The Multiverse Hypothesis: Philosophy or Science?
“Forget science fiction. If you want to
hear some really crazy ideas about the universe, just listen to our leading
theoretical physicists. Wish you could travel back in time? You can,
according to some interpretations of quantum mechanics. Could there be an
infinite number of parallel worlds? Nobel Prize-winning physicist Steven
Weinberg considers this a real possibility. [He and many other]
cosmologists speculate that we live in a 'multiverse,' with big bangs
exploding all over the cosmos, each creating its own bubble universe with
its own laws of physics. And lucky for us, our bubble turned out to be [anthropic,
or] life-friendly... “
--Steve Paulson, Salon.com (July 3, 2007)
Why does such a theory exist? Because of the
unavoidably obvious implications of a combination of originally two, but now
three, scientific discoveries. First, the theoretical postulation, and
dozens of subsequent observational confirmations, of the Hot Big Bang, which
requires a universe that a) had a beginning (which, btw, flew in the
face of centuries of common western belief, both pre- and post-Christian)
and therefore, since matter and energy cannot and do not create themselves,
b) the Hot Big Band also required a Beginner (Kalam cosmological
argument).
The second discovery, a few decades later, was of
heretofore unimaginable levels of anthropicity (i.e. the fine tuning of, at
least, hundreds of different laws of physics and states of matter and energy
required for advanced life to exist). These enormously high degrees of
essential-for-life fine tuning in the universe are defined in numerical
terms literally to hundreds of powers of 10 (i.e. “variance to one
part in X”). These numbers are so large they are, even by the most
conservative and skeptical estimates, several dozen powers of ten greater
than the number of atoms in the entire known universe.
The third “discovery” is related to the second, but it
appears not merely in the inanimate universe, but also in the animate (i.e.
in biological systems). Listen to what is now beginning to appear even in
the peer reviewed biological literature:
The crucial question, then, is how was
the minimal complexity attained that is required to achieve the threshold
replication fidelity. [In other words, how did the first living organism on
Earth]... attain the minimal complexity required for [self replication], a
system OF A FAR GREATER COMPLEXITY [than the organism itself?]... How such
a system could evolve, is a puzzle that defeats conventional evolutionary
thinking. [Additionally, how could any biological reproductive system
evolve when all such systems depend for their functionality upon the
PRE-existence of proteins PRODUCED by the systems themselves]... since there
is no obvious selective advantage to the evolution of any parts of this
elaborate (even in its most primitive form) molecular machine[?]
--Eugene
Koonin, National Center for Biotechnology Information, National Library
of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20894, USA
Koonin then proposes a multiverse as a secular “god of
the biogenesis gap” to fill the empirical void left by the dearth of
observational evidence. One of Koonin' peers who reviewed his article had
this to say about Koonin's thesis:
"Koonin bravely tries to tackle such a deep
conceptual issue, using metaphysics where, according to him, science does
not seem to work, but I am afraid his present (and arguable) solution,
although fairly underlining one of the limits of traditional evolutionary
thinking, could open a huge door to the tenants of intelligent design."
--Eric Bapteste, Université Pierre et
Marie Curie
So what exactly is a “multiverse?”
Max Tegmark of MIT created a conceptual multiverse
outline which provides a theoretical framework around which research has
embarked. He organizes all multiverse models into four different levels,
with higher-numbered levels being progressively more speculative than
lower-numbered levels.
Level I: There exist regions, beyond
our observable universe but similar in size, which exhibit the same laws of
physics but start with different initial conditions.
Level II: There exist other bubble
universes that obey the same equations of physics but with different
fundamental constants, particles, and dimensionality. The uniformity we see
in our universe (the cosmic microwave background radiation being the best
example) strongly argues for this point. The issue then becomes how large
the actual universe is. William Lane Craig argues(1)
that actual infinities of the type invoked by the multiverse hypothesis
cannot physically exist. Additionally, scientists typically regard
infinities as a sign that they have entered a region where their theories
are no longer valid.
Level III: This level corresponds to
the “many-worlds interpretation” of quantum mechanics put
forth by Hugh Everett.
Level IV: This level posits that any
mathematically coherent structure defines a physical reality.
No Level V can exist because Level IV encompasses all possibilities.
So do the multiverse models eliminate the
beginning that began their postulations?
First, the term “known” universe is where our journey
into the fantastic dream world of the “multiverse” begins because no
observable evidence either exists now, or likely ever will exist, to
either verify or falsify its existence. We cannot now, or probably ever,
empirically observe anything in any other theoretical universe. While this
is fine for some who call themselves “scientists,” it is also why I ask the
question, is the multiverse hypothesis actually science or is it instead
only philosophy? When did science drop its reliance on observational
evidence, verifiability and falsifiability? The answer, I think, is
obvious: when empirical science began to reveal profoundly difficult
challenges to methodological and theoretical naturalism. As I see
it, the question here isn't really a dichotomy between science and
philosophy, but between science and faith – faith in naturalism
rather than faith in God.
“The multiverse theory is increasingly
popular, but it doesn’t so much explain the laws of physics as dodge the
whole issue. There has to be a physical mechanism to make all those
universes and bestow bylaws on them. This process will require its own laws,
or meta-laws. Where do they come from? The problem has simply been shifted
up a level from the laws of the universe to the meta-laws of the
multiverse...
Clearly, then, both religion and
science are founded on faith — namely, on belief in the existence of
something outside the universe, like an unexplained God...”
--Paul Davies; Director of the Beyond
research center, Arizona State University and the author of “Cosmic
Jackpot: Why Our Universe Is Just Right for Life.”
A couple of decades ago a theorem developed by Arvind
Borde, Alan Guth, and Alex Vilenkin demonstrated that all inflating spaces
must have a beginning(2). The multiverse hypothesis,
though, argues that creation existed prior to the big bang. Yet because of
Borde, et al, we know that all viable multiverse models still require
a beginning. In fact, one of the consequences of multiverse research has
made the case for an absolute beginning to all universes even more
air tight than Big Bang cosmology does by itself.
“In spite of the fact that we call it the Big Bang
Theory it really says absolutely nothing about the Big Bang. It doesn't tell
us what banged, why it banged, what caused it to bang. It doesn't even
describe, doesn't really allow us to predict what the conditions are
immediately after this bang.”
--Alan Guth,
http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2001/parallelunitrans.shtml
More on the
multiverse in future Rocket Science Ministries “Mars Hill” meetings?
References
1.
http://muse.jhu.edu/login?uri=/journals/canadian_journal_of_philosophy/v036/36.4craig.html
2. http://prola.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v90/i15/e151301
Appendix of Multiverse Articles below...
|
Of Black Holes and Multiverses
By Regis Nicoll
2/2/2007
http://www.breakpoint.org/listingarticle.asp?ID=5936
Attempting
to Make the Impossible, Possible
“We can
dismiss it as happenstance. We can acclaim it as providence, or we
can conjecture that our universe is a specially favored domain in a
still vaster universe.” (Sir Martin Rees, royal astronomer, United
Kingdom)
For some
time now, scientists have known that our life-friendly cosmos
depends on the delicate balancing of a host of universal constants:
Newton’s gravitational constant, the mass and charge of the
electron, and the strengths of the weak and strong nuclear forces,
just to name a few. If the value for any one of these constants was
slightly different, questions about the universe couldn’t be
asked—intelligence, and biological life itself, would have never
come about. And that makes scientists edgy because conditions that
depend on coincidence and fine-turning suggest something of a
“set-up” job. Take the late Sir Fred Hoyle, for example.
Hoyle, a
mathematician and astronomer, confessed that his atheism was shaken
by research into the carbon atom. After realizing that the energy
levels of carbon were precisely those required for carbon-based
life, Hoyle remarked, “A common sense interpretation of the facts
suggests a superintellect has monkeyed with the physics.”
Regrettably,
such common sense was insufficient to turn Hoyle away from
naturalism. Faced with our “against-all-odds” existence, Hoyle,
along DNA co-discoverer Francis Crick, came up with a theory
rivaling anything imagined by H.G. Wells or Gene Roddenberry: Refuse
from an extraterrestrial civilization containing the seeds of life
were distributed throughout the cosmos on the “wings” of comets.
(I’m not making this stuff up.) Of course, how those super seeds and
their master producers came into existence is left to anyone’s
imagination.
While
Hoyle’s panspermia is a fringe scientific theory, there is
another that has gained a growing following over the last couple of
decades. According to astronomer Sir Martin Rees, if the universe
is not a cosmic accident or product of design, then it is a part of
something much bigger—a place where anything (and everything) is
possible. That would be a supercosmos called the “multiverse,” in
which our delicately tweaked universe is inevitable. That’s right.
There’s not one, but an infinite number of universes, ensuring that
the intricate network of coincidences necessary for life will be
actualized in one of them.
As to where
all these universes come from—well, there are some interesting
theories about that.
MANY-WORLDS
As early as 1957, Princeton’s Hugh Everett III proposed the
“many-worlds” theory. “Many-worlds” starts with a controversial
interpretation of quantum theory in which sub-atomic particles are
thought to continuously split into separate quantum states. Everett
imagined that each split created a parallel universe in which
particles exist as mirror images of themselves. As a result, every
possible state of a particle is realized, somewhere!
Problems
with this theory are many, including where all of these parallel
universes exist and how an entire universe can be created by an
infinitesimal change in a particle’s state. But the real show
stopper is the endless stream of universes created by every object
in the cosmos at every moment in time. Theorist David Lindley speaks
for many: “When you think about how many of these parallel universes
you have to provide, the whole idea begins to seem cumbersome, to
say the least.” Then you’ve got
Marcus Chown, cosmology consultant for New Scientist,
taking “many-worlds” to its logical conclusion, saying in a recent
interview: “Elvis didn’t die on that loo eating a burger but is
still alive in an infinite number of places.”
Nevertheless, many-worlds finds appeal with those having a
transcendental view of reality. For them, alternate states of
existence and parallel universes follow naturally from belief in
mind-creating omnipotence. For rank-and-file scientists, though,
somewhat less mystical models are being embraced.
CHAOTIC
INFLATION
In 1981 Stanford cosmologist André Linde reasoned that the universe
could have been created by an “inflationary” phenomenon. Through a
set of mathematical gyrations, Linde showed that a sudden
fluctuation in a sub-atomic vacuum could become a “bubble” of
intense energy ballooning into a whole universe. While Linde’s
inflation showed how a universe could be generated, it did not
explain how a single bubble could lead to a world meticulously
configured for life.
But what,
Linde mused, if the initial “bubble” quickly disintegrated into a
constellation of bubbles, much like the fizz created after opening a
bottle of soda? And what if inflation is a continuing process?
(Anyone counting the number of “ifs” here?) Then, Linde concluded,
an infinite number of bubbles would be created leading to an
unending variety of universes . . . and we just happen to live in
the one that makes our existence possible. (How fortunate for us!)
Despite its
highly contingent nature, Linde’s “chaotic inflation” (as it’s been
called) resonates with many in the scientific community.
Notwithstanding, the lack of empirical support relegates his
theory—even under the most liberal scientific standards—to little
more than hopeful speculation. As a result, some disquieted
investigators have turned elsewhere: to those mysterious objects
called black holes.
COSMIC
CANNIBALS
Black holes, it is conjectured, are insatiable cannibals gobbling up
everything in their cosmic neighborhood. Stephen Hawking is among
those who have proposed that black holes are birthing centers for
Star Trek phenomena like wormholes, time-tunnels, and multiple
universes.
Early in the
life cycle of a star, the heat released from nuclear reactions in
its interior produces an outward pressure that balances the inward
gravitational pull of the stellar mass. As the star ages and its
nuclear reactions diminish, gravity takes over, upsetting this fine
balance, and stellar collapse begins. Eventually gravitational
attraction becomes so intense that any object (including light)
entering its “event horizon” becomes helplessly lost in its fearsome
grip. It is at that point a black hole is created.
But what
actually happens inside the dark gourmand? While no one knows for
sure, it is thought that deep in its recesses, a black hole becomes
increasingly violent until it causes a rip in spacetime—a cervical
opening, if you will, for its “digested” contents to burst out into
a baby universe of its own.
For all its
charm and appeal, “black hole creation” has a major problem. Unlike
chaotic inflation in which matter disappears over the microscopic
time scales allowed by quantum uncertainty, in “black hole creation”
matter disappears over macroscopic time scales, thus violating the
law of conservation. And that has plagued researchers for over three
decades.
Nonetheless,
Stephen Hawking was so confident in the theory that he made a bet
with a fellow physicist in 1997 that black hole creation would be
proven right. Then, in 2004, Hawking made a startling announcement.
A
DRAMATIC REVERSAL
Speaking at an international conference in Dublin Ireland, Hawking
said that he was wrong about his thirty-year assertion that material
entering a black hole leaves our universe.
Reversing
his previous position,
Hawking conceded that black holes are not cosmic birthing
centers, nor mystical portals to some parallel universe—theories
that gained currency through his best-selling book
A Brief History of Time and his later book,
Black Holes and Baby Universes and Other Essays.
Dr. Hawking
said his new calculations debunk what he and others have speculated.
In a dream-squashing conclusion Hawking emphasized, “I’m sorry to
disappoint science fiction fans, but if [mass and energy] is
preserved [as required by the laws of physics] there is no
possibility of using black holes to travel to other universes.”
His peers
were unsettled. Reflecting the thoughts of many in the audience,
University of Chicago physicist Robert Wald responded, “He’s running
away from what we still believe.” The angst in Wald’s remark is
palpable.
A THEORY
IN TROUBLE
Stephen Hawking’s announcement is but the latest sign that the
multiverse and, with it, philosophical naturalism is in trouble.
Added to its technical difficulties, the theory fails to do what it
sets out to do; namely, to explain how our universe turned out the
way it did. Instead, it asserts that our world has to exist, because
in an infinite number of universes, all configurations are possible
and we’re here, so that proves it! Such contrived reasoning leaves
some researchers cold. A theory in which anything is possible is a
theory that explains nothing.
Stanford
physicist Leonard Susskind is among those who understand what is at
stake. Susskind admitted that without some alternative “explanation
of nature's fine-tunings we will be hard pressed to answer the ID
critics. One might argue that the hope that a mathematically unique
solution will emerge is as faith-based as ID” (emphasis
added).
At least
Susskind is forthright. When confidence in fantastic quantum
behavior, imaginary singular events, and principles defying known
physical laws begins to crumble, all that remains is belief in
abstractions propped up by a set of mathematical relationships—in
other words, unwavering faith in naturalism.
But as the
multiverse implodes under the weight of its unsupported assumptions,
another process is being readied to hold the faithful in orbit:
Emergence and self-organization. More on that next time.
“In the end, belief in a multiverse will
always be just that—a matter of belief, based in faith that logical
arguments proposed give the correct answer in a situation where
direct observational proof is unattainable and the supposed
underlying physics is untestable.”
--George
Ellis, Cambridge University cosmologist & coauthor with Stephen
Hawking of
The Large Scale Structure of Space-Time. |
|
Regis Nicoll is a freelance writer and a Centurion of
the Wilberforce Forum. His "All
Things Examined" column appears on
BreakPoint every other Friday. Serving as a men’s ministry
leader and worldview teacher in his community, Regis publishes a
free weekly commentary to stimulate thought on current issues from a
Christian perspective.
|
The Many Worlds Interpretation
It would seem that if chance is real (Copenhagen), God must
exist as the Cosmic Observer. If determinism is real, God exists as the Hidden
Variable that stops the infinite regress of causes. Doesn’t chance plus
determinism cover the full array of possibilities? Have we proved God exists?
Not exactly. If reality disappoints, you can deconstruct it. And that is
precisely what some have done in construction of the many-worlds &
superdeterminism models of reality.
As is explained well in Zukav’s The Dancing Wu-Li Masters
(the Chinese designation for physicists), one can question a key assumption of
rationality called contrafactual definiteness. When one questions ‘definiteness’
one constructs many worlds. Definiteness is a simple idea. It is as follows: if
I choose option ‘A’, then option ‘B’ does not happen. But what if there is not a
definite outcome to choice? What if ‘A’ and ‘B’ both still happen, but in
different universes (the person in universe ‘B’ would have picked ‘B’). In
effect, choice has no consequences. Again we are back to determinism. Perhaps
you can see why this might be attractive to the atheist. This idea has the
potential of removing the observer from a position of importance. It does not,
however, solve the problem of why this multiverse exists in the first place. In
fact, those such as Hawking that try to eliminate the need for a beginning to
the universe and account for fine-tuning (the Anthropic principles) by proposing
a multiverse model still try to appeal to the intrinsic randomness of an
uncaused beginning (quantum fluctuation) to get the whole thing started. Yet
intrinsic randomness applies only to Copenhagen, and Copenhagen and Many-Worlds
are mutually exclusive. Hence Hawking is in the midst of a logical
contradiction.
There are three competing schools within MW. The idea
started out in 1957 with the thesis of Hugh Everett. His idea was that reality
started out as one universe, which branched out as necessary every time a
quantum event, such as a radioactive decay, occurred. By this appeal, the
measurement problem of the Copenhagen Interpretation is done away with. Collapse
of the wave function never really happens.
The second school, started by Bryce Dewitt in the 60’s,
argues that all of the many worlds always exist. This school is more
metaphysically challenging to theism because it claims to account for
fine-tuning as well as eliminating the need for a beginning. They don’t do this
by denying that a beginning exists. They claim that time itself does not really
exist (the ultimate deconstruction). If time doesn’t really exist, perhaps the
idea of a beginning is incoherent. Reality is a lot like the collection of still
shots that make up a movie. Each still photo, in the DeWitt view, eternally
exists. Time appears (as an illusion) when the stills are collected together in
a linear sequence. The ‘glue’ that holds the sequence together and determines
the order is the laws of physics (see David Deutsch The Fabric of Reality). What
the model has going for it is a calculation done by DeWitt in the 60s that seems
to show that quantum mechanics & gravity are reconciled in a particular
mathematical framework in which time itself drops out of the equations. Another
advocate, Julian Barbour, explains in The End of Time that Paul Dirac discovered
in the 50’s that general relativity has no natural time dimension, yet quantum
mechanics requires a near-Newtonian version of outside time. Attempts to put
these together produce a natural paradox, when one attempts to keep time as a
real phenomenon. It is a lot like the equation 2T = T (this is not the DeWitt
equation), which is only solvable if T = 0. Barbour suggests that reality is
only logically consistent if reality is static. Perhaps the DeWitt equation is
an illusion, however. Suppose the Dewitt equation has a similar quality to 2T=T.
One can apparently prove that 2=1 in the above equation by dividing out the T
(not allowed since one cannot divide by zero). Perhaps this is what DeWitt is
doing to remove time. In a similar sense, the majority of physicists deeply
suspect the Dewitt solution, believing there to be a deeply hidden error. This
is not impossible in science. An error of precisely this sort (dividing by zero)
is exactly how Alexander Friedman disproved Einstein’s model of the static
universe. Most feel that more is needed to falsify a phenomenon of nature so
apparently obvious as time.
The third school is Hawking’s. Hawking makes a realist
interpretation of a mathematical method for calculating quantum outcomes
developed by Richard Feynman. Interested readers can find Feynman’s own
description of his path integral approach in The Strange Theory of Light and
Matter. In Feynman’s approach, a photon on its way to illuminate a barrier in a
Young apparatus simultaneously really does traverse every possible path on its
way there. These paths, however, interfere in the same way that waves do.
Blocking some paths (like putting up barriers) changes the way these paths
interfere. The probability of finding the photon in a particular location
changes accordingly.
In Hawking’s model, every possible universe that can exist
is one of these Feynman paths. Hawking’s description of time is also important
to understanding his model. Hawking does away with the need for a temporal
beginning by proposing that reality is in a closed time loop. For times beyond
the Planck time, the universe expands out of a Big Bang till gravity halts the
expansion, then contracts into a Big Crunch. For times near the Planck time,
time begins to act as a true spatial dimension. To make this happen, Hawking
must make a realist interpretation of another useful mathematical device:
imaginary numbers. If time has both a real and an imaginary component, then time
can act as a spatial dimension near the Planck time while behaving normally
beyond it. What Hawking’s model has going for it is the success of Feynman’s
method in the field of quantum electrodynamics.
With a series of imaginative solutions, atheists have
constructed (or de-constructed) answers to the problem of the observer, the
problem of fine-tuning, and the problem of the beginning. When considering the
level to which this is a ‘Modern Goliath’, one must start with the fact that MW
is still just a consistent explanation (with atheism) of the world rather than
an exclusive one. Some of the above MW models are consistent with theism as
well. In fact it commends itself quite well as a solution to certain paradoxes
in theism in much the same way that extra dimensionality does. On a personal
note, it was precisely this characteristic of MW that helped bring me back to
theism (at the time I favored MW as the best interpretation), although I now am
more inclined toward Copenhagen or HV.
For example, one might make a literal interpretation of
Jesus’s statement that we could move mountains with prayer if we just had the
faith, or the statement that all we need do is knock, and the door will be
opened to us. Might God have constructed the universe that it will respond
appropriately if we but ask, kicking us into the right branch of the quantum
tree? Hence God answers prayer without invoking a vitalistic force. I’m not
advocating this. I’m merely pointing out the congeniality of an Everett
interpretation with a feature of Christianity.
Another example is the sovereignty versus free-will
problem. There is a minority of Christians that call themselves ‘Christmas
Calvinists’: no-L. This is a reference to the five points of Calvinism (acronym
TULIP), where the ‘L’ stands for limited atonement. Limited atonement is
unpopular[3] because it implies that God plays favorites. Some he has
(arbitrarily it seems) favored to be saved, others condemned from the beginning.
Recall the verse that says ‘Jacob I loved, Esau I hated’ before either was even
born.
But suppose there are many worlds. Suppose a person who is
not among the elect from this world, has copies of himself living in these other
universes. Perhaps, there, he might be saved. What if the ratio of copies of
oneself that ends up saved is the same for all persons? This would certainly
answer the question of fairness. Then a person saved in this universe has a
choice: what is more objectionable: me being granted grace while others are
(apparently) condemned arbitrarily by God, or other copies of yourself in other
universes condemned to eternal damnation? One could imagine that free will and
God’s sovereignty are reconciled in general through a MW approach. Imagine
reality as a cavern with many passages. God knows ‘the end from the beginning’
for every path. Yet imagine that humans still have free will to choose which
path through the maze they will follow. Again, I am not advocating this view. I
am merely showing how paradoxes are resolved in a MW view.
Problems with all MW Interpretations
1) An outstanding problem with all models is the problem of
existence. Why does something exist rather than nothing? This problem persists
even if time, or a beginning, is done away with.
2) Perhaps the biggest problem that MW models suffer from
is the rationality problem, expressed well by John Leslie in the book Universes.
If all possible things routinely happen within the multiverse, then why do we
live in a rational universe? Things of low probability, like the origin of life,
can only be explained by appeal to MW. But this probability is less than that of
the appearance of a perpetual motion machine (within a visible horizon of a
universe). Once events that fall below the perpetual motion machine threshold
are required, information itself disappears as a concept (this is Hubert
Yockey’s insight). As Leslie points out, suppose that every rock that a
geologist split open had the message ‘Made by Yahweh’. Being a good atheist,
events like this don’t bother him since he believes in low probability events
like the origin of life anyway. If we attempt to reason this way, we get
irrationality instead. Leslie goes on to explain that if we consider the sum
total of all the different irrational events that must be allowed (like the
appearance of pink bunny rabbits with bow ties, or Wickramasinghe & Hoyle’s
example of the 747 formed by a tornado in a junkyard), irrational happenings
must be the norm within a multiverse. So the existence of a rational universe is
proof that MW is false.
3) The atheist Anthony Flew is fond of saying that ‘from
necessary things, only necessary things come’. As some, to paraphrase
Cosmologist Timothy Ferris, have said: ‘This has been enough to impale Christian
philosophers down through the ages.’ Paul Davies mentions this in The Mind of
God, as well as Tipler & Barrow in The Anthropic Cosmological Principle. This is
apparently the crutch that holds up many an atheist view against contrary
evidence. But consider the following. The atheists require MW to counter the
problem of the observer, the problem of the beginning, and the problem of the
fine-tuning. So they are stuck with MW. But if MW produces an infinite number of
universes, this produces a necessary, rather than contingent, reality. If
Anthony Flew is right, then it was arguably something necessary that came from a
necessary being. I am not sure that Flew’s statement can be reversed to say ‘if
I find reality to be necessary, it implies a necessary creator.’ But if it can,
then atheists have a problem. Either they stick with MW, which produces a
necessary being. Or they abandon MW, which pitches them back into the problem
that chance (Copenhagen) & determinism (Hidden Variables) both require a
necessary being. (In the second case, Flew’s statement must ultimately be
false.)
4) It is not clear that that even an infinite number of
universes would produce our life-giving universe. If infinite matter ultimately
exists, coming out of a quantum singularity, Penrose’s entropy calculation goes
to 1 in infinity. So even infinite universe generation doesn’t reliably produce
our universe (whose probability of existing is 1 divided by infinity). On a side
note, even in the absence of a quantum-type of MW, the apparent flatness of our
universe would produce a spatial extent equal to infinity. This reduces the
probability of our particular universe configuration to 1 divided by infinity
regardless of the quantum interpretation.
5) Lastly, the biggest problem MW suffers from is the
falsifiability problem. MW acts for atheists exactly like God-of-the-Gaps works
for theists. MW explains all the gaps. Leslie gives a good example of where this
can trouble you in Universes. He mentions a scientist named George Stiegman who
used a SAP (strong anthropic principle = MW + weak anthropic principle)
explanation of why there is an abundance of matter over antimatter in the
universe. We now know of two real physical processes that can account for it.
The same thing applies to Hawking’s original use of SAP to explain the nearness
of the universe’s expansion rate to the critical density. We have since found a
physical explanation (inflation). What about all the other places where atheists
currently invoke SAP? Is SAP true, in which case why prefer physical
explanations to it, or is it false, in which case why ever apply it?
References
1. http://muse.jhu.edu/login?uri=/journals/canadian_journal_of_philosophy/v036/36.4craig.html
2. http://prola.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v90/i15/e151301
3.http://www.reasons.org/resources/apologetics/other_papers/the_metaphysics_of_quantum_mechanics.shtml
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