Even though I’ve found no reason to believe in God, I don’t claim to have any definitive knowledge on the matter. We are pretty sure that evolution happens, and that the Earth is more than 6,000 years old, but questions about “God” — starting with how one even goes about defining that term — are far subtler. That hasn’t stopped many atheists from rejecting the idea of God so fiercely, I kind of get what people mean when they say that atheism is a religion. They’re talking about bad atheism, a rigid view of the world that’s impoverished of deep curiosity. Bad atheists present current scientific theory as absolute truth, even though some scientific facts considered true now will almost certainly be revised by future theories. I think that atheism should be about humility regarding what we know (which is less than bad atheists think), and a desire to seek out what we don’t know. Unfortunately for some, atheism is just about being right.
It’s great to identify with our fellow atheists and exchange ideas. But when this identification turns into a battle and a desire to win, it becomes bad. The bad atheist seeks out believers with the goal of defeating them. (“I will destroy you!”) Bad atheists would say they are skeptics, but actually, they are pseudoskeptical. Truly skeptical persons keep their minds open but are unswayed by unconvincing arguments. Pseudoskeptics, on the other hand, fancy themselves to be open-minded, when actually they have long since settled their opinion and now their heels are dug in. More than being merely unconvinced, the pseudoskeptic spends effort disproving his chosen foes’ beliefs rather than listening to them. Complicating matters, the more unbiased a person views himself to be, the less likely he is to notice himself dismissing new ideas in a prejudiced manner.
The bad atheist has no problem exchanging one untestable proposition for another. While a Christian would say that the universe is fine-tuned for life because God created it to be that way, the bad atheist addresses this point matter-of-factly by invoking a multiverse and/or eternal inflation. (That is, if he doesn’t reject fine-tuning altogether, perhaps because
he can’t disentangle the notion of physical fine-tuning and a
supernatural fine-tuner.) The multiverse and inflation are legitimate scientific ideas, but they are merely hypothetical models, a “best guess to date.” For the bad atheist, though, who perhaps has watched too many science shows on the History Channel, they simply are the explanation. Of course, unobservable universes beyond our cosmic horizon are at present no more testable or predictive than saying “God did it.” To declare that fine-tuning is a consequence of an eternally inflating multiverse — not God — you might as well declare that leprechauns don’t steal pots of gold under rainbows, gnomes do.
To the bad atheist, philosophy and metaphysics are useless at best,
and flat-out wrong at worst. The irony of this position is that it is inescapably a metaphysical one. But this truth is lost even
on some of the world’s top thinkers. “The philosophy of science is about
as useful to scientists as ornithology is to birds,” Richard Feynman
famously said — but as philosophers have since pointed out, such
knowledge would be useful to birds, if they could possess it! The fact is, physicists answer questions about how the world works, but
that’s only because the natural philosophers of the preceding
centuries (and some more recent ones) have taught us what questions we
should be asking.
For bad atheists, there is no mystery in the world. There are unknowns, such as details on the Higgs boson or quantum gravity, but these will be learned through current lines of research using familiar methodologies. “We’ve got it all under control; nothing to see here” is a common attitude toward the deeper questions. The graduate student head-down studying pi-mesons may have no interest in the measurement problem, the fascinating question of what’s really going on when we measure a particle. He might brush it off, say that there is no problem. The world in its totality consists of particles, fields, and forces, and eventually we’ll figure out everything on those hard terms and those terms alone. So deal with it.
Now, when I say “mystery,” I am not implying anything supernatural. All signs point to the world as operating under thoroughly self-consistent laws, with no external intervention whatsoever. But, in trying to understand the emergence of reality, time, and space at the deepest levels, we’re missing some key insight — most likely, because we are embedded inside of the very same world we’re trying to explain. It’s all terribly fascinating; we are truly at a “blind men and the elephant” moment in history. And we need to put the pieces together and get, at last, a coherent picture of an elephant. What we don’t need are bad atheists holding the trunk and saying, “It’s obviously a fire hose, dumbass. Go home now.”
Showing posts with label multiverse. Show all posts
Showing posts with label multiverse. Show all posts
Sunday, April 29, 2012
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Doubling Down On The Multiverse
Scientific American magazine is kind of like Men's Health these days, and as seen on its August 2011 cover, SciAm's version of "Get Rock Hard Abs" is anything having to do with the multiverse. The real existence of an ensemble of very different universes, much too far away to ever be seen, has become a popular speculation. But it's nothing more than an imaginative idea invented by well-meaning humans who seek explanations without having enough information — not terribly unlike the idea of "God."
First, some background: The idea of a multiverse originated in the 1950s, when a graduate student named Hugh Everett wrote one of the most influential Ph.D. dissertations ever. He argued that just as the electron cloud surrounding an atomic nucleus represents all possible positions for that electron (were we to pin down its location), so the entire universe, obeying the same laws of physics, must have a "universal wave function" that represents all possible configurations and courses of events within the universe. The idea took root in the form of a world that is constantly splitting or branching into different possibilities; when you decided to turn right at that intersection and collided with a bicyclist, there's another "branch" of the universe in which you turned left and got a traffic ticket. We can't observe how the other branches turn out, but some physicists believe that those branches are every bit as real as the branch you and I are currently experiencing.
Over the decades, the multiverse idea has evolved; currently there are four definitions of "multiverse" under consideration. A Level I multiverse proposes simply that our universe is infinitely large, and we can observe only a tiny region. Other regions have the same laws of physics but different distributions of matter. Therefore, with an infinite number of these regions, some of them must be similar to ours — including perhaps a world where everything is the same as our world, except you turned left at that intersection. In a Level II multiverse, the laws of physics vary from place to place; only our local "neighborhood" operates on the physical laws familiar to us. A Level III multiverse is the kind originally envisioned by Everett, where there is really only one local universe, but within that universe are an infinite number of branches — including a branch where you turn left, and some branches where the laws of physics started out completely different and matter never formed. Finally, a Level IV multiverse comprises the sum of any and all possible mathematical structures that may represent universes, with the mathematical structures themselves being fundamental or irreducible entities, not the universes they represent. In a Level IV multiverse, "self-aware substructures" (which are also fundamentally mathematical) arise — conscious beings like you and me.
Granted, Level III and Level IV multiverses are abstract and subtle. Maybe that's why, in popular science media, you hear so much more about Level I and Level II. For example, in the History Channel variety of science "edutainment," the Level II multiverse, with its vast array of distant "bubble" universes, all with different physical constants, has become the default go-to explanation for why our universe appears to be fine-tuned for the existence of matter. Fine-tuning has become a problem in physics in the last couple of decades, but the Level II multiverse offers an easy way out. If there are an infinite number of bubble universes, each with different physical laws, surely some of those would have laws that support the formation of matter, and eventually life. So, finding ourselves in such a "fine-tuned universe" should not be surprising at all.
Here is where I bristle. Yes, we do need an explanation for our peculiar and benevolent set of physical constants that's better than "a loving intelligent creator designed the universe to be that way." But let's not be ridiculous about it. Proponents of the Level II multiverse insist that other bubble universes must exist for no other reason than we find ourselves living in one such bubble. To me, that's an arrogant and small-minded conclusion to draw. As I've argued previously, it's like seeing MTV playing on your television, and then based on that one observation, concluding that there must be hundreds of invisible TV cables somehow entering your home, each carrying a different channel.
In The Trouble With Physics, Lee Smolin writes that one of the greatest powers of science is to protect humans from their own imaginations. We are very good at noticing patterns in the world and generating possible explanations for those patterns. But when we aren't given enough information — as is always the case — our creative imagination fills in the gaps. Whether it's the Earth supported on the back of a turtle, or a Judeo-Christian Yahweh dividing light from the darkness, our naive explanations tend to be fanciful. Medieval astronomers imagined the Sun and planets moving on rotating crystal spheres, but then Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler showed that the crystal spheres weren't necessary. The same happened to the aether, the invisible medium of space that was believed to carry light waves, and which was vanquished by Einstein. This steady correction of fanciful human fabrications is the legacy of science. "More than anything else," Smolin writes, "[science] is a collection of crafts and practices that, over time, have been shown to be effective in unmasking error. It is our best tool in the constant struggle to overcome our built-in tendency to fool ourselves and fool others."
So we have the bubble universes, which are posited to "really" exist, despite being completely unobservable. If science is our best hope for unmasking wrong explanations, it can't help us here. Unchallenged, the bubble universe theory could persist for hundreds of years, as untested as Judeo-Christian creation before it, simply because it is an explanation, even if it isn't a scientific one. This is why it irks me to hear an authority in physics just lay it out, as verified truth, that distant, very different bubble universes really do exist out there — that this view explains everything. No need to think about the issue anymore; it's been solved. You've just gotta have faith!
I am reminded once again of a telling moment from Carl Sagan's Cosmos. Long ago, people wondered what was on the surface of Venus. Through a telescope, the planet was a white blur. It must be covered with clouds. If it's covered with clouds, it must rain a lot, and the surface must be wet and swampy. If it's swampy, there must be swamp creatures, maybe even dinosaurs. As Sagan put it, "Observation: Can't see a thing. Conclusion: Dinosaurs." The crazy collection of unobservable bubble universes thought to be out there are today's Venus dinosaurs. In 100 years, we will laugh at the naivete and arrogance of this colorful, if incredibly small-minded, conception. Science moves on, forever banishing the errors of the human imagination. In this case, it's a sure thing.
Thursday, April 21, 2011
The Case For Metaphysics
In addition to my work as a comedian and musician, I’ve collaborated on several YouTube videos exploring the theory of the biocentric universe. This is the radical proposition that the activity of our evolving biological superorganism produces the universe that we see — that a pre-existing universe of nonliving matter did not create the first living thing through chance, some ten billion years after a real and actual event we call the Big Bang. Instead, the theory says, the universe is effectively only as old as life itself. Some find this concept so outrageous, they think it must be a part of my satire, but it isn’t. I’m fascinated by this revolutionary, spectacularly godless cosmological view, in which the universe began as nothing in particular, the echoes of the Big Bang are the now-observed physical back-story for that beginning, and quasars undergo retrocausality through decoherence across billions of light years.
The basic idea is that nothing in the universe comes predefined; by default, the entire thing is but a swarm of probability, just like the “electron cloud” of an atom. We know that electrons are not little dots of electron-stuff that whizz around the atomic nucleus like tiny planets. Physics in the 20th century revealed that such electrons can be described only in terms of probability — the probability that a person, machine, etc., will find an actual electron at a specific location, if that location is checked. This is a well-known principle of quantum mechanics.
That principle of probability-by-default may extend to the entire universe; for a half-century, physicists have entertained that the whole thing is a quantum system. But for the purposes of this discussion, it comes down to the following question: Are the physical properties of all particles of matter independently predefined and absolute, possessed intrinsically by each individual particle? Or, are these properties relevant only with regard to the particle’s interaction with other things, such as other particles or living observers? Is there, for example, a specific beta-radiation particle with a specific momentum and charge traveling from the far side of the Alpha Centauri star system, right now?
Most science enthusiasts would answer yes without hesitation, because that’s the view of the universe we live with. In Western scientific tradition, we assume that the workings of the physical world occur on their own in the background, regardless of whether we happen to be there to watch or know anything. Observation and measurement are merely the process of discovering what’s already in predefined existence, we believe. But are we sure this is entirely true? To paraphrase the classic zen question: If a particle is emitted by Alpha Centauri and no one is around to see it, is it really there?
For those averse to anything philosophical-like, this is where the hackles go up. When we speak of the existence or nonexistence of an unobserved object, we’re making a distinction that’s metaphysical — we’re dealing with the fundamental nature of being, something that’s outside the realm of ordinary observation and measurement. Such a conjecture seems to offer no scientific value, because it can’t be directly tested in the laboratory. As a result, there seems to be a pervasive attitude that ideas involving metaphysics have no real value to the modern world at all. On the biocentric videos, many comments can be summarized thus: “This is just philosophy. You can say all you want that things don’t exist if we aren’t around to perceive them, but that’s bullshit. You’re only changing the definition of the word ‘exist.’ Things exist whether we’re there to perceive them or not.”
This is a naive argument. One cannot dismiss a metaphysical position on the grounds that it is “just philosophy,” because whichever side of the issue you come down on, there is no escaping metaphysics. To assert that an object does possess absolute properties — qualities that exist independently of its interactions with other things — is to take a metaphysical position as well. Chew on that idea awhile. The assumption of an absolute defined particle somewhere off in the galaxy is equally “just philosophy,” and equally “bullshit,” as the idea that it’s only potentially there, not actually there. Having been brought up in the tradition of Western thought, we all carry around this assumption of absolute physical characteristics, possessed intrinsically and independently by every last microscopic object in the universe, as if assigned on the day of Creation by an omnipotent God. In physics, this assumed principle is known as realism. But the brute fact remains, there is no evidence whatsoever supporting absolute realism. None! If you’re a thinking person, you should seriously ask yourself: How scientific is it to base an entire physical worldview on a metaphysical position, a possibly flawed fundamental assumption for which there is no supporting empirical evidence?
Now, here’s where it gets really interesting. Quantum mechanics has been baffling physicists and lay people alike for 80-odd years. The findings of decades of experiments, such as delayed choice and quantum eraser, are extremely difficult to square with the traditional metaphysical foundation of absolute, pre-existing properties of matter. This is partly why there are so many quantum-mechanics interpretations; those that try the hardest to accommodate absolute realism, such as Bohmian mechanics and the transactional interpretation, are complex, bizarre, and highly controversial. But, believe it or not, every finding from every quantum mechanics experiment ever performed is consistent with the alternative metaphysical framework, where the physical properties of matter are relevant only in relation to systems capable of measuring them somehow. This concept follows quite simply from a broad generalization of Einstein’s special relativity, which showed that velocity and simultaneity are never absolute and can be described only in relation to an observer’s frame of reference. (See our video titled It’s All Relative.)
The great physicist Richard Feynman once said that philosophy is as useful to physicists as ornithology is to birds. This is the “shut up and calculate” view, in which physics is employed only to predict the behavior of physical systems — the purely empirical approach that shuns any discussion of meaning or the “true” fundamental nature of things. But are numbers and calculations all we want to get out of science? After all, the Ptolemaic model of astronomy was surprisingly accurate at predicting eclipses and other events — but the reason we adopted the later Copernican model wasn’t only to improve the accuracy of astronomical calculations. Turns out, it’s quite useful to know that the planets really do orbit the Sun, and do not orbit the Earth while moving on an intricate system of invisible circles or “epicycles,” as was once believed. The Sun-centered model provides the basis for a more fundamental and elegant explanation of what’s really going on in the relationships between the Sun, planets, and Earth.
A fundamental explanation is exactly what some physicists are seeking from the increasingly legitimate theories of observer-centered realism, which profess that observation is an active and intrinsic element in the unfolding of reality. (The biocentric universe is one such theory. Here’s another.) Experiments may soon unlock numerous mysteries that have come on the heels of both quantum mechanics and cosmology. For example, why did the initial conditions of the Big Bang produce a universe that appears to be fine-tuned for life? To answer this question under the standard metaphysics, we either need to appeal to an intelligent God, or invoke multiple universes combined with the anthropic principle, a conjecture that I find unsatisfactory. Neither proposition is testable, so we’re back to basing our explanations on unsupportable assertions — which, I regret to say, is not a scientific endeavor, no matter how many shows about the multiverse are broadcast on the Science Channel. (Paul Davies has chimed in on this. For an exhaustive look at how contemporary science is becoming increasingly “faith-based,” read Lee Smolin’s The Trouble With Physics.)
I know what you’re thinking: Like the multiverse, a metaphysical position cannot be directly tested in the lab, so how can it ever be a part of science? Some theories do prevail despite not being directly testable. Evolution theory, for example, is accepted primarily because a huge amount of evidence, from multiple disciplines, is fully consistent with the theory, to the point where unforeseen details like the genetic code were predicted to exist, and subsequently confirmed. This is basically why multiverse theories are accepted as well: because the conjecture of multiple universes is consistent with the real observation of a seemingly fine-tuned universe. However, quantum mechanics is far more consistent with the metaphysical position of observer-centered realism, compared to the opposing metaphysical view of absolute realism. So if the entire universe is a quantum system, we need to think about what that means for cosmology and the universe’s initial conditions, which we have long assumed to be absolute. Indeed, Stephen Hawking theorizes that the universe may not have had a unique beginning — that its initial conditions existed in quantum superposition, just like the electrons of an atom’s electron cloud. In other words, the initial conditions were not fixed and singular, assigned either by God or by chance. Instead, they are relevant only in relation to today’s universe, in which physicists calculate them from the “top down,” i.e., working backward from the present conditions that we do observe. No intelligent God, or multiverse, necessary.
Personally, I believe that observer-centered realism will be confirmed, albeit indirectly. Just within the past month it was found that molecules of DNA are able to interact with quantum systems in ways that ordinary, non-biological molecules do not. Perhaps this is the first of many discoveries pointing to the fundamental role that biology plays in physics, which will then lead to a revolution in technology and medicine. But that will never happen unless we entertain alternative metaphysical viewpoints about our place in the world as observers. If we take that leap, someday soon we might see the real benefits of interpreting empirical science through a metaphysical lens — which at last will prove that metaphysics isn’t “just philosophy” after all.
The basic idea is that nothing in the universe comes predefined; by default, the entire thing is but a swarm of probability, just like the “electron cloud” of an atom. We know that electrons are not little dots of electron-stuff that whizz around the atomic nucleus like tiny planets. Physics in the 20th century revealed that such electrons can be described only in terms of probability — the probability that a person, machine, etc., will find an actual electron at a specific location, if that location is checked. This is a well-known principle of quantum mechanics.
That principle of probability-by-default may extend to the entire universe; for a half-century, physicists have entertained that the whole thing is a quantum system. But for the purposes of this discussion, it comes down to the following question: Are the physical properties of all particles of matter independently predefined and absolute, possessed intrinsically by each individual particle? Or, are these properties relevant only with regard to the particle’s interaction with other things, such as other particles or living observers? Is there, for example, a specific beta-radiation particle with a specific momentum and charge traveling from the far side of the Alpha Centauri star system, right now?
Most science enthusiasts would answer yes without hesitation, because that’s the view of the universe we live with. In Western scientific tradition, we assume that the workings of the physical world occur on their own in the background, regardless of whether we happen to be there to watch or know anything. Observation and measurement are merely the process of discovering what’s already in predefined existence, we believe. But are we sure this is entirely true? To paraphrase the classic zen question: If a particle is emitted by Alpha Centauri and no one is around to see it, is it really there?
For those averse to anything philosophical-like, this is where the hackles go up. When we speak of the existence or nonexistence of an unobserved object, we’re making a distinction that’s metaphysical — we’re dealing with the fundamental nature of being, something that’s outside the realm of ordinary observation and measurement. Such a conjecture seems to offer no scientific value, because it can’t be directly tested in the laboratory. As a result, there seems to be a pervasive attitude that ideas involving metaphysics have no real value to the modern world at all. On the biocentric videos, many comments can be summarized thus: “This is just philosophy. You can say all you want that things don’t exist if we aren’t around to perceive them, but that’s bullshit. You’re only changing the definition of the word ‘exist.’ Things exist whether we’re there to perceive them or not.”
This is a naive argument. One cannot dismiss a metaphysical position on the grounds that it is “just philosophy,” because whichever side of the issue you come down on, there is no escaping metaphysics. To assert that an object does possess absolute properties — qualities that exist independently of its interactions with other things — is to take a metaphysical position as well. Chew on that idea awhile. The assumption of an absolute defined particle somewhere off in the galaxy is equally “just philosophy,” and equally “bullshit,” as the idea that it’s only potentially there, not actually there. Having been brought up in the tradition of Western thought, we all carry around this assumption of absolute physical characteristics, possessed intrinsically and independently by every last microscopic object in the universe, as if assigned on the day of Creation by an omnipotent God. In physics, this assumed principle is known as realism. But the brute fact remains, there is no evidence whatsoever supporting absolute realism. None! If you’re a thinking person, you should seriously ask yourself: How scientific is it to base an entire physical worldview on a metaphysical position, a possibly flawed fundamental assumption for which there is no supporting empirical evidence?
Now, here’s where it gets really interesting. Quantum mechanics has been baffling physicists and lay people alike for 80-odd years. The findings of decades of experiments, such as delayed choice and quantum eraser, are extremely difficult to square with the traditional metaphysical foundation of absolute, pre-existing properties of matter. This is partly why there are so many quantum-mechanics interpretations; those that try the hardest to accommodate absolute realism, such as Bohmian mechanics and the transactional interpretation, are complex, bizarre, and highly controversial. But, believe it or not, every finding from every quantum mechanics experiment ever performed is consistent with the alternative metaphysical framework, where the physical properties of matter are relevant only in relation to systems capable of measuring them somehow. This concept follows quite simply from a broad generalization of Einstein’s special relativity, which showed that velocity and simultaneity are never absolute and can be described only in relation to an observer’s frame of reference. (See our video titled It’s All Relative.)
The great physicist Richard Feynman once said that philosophy is as useful to physicists as ornithology is to birds. This is the “shut up and calculate” view, in which physics is employed only to predict the behavior of physical systems — the purely empirical approach that shuns any discussion of meaning or the “true” fundamental nature of things. But are numbers and calculations all we want to get out of science? After all, the Ptolemaic model of astronomy was surprisingly accurate at predicting eclipses and other events — but the reason we adopted the later Copernican model wasn’t only to improve the accuracy of astronomical calculations. Turns out, it’s quite useful to know that the planets really do orbit the Sun, and do not orbit the Earth while moving on an intricate system of invisible circles or “epicycles,” as was once believed. The Sun-centered model provides the basis for a more fundamental and elegant explanation of what’s really going on in the relationships between the Sun, planets, and Earth.
A fundamental explanation is exactly what some physicists are seeking from the increasingly legitimate theories of observer-centered realism, which profess that observation is an active and intrinsic element in the unfolding of reality. (The biocentric universe is one such theory. Here’s another.) Experiments may soon unlock numerous mysteries that have come on the heels of both quantum mechanics and cosmology. For example, why did the initial conditions of the Big Bang produce a universe that appears to be fine-tuned for life? To answer this question under the standard metaphysics, we either need to appeal to an intelligent God, or invoke multiple universes combined with the anthropic principle, a conjecture that I find unsatisfactory. Neither proposition is testable, so we’re back to basing our explanations on unsupportable assertions — which, I regret to say, is not a scientific endeavor, no matter how many shows about the multiverse are broadcast on the Science Channel. (Paul Davies has chimed in on this. For an exhaustive look at how contemporary science is becoming increasingly “faith-based,” read Lee Smolin’s The Trouble With Physics.)
I know what you’re thinking: Like the multiverse, a metaphysical position cannot be directly tested in the lab, so how can it ever be a part of science? Some theories do prevail despite not being directly testable. Evolution theory, for example, is accepted primarily because a huge amount of evidence, from multiple disciplines, is fully consistent with the theory, to the point where unforeseen details like the genetic code were predicted to exist, and subsequently confirmed. This is basically why multiverse theories are accepted as well: because the conjecture of multiple universes is consistent with the real observation of a seemingly fine-tuned universe. However, quantum mechanics is far more consistent with the metaphysical position of observer-centered realism, compared to the opposing metaphysical view of absolute realism. So if the entire universe is a quantum system, we need to think about what that means for cosmology and the universe’s initial conditions, which we have long assumed to be absolute. Indeed, Stephen Hawking theorizes that the universe may not have had a unique beginning — that its initial conditions existed in quantum superposition, just like the electrons of an atom’s electron cloud. In other words, the initial conditions were not fixed and singular, assigned either by God or by chance. Instead, they are relevant only in relation to today’s universe, in which physicists calculate them from the “top down,” i.e., working backward from the present conditions that we do observe. No intelligent God, or multiverse, necessary.
Personally, I believe that observer-centered realism will be confirmed, albeit indirectly. Just within the past month it was found that molecules of DNA are able to interact with quantum systems in ways that ordinary, non-biological molecules do not. Perhaps this is the first of many discoveries pointing to the fundamental role that biology plays in physics, which will then lead to a revolution in technology and medicine. But that will never happen unless we entertain alternative metaphysical viewpoints about our place in the world as observers. If we take that leap, someday soon we might see the real benefits of interpreting empirical science through a metaphysical lens — which at last will prove that metaphysics isn’t “just philosophy” after all.
Friday, December 3, 2010
The "Multiverse" & Occam's Razor (12/27/2009)
This was originally posted on a horrible site called Myspace. When Myspace underwent a redesign in Fall 2010, hundreds of insightful reader comments that had been left over the years were lost. I have since deleted my account there.
Everyone is talking about the "multiverse" these days — the idea that our Universe is just one of many, that there may be billions of "pocket universes" as real as our own Universe but extremely far away, or in the form of isolated "bubbles," such that we may never be able to contact them. The cover story of the January 2010 issue of Scientific American is "Life in the Multiverse," and the illustrations depict universes connected to each other like grapes on a vine. Once pure speculation and a science-fiction device, this concept of multiple alternate universes is now front-and-center in mainstream physics as well as pop culture.
In part, the motivation has been to explain the "fine tuning" of our Universe: the handful of physical constants which, if any were different by a tiny amount, would disallow the existence of matter and therefore us. Some of these amounts are so minuscule, our Universe seems to balance on a knife-edge between various prohibitions to our existence. While theists consider this proof of an intelligent designer, the prevailing approach among physicists is to invoke the anthropic principle: We must find ourselves in a universe with conditions suitable for life, because if we weren't in such a universe, we wouldn't be around to notice.
This raises a couple of questions. Do we find ourselves in a life-allowing universe because ours ended up this way by accident? Or, is it because there must be many different universes, and we are here because, by sheer numbers, at least one of them must support life? The second has become the conventional explanation.
I wish to challenge this conclusion. It reminds me of a moment in Carl Sagan's Cosmos, during a discussion of past theories about life on Venus. "Observation: Can't see a thing. Conclusion: Dinosaurs!" In this case, it's, "Observation: One universe and one universe only. Conclusion: Billions of universes!"
Imagine you are watching TV through a cable box that's broken (unbeknownst to you) and gets only one channel. You then learn that the cable company is providing hundreds of other channels, and that the signals are getting into your home, even though you've never seen any of them. So, you go searching for the hundreds of other cable wires passing through the wall, and finding none, you conclude that the cables must be there, and must be perfectly real, but they are coming in where you can't find them. Now, is that the only conclusion, or the best conclusion, that could be drawn from what you know? A more elegant solution is that the other channels are coming through the same one cable — the one that you know exists — but for whatever reason, you can see only the one channel.
Similarly, I believe a more elegant solution to the "multiverse" question is that all potential universes are interlaced with the one that we observe, but for whatever reason, we observe only our familiar Universe. In other words, the alternate universes are not real to us in the way that our own Universe is real, but rather, they coexist with ours in a state of potential.
This issue seems to be a good candidate for the conceptual tool known as Occam's Razor. It says that if one solution to a problem requires multiple things with special conditions and assumptions, and another solution has fewer of these requirements, then the simpler solution is preferred. If there is another explanation, why must billions of perfectly real universes "out there somewhere" be required to exist just for ours to be able to exist?
Physicists have no problem describing a light wave as a probability function, a summation of all potential locations for a photon. I don't see why our Universe cannot be viewed the same way as the photon in this example: one possible universe "filtered out" or "made real" among all potential universes, all of which make up one giant probability function. This just seems to be a far more elegant solution than an insane web of billions of individual, discrete "pocket universes." Stop the madness!
Everyone is talking about the "multiverse" these days — the idea that our Universe is just one of many, that there may be billions of "pocket universes" as real as our own Universe but extremely far away, or in the form of isolated "bubbles," such that we may never be able to contact them. The cover story of the January 2010 issue of Scientific American is "Life in the Multiverse," and the illustrations depict universes connected to each other like grapes on a vine. Once pure speculation and a science-fiction device, this concept of multiple alternate universes is now front-and-center in mainstream physics as well as pop culture.
In part, the motivation has been to explain the "fine tuning" of our Universe: the handful of physical constants which, if any were different by a tiny amount, would disallow the existence of matter and therefore us. Some of these amounts are so minuscule, our Universe seems to balance on a knife-edge between various prohibitions to our existence. While theists consider this proof of an intelligent designer, the prevailing approach among physicists is to invoke the anthropic principle: We must find ourselves in a universe with conditions suitable for life, because if we weren't in such a universe, we wouldn't be around to notice.
This raises a couple of questions. Do we find ourselves in a life-allowing universe because ours ended up this way by accident? Or, is it because there must be many different universes, and we are here because, by sheer numbers, at least one of them must support life? The second has become the conventional explanation.
I wish to challenge this conclusion. It reminds me of a moment in Carl Sagan's Cosmos, during a discussion of past theories about life on Venus. "Observation: Can't see a thing. Conclusion: Dinosaurs!" In this case, it's, "Observation: One universe and one universe only. Conclusion: Billions of universes!"
Imagine you are watching TV through a cable box that's broken (unbeknownst to you) and gets only one channel. You then learn that the cable company is providing hundreds of other channels, and that the signals are getting into your home, even though you've never seen any of them. So, you go searching for the hundreds of other cable wires passing through the wall, and finding none, you conclude that the cables must be there, and must be perfectly real, but they are coming in where you can't find them. Now, is that the only conclusion, or the best conclusion, that could be drawn from what you know? A more elegant solution is that the other channels are coming through the same one cable — the one that you know exists — but for whatever reason, you can see only the one channel.
Similarly, I believe a more elegant solution to the "multiverse" question is that all potential universes are interlaced with the one that we observe, but for whatever reason, we observe only our familiar Universe. In other words, the alternate universes are not real to us in the way that our own Universe is real, but rather, they coexist with ours in a state of potential.
This issue seems to be a good candidate for the conceptual tool known as Occam's Razor. It says that if one solution to a problem requires multiple things with special conditions and assumptions, and another solution has fewer of these requirements, then the simpler solution is preferred. If there is another explanation, why must billions of perfectly real universes "out there somewhere" be required to exist just for ours to be able to exist?
Physicists have no problem describing a light wave as a probability function, a summation of all potential locations for a photon. I don't see why our Universe cannot be viewed the same way as the photon in this example: one possible universe "filtered out" or "made real" among all potential universes, all of which make up one giant probability function. This just seems to be a far more elegant solution than an insane web of billions of individual, discrete "pocket universes." Stop the madness!
God & the Fallacy of Astonishment (11/03/2009)
This was originally posted on a horrible site called Myspace. When Myspace underwent a redesign in Fall 2010, hundreds of insightful reader comments that had been left over the years were lost. I have since deleted my account there.
One of the questions we nonbelievers often get is, "So, did the universe just pop into existence out of nothing?" Let's ignore for a moment the point that if God didn't need to be created (and always existed), then perhaps the universe or multiverse didn't need to be created, either. The question of whether the universe was designed by an intelligent being or "popped out of nothing" encapsulates why faith in God, even in the 21st century, still exists: total human astonishment. Most of us assume that since many beautiful, complex things have been created by intelligent human beings, then complex or beautiful things in nature must have been created by an intelligence, too. After all, how could all of this pop out of nothing?
I can't answer that question. But the fact that I can't answer it doesn't prove or disprove anything. We human beings are astonished by the wonders of the universe — but our mere astonishment doesn't prove anything, either.
Here's an example of what I call the "fallacy of astonishment." Imagine that it's the 1970s and some anthropologists in Borneo come across a tribe that's never had contact with Western civilization. The explorers make friends and bring out a Polaroid camera. Someone takes a picture of the tribe's chief and hands it to him. As the chief sees his image develop before his eyes — he's never seen any kind of photograph before — he becomes astonished and concludes that the explorers must be gods, drops to his knees, and begins to worship them.
One can imagine such a scenario actually playing out (if it didn't in reality at some time). The tribal chief witnesses something that is so beyond his personal experience, seemingly the only logical explanation is a supernatural one. After all, from his perspective, there's no other way a two-dimensional image of him magically appeared on a little gray square. So, does this mean the explorers actually are gods? Of course not. The chief merely doesn't have enough information to make an informed opinion on the matter.
I believe that we "civilized" humans of the 21st century are like the tribal chief when it comes to questions of the origin of life and the universe. Really, we have very little information in these areas. We know that the visible universe is a certain age and size, but we know nothing at all about what's beyond the visible universe. (I've even suggested that the age of the universe is a biocentric extrapolation, and that the Big Bang never actually "happened" as a real, physical event at all.) We know how long life has been around on Earth, but we don't know how or even where it got started. We are that tribal chief, watching things apparently develop out of nothing, and then falling to worship that which must be responsible for making them happen.
The really religious people talk about the absurdity of explosions in outer space, and point out that tornadoes passing over junkyards don't create 747 jets. They speak of something coming out of nothing and life jumping out of "goo." But when I hear these cliché arguments, all I can think is, You have no idea what you're talking about. But none of us does — and that's the whole point.
I understand why so many people believe in God. It isn't easy to imagine things that lie far beyond our human-scale, human-experience personal world, and unless one can conjure up such a vision — or at least acknowledge that our origins are currently far beyond our understanding — it's quite natural to give in to our astonishment and assume that a personal supernatural being created it all.
But that doesn't make it the truth.
One of the questions we nonbelievers often get is, "So, did the universe just pop into existence out of nothing?" Let's ignore for a moment the point that if God didn't need to be created (and always existed), then perhaps the universe or multiverse didn't need to be created, either. The question of whether the universe was designed by an intelligent being or "popped out of nothing" encapsulates why faith in God, even in the 21st century, still exists: total human astonishment. Most of us assume that since many beautiful, complex things have been created by intelligent human beings, then complex or beautiful things in nature must have been created by an intelligence, too. After all, how could all of this pop out of nothing?
I can't answer that question. But the fact that I can't answer it doesn't prove or disprove anything. We human beings are astonished by the wonders of the universe — but our mere astonishment doesn't prove anything, either.
Here's an example of what I call the "fallacy of astonishment." Imagine that it's the 1970s and some anthropologists in Borneo come across a tribe that's never had contact with Western civilization. The explorers make friends and bring out a Polaroid camera. Someone takes a picture of the tribe's chief and hands it to him. As the chief sees his image develop before his eyes — he's never seen any kind of photograph before — he becomes astonished and concludes that the explorers must be gods, drops to his knees, and begins to worship them.
One can imagine such a scenario actually playing out (if it didn't in reality at some time). The tribal chief witnesses something that is so beyond his personal experience, seemingly the only logical explanation is a supernatural one. After all, from his perspective, there's no other way a two-dimensional image of him magically appeared on a little gray square. So, does this mean the explorers actually are gods? Of course not. The chief merely doesn't have enough information to make an informed opinion on the matter.
I believe that we "civilized" humans of the 21st century are like the tribal chief when it comes to questions of the origin of life and the universe. Really, we have very little information in these areas. We know that the visible universe is a certain age and size, but we know nothing at all about what's beyond the visible universe. (I've even suggested that the age of the universe is a biocentric extrapolation, and that the Big Bang never actually "happened" as a real, physical event at all.) We know how long life has been around on Earth, but we don't know how or even where it got started. We are that tribal chief, watching things apparently develop out of nothing, and then falling to worship that which must be responsible for making them happen.
The really religious people talk about the absurdity of explosions in outer space, and point out that tornadoes passing over junkyards don't create 747 jets. They speak of something coming out of nothing and life jumping out of "goo." But when I hear these cliché arguments, all I can think is, You have no idea what you're talking about. But none of us does — and that's the whole point.
I understand why so many people believe in God. It isn't easy to imagine things that lie far beyond our human-scale, human-experience personal world, and unless one can conjure up such a vision — or at least acknowledge that our origins are currently far beyond our understanding — it's quite natural to give in to our astonishment and assume that a personal supernatural being created it all.
But that doesn't make it the truth.
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