — light filmed at 1,000,000,000,000 Frames/Second! – video (so fast that at 9:00 Minute mark of video you can briefly see the time dilation effect of relativity caught on film!) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_9vd4HWlVA
This higher dimension, ‘eternal’, inference for the time framework of light is also warranted, by logic, because light is not ‘frozen within time’, i.e. light appears to move to us in our temporal framework of time, yet it is shown that time, as we understand it, does not pass for light. The only way this is possible is if light is indeed of a higher dimensional value of time than our temporal time is otherwise it would simply be ‘frozen in time’. Another line of evidence that supports the inference that ‘tomorrow can exist simultaneously with today and yesterday’, at the ‘eternal’ speed of light, is visualizing what would happen if a hypothetical observer were to approach the speed of light. Please note, at the 3:22 minute mark of the following video, when the 3-Dimensional world ‘folds and collapses’ into a tunnel shape as a ‘hypothetical’ observer moves towards the ‘higher dimension’ of the speed of light, (Of note: This following video was made by two Australian University Physics Professors with a supercomputer.).
Approaching The Speed Of Light – Optical Effects – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQnHTKZBTI4
Moreover, we have eyewitness testimonies from Near Death Experiences testifying to these ‘higher dimensional attributes’ that are witnessed in Special Relativity. Specifically, we have testimony for both the ‘eternal’ attribute and the ‘tunnel’ attribute of Special Relativity. Here is testimony from Near Death Experiencers experiencing the ‘eternal’ attribute of special relativity:
‘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 ‘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.’ In The Presence Of Almighty God – The NDE of Mickey Robinson – video https://vimeo.com/92172680
bornagain77
June 15, 2015
June
06
Jun
15
15
2015
03:56 PM
3
03
56
PM
PDT
It is interesting to note that the multiverse hypothesis was not born out of any empirical observation but was born out of the atheist's reaction to the design inference from fine-tuning.
But Who Needs Reality-Based Thinking Anyway? Not the New Cosmologists - Denyse O'Leary - January 2, 2014 Excerpt: "Multiverse theory is designed for one purpose, and one purpose only, and that is to defend atheism. It makes no predictions, it gives no insight, it provides no control, it produces no technology, it advances no mathematics, it is a science in name only, because it is really metaphysics." Dr. Robert B. Sheldon - "These multiverse theories all share the same fundamental defect: They can be neither confirmed nor falsified. Hence, they don't deserve to be called scientific, according to the well-known criterion proposed by the philosopher Karl Popper. Some defenders of multiverses and strings mock skeptics who raise the issue of falsification as "Popperazi" -- which is cute but not a counterargument. Multiverse theories aren't theories -- they're science fictions, theologies, works of the imagination unconstrained by evidence." http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/01/but_who_needs_r080281.html
Basically the argument from atheists against fine-tuning goes something like this.
"We should not be surprised that we find ourselves in a universe that is fine-tuned for life because there could be an infinite number of universes with different parameters that are not fine-tuned and we just happen to live in a universe where we got lucky."
Lucky us! Unfortunately for atheists this argument fails on several levels. One failure, in such a scenario, the multiverse generator itself will need to be fine tuned. Thus the atheist's desperate appeal to multiverses, to escape the the inference to intelligent design from fine tuning, just kicks the problem of fine-tuning up a level:
"A second reason for rejecting the atheistic many-universe hypothesis is that the "many-universes generator" seems like it would need to be designed. For instance, in all current worked-out proposals for what this "universe generator" could be--such as the oscillating big bang and the vacuum fluctuation models explained above--the "generator" itself is governed by a complex set of physical laws that allow it to produce the universes. It stands to reason, therefore, that if these laws were slightly different the generator probably would not be able to produce any universes that could sustain life. After all, even my bread machine has to be made just right in order to work properly, and it only produces loaves of bread, not universes! Or consider a device as simple as a mouse trap: it requires that all the parts, such as the spring and hammer, be arranged just right in order to function. It is doubtful, therefore, whether the atheistic many-universe theory can entirely eliminate the problem of design the atheist faces; rather, at least to some extent, it seems simply to move the problem of design up one level. Third Reason: A third reason for rejecting the atheistic many-universes hypothesis is that the universe generator must not only select the parameters of physics at random, but must actually randomly create or select the very laws of physics themselves. This makes this hypothesis seem even more far-fetched since it is difficult to see what possible physical mechanism could select or create laws." - Robin Collins http://home.messiah.edu/~rcollins/Fine-tuning/FINETLAY.HTM "How about chance? Did we just get really, really, really, really lucky? No. The probabilities involved are so ridiculously remote as to put the fine-tuning well beyond the reach of chance. So, in an effort to keep this option alive, some have gone beyond empirical science and opted for a more speculative approach known as the multiverse. They imagine a universe generator that cranks out such a vast number of universes that, odds are, life-permitting universes will eventually pop out. However, there's no scientific evidence for the existence of this multiverse. It cannot be detected, observed, measured, or proved. And the universe generator, itself, would require an enormous amount of fine-tuning! Furthermore, small patches of order are far more probable than big ones. So the most probable, observable universe would be a small one, inhabited by a single, simple observer (Boltzmann brain). But what we actually observe is the very thing we should least expect: a vast, spectacularly complex, highly ordered universe, inhabited by billions of other observers." - William Lane Craig - Excerpted Transcript: Fine Tuning Argument - Video http://www.reasonablefaith.org/transcript-fine-tuning-argument
Another failure in the multiverse scenario of atheist's is that it predicts everything and therefore predicts nothing:
The Absurdity of Inflation, String Theory and The Multiverse - Dr. Bruce Gordon - video http://vimeo.com/34468027
Last powerpoint of the preceding video states:
The End Of Materialism? - Dr. Bruce Gordon * In the multiverse, anything can happen for no reason at all. * In other words, the materialist is forced to believe in random miracles as a explanatory principle. * In a Theistic universe, nothing happens without a reason. Miracles are therefore intelligently directed deviations from divinely maintained regularities, and are thus expressions of rational purpose. * Scientific materialism is (therefore) epistemically self defeating: it makes scientific rationality impossible. =========== A Matter of Considerable Gravity: On the Purported Detection of Gravitational Waves and Cosmic Inflation - Bruce Gordon - April 4, 2014 Excerpt: Thirdly, at least two paradoxes result from the inflationary multiverse proposal that suggest our place in such a multiverse must be very special: the "Boltzmann Brain Paradox" and the "Youngness Paradox." In brief, if the inflationary mechanism is autonomously operative in a way that generates a multiverse, then with probability indistinguishable from one (i.e., virtual necessity) the typical observer in such a multiverse is an evanescent thermal fluctuation with memories of a past that never existed (a Boltzmann brain) rather than an observer of the sort we take ourselves to be. Alternatively, by a second measure, post-inflationary universes should overwhelmingly have just been formed, which means that our existence in an old universe like our own has a probability that is effectively zero (i.e., it's nigh impossible). So if our universe existed as part of such a multiverse, it would not be at all typical, but rather infinitely improbable (fine-tuned) with respect to its age and compatibility with stable life-forms. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/04/a_matter_of_con084001.html
In fact one of the originator's of inflation theory now rejects inflation theory because he realized it predicts everything and therefore predicts nothing:
Cosmic inflation is dead, long live cosmic inflation - 25 September 2014 Excerpt: (Inflation) theory, the most widely held of cosmological ideas about the growth of our universe after the big bang, explains a number of mysteries, including why the universe is surprisingly flat and so smoothly distributed, or homogeneous.,,, Paul Steinhardt of Princeton University, who helped develop inflationary theory but is now scathing of it, says this is potentially a blow for the theory, but that it pales in significance with inflation's other problems. Meet the multiverse Steinhardt says the idea that inflationary theory produces any observable predictions at all – even those potentially tested by BICEP2 – 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. If it's physically possible, then it happens in the multiverse someplace Steinhardt says the point of inflation was to explain a remarkably simple universe. "So the last thing in the world you should be doing is introducing a multiverse of possibilities to explain such a simple thing," he says. "I think it's telling us in the clearest possible terms that we should be able to understand this and when we understand it it's going to come in a model that is extremely simple and compelling. And we thought inflation was it – but it isn't." http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn26272-cosmic-inflation-is-dead-long-live-cosmic-inflation.html?page=1#.VCajrGl0y00 Why I Still Doubt Inflation, in Spite of Gravitational Wave Findings By John Horgan - March 17, 2014 Excerpt: Indeed, inflation, like string theory, has always suffered from what is sometimes called the “Alice’s Restaurant Problem.” Like the diner eulogized in the iconic Arlo Guthrie song, inflation comes in so many different versions that it can give you “anything you want.” In other words, it cannot be falsified, and so–like psychoanalysis, Marxism and other overly flexible hypotheses (mmm Darwinism?)–it is not really a scientific theory. http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/2014/03/17/why-i-still-doubt-inflation-in-spite-of-gravity-wave-findings/
bornagain77
June 15, 2015
June
06
Jun
15
15
2015
02:26 PM
2
02
26
PM
PDT
groovamos@6: You’re asking the same question as daveS @ 1, to which asauber gave a satisfactory reply wrt the OP’s wording AND the idea. Further, there’s no way to observe/test something outside of our own universe. Other universes (i.e. the multiverse) are outside of our own universe. Why is this a difficult concept to grasp? Even if you say that maybe there could be some evidence within our universe that suggests other universes exist (e.g. “imprint” in the CMB), the other universes cannot be observed and the multiverse could never become more than an unfalsifiable theory.Rob
June 15, 2015
June
06
Jun
15
15
2015
11:26 AM
11
11
26
AM
PDT
If we could "examine" other universes, then those universes would necessarily be part of our universe. In other words, anything that can be observed, no matter how weird or how distant, is included by the term "universe." If there is such a thing as a true other universe, it must necessarily remain inaccessible to us. If it's accessible to us in any way, then it's just another part of our universe.Laszlo
June 15, 2015
June
06
Jun
15
15
2015
10:24 AM
10
10
24
AM
PDT
OP: Put simply, there is currently no evidence for the existence of any universes other than our own, making the theory of the multiverse unfalsifiable. How does the first phrase of the sentence (between the two commas) lead to the second? I'm thinking, to put it simply, when something is put too simply, it might be problematical.groovamos
June 15, 2015
June
06
Jun
15
15
2015
10:23 AM
10
10
23
AM
PDT
This seems relevant:
The National Academy of Sciences has objected that intelligent design is not falsifiable, and I think that’s just the opposite of the truth. Intelligent design is very open to falsification. I claim, for example, that the bacterial flagellum could not be produced by natural selection; it needed to be deliberately intelligently designed. Well, all a scientist has to do to prove me wrong is to take a bacterium without a flagellum, or knock out the genes for the flagellum in a bacterium, go into his lab and grow that bug for a long time and see if it produces anything resembling a flagellum. If that happened, intelligent design, as I understand it, would be knocked out of the water. I certainly don’t expect it to happen, but it’s easily falsified by a series of such experiments. Now let’s turn that around and ask, How do we falsify the contention that natural selection produced the bacterial flagellum? If that same scientist went into the lab and knocked out the bacterial flagellum genes, grew the bacterium for a long time, and nothing much happened, well, he’d say maybe we didn’t start with the right bacterium, maybe we didn’t wait long enough, maybe we need a bigger population, and it would be very much more difficult to falsify the Darwinian hypothesis. I think the very opposite is true. I think intelligent design is easily testable, easily falsifiable, although it has not been falsified, and Darwinism is very resistant to being falsified. They can always claim something was not right.- Dr Behe
Virgil Cain
June 15, 2015
June
06
Jun
15
15
2015
10:11 AM
10
10
11
AM
PDT
"But that’s not what the OP states. The sentence I quoted says that the theory of the multiverse is unfalsiable because there is currently no evidence for it. It doesn’t say anything about whether we could ever examine other universes." daveS, I can see where you might nit-pick his phraseology, but that's all it would be. I think the idea he was trying to convey is unarguable. Andrewasauber
June 15, 2015
June
06
Jun
15
15
2015
09:28 AM
9
09
28
AM
PDT
Hi asauber,
“There is currently no evidence for the existence of $1,000,000,000 cash in my garage” Bad Analogy. Assuming for arguments sake that you actually have a garage, you can examine the garage. You can’t examine anything extra-the-only-known-universal. Andrew
But that's not what the OP states. The sentence I quoted says that the theory of the multiverse is unfalsiable because there is currently no evidence for it. It doesn't say anything about whether we could ever examine other universes.daveS
June 15, 2015
June
06
Jun
15
15
2015
09:03 AM
9
09
03
AM
PDT
"There is currently no evidence for the existence of $1,000,000,000 cash in my garage" Bad Analogy. Assuming for arguments sake that you actually have a garage, you can examine the garage. You can't examine anything extra-the-only-known-universal. Andrewasauber
June 15, 2015
June
06
Jun
15
15
2015
08:39 AM
8
08
39
AM
PDT
Put simply, there is currently no evidence for the existence of any universes other than our own, making the theory of the multiverse unfalsifiable.
Eh? That's not quite right, is it? There is currently no evidence for the existence of $1,000,000,000 cash in my garage (unfortunately), but that's certainly not an unfalsifiable proposition.daveS
June 15, 2015
June
06
Jun
15
15
2015
06:30 AM
6
06
30
AM
PDT

Leave a Reply