Multiverses are pseudo science, secularist, ideology

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

Have you ever stopped to really think why most scientists don't believe in god/s?

It seems that some people, for whom the idea of God is central in their world, simply can't conceive of a life where God isn't involved, so for them, an atheist must be rejecting God, trying to shut out or eliminate God from their lives, when the mundane truth is that if most atheists think about God at all, it's as just another weird belief that some people get caught up in.

 

[1rreducibly Complex]

If this universe is spatially infinite, then there's an infinity of universes in the cosmological multiverse, and if eternal inflation is correct, there is an infinity of 'pocket' universes being created, and I wouldn't be surprised if there are other potential sources of infinite universes... In some models, each pocket universe can create other universes (through black holes) but I don't think that counts as a different kind of infinity - you'd have to ask a theoretical cosmologist.

Infinity isn't science, it can't be observed, demonstrated, tested or peer reviewed.

Infinity is philosophy.

Theists have written about God being infinite for thousands of years.

Atheists apparently couldn't come up with original material. So they borrowed the concept of God as being infinite and applied it to the universe, to create their own secular ideology.

It seems that some people, for whom the idea of God is central in their world, simply can't conceive of a life where God isn't involved, so for them, an atheist must be rejecting God, trying to shut out or eliminate God from their lives, when the mundane truth is that if most atheists think about God at all, it's as just another weird belief that some people get caught up in.

God is the simplest, most elegant and most logical explanation for everything.

Your attempts at projection, do nothing to change this.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

God is the simplest, most elegant and most logical explanation for everything.

Your attempts at projection, do nothing to change this.

That doesn't really address what I said - but OK, let's look at your claim logically, and without projection.

Paraphrasing what I've said before in these forums:

I don't know how you judge a good explanation, but for me (and many scientists & philosophers), a good explanation should:

1. make testable predictions (so you can find out if it's wrong).
2. it should have specificity, so it gives an insight into and understanding of the particular phenomenon it explains.
3. it should preferably have some unifying scope so that the underlying principles from point 2 can give an insight into and understanding of other phenomena.
4. it should be parsimonious so that it introduces no unnecessary entities (Occam's razor).
5. it should not raise more questions than it answers, particularly unanswerable questions.
6. it should preferably be consistent with our existing body of knowledge.
7. an explanation that can explain anything is not really an explanation at all.

Now, not all explanations can satisfy all of those criteria, but the God explanation is interesting in that it satisfies none of them. As I have said before in these forums, I don't see how it is any better than saying it was 'Magic!'.

If you can make a reasonable argument for why the criteria above are not good ways to judge an explanation, or show how the God explanation satisfies those criteria, or show how the God explanation is a better explanation than the 'Magic!' explanation (which also fails on all criteria), then we can discuss the merits of the God explanation.

 

[Ophiolite]

Infinity isn't science, it can't be observed, demonstrated, tested or peer reviewed.

Infinity is philosophy.

Theists have written about God being infinite for thousands of years.

Atheists apparently couldn't come up with original material. So they borrowed the concept of God as being infinite and applied it to the universe, to create their own secular ideology.



God is the simplest, most elegant and most logical explanation for everything.

Your attempts at projection, do nothing to change this.

I see many assertions in your post, but I don't see any supporting argument. Do you have one?

Edit: added missing "r" in "your"

 

[Hans Blaster]

God is the simplest, most elegant and most logical explanation for everything.

Your attempts at projection, do nothing to change this.

Then why are you a Christian instead of a Deist.

If god is the most simple, elegant, and logical explanation for everything (like the Universe), why complicate it with stories of miracle workers, sins, salvation, Jesuses, floods, exoduses, sacrifices, etc.?

 

[durangodawood]

Oh they changed the meaning of universe to include discussions of multiverses? I was just talking about the classic meaning of universe that means everything that’s out there in space

I think that still holds in a multiverse reality because other universes arent "in space".

 

[NxNW]

But isn’t the point that there’s something like 20 constants that if you altered any one of them by even a billionth of a percent things like life, gravitational solar systems, etc, would be impossible?

I hear this argument from creationists all the time. Those are the same people claiming that the speed of light is not constant (so we can't judge the distance to other galaxies and stars), and then they claim the strong nuclear force is not constant (so we can't calculate the age of fossils, etc).

So apparently the constants are constant, proving they're fine-tuned and therefore God, except when they're not constant, which also proves God.

 

[Vap841]

I hear this argument from creationists all the time. Those are the same people claiming that the speed of light is not constant (so we can't judge the distance to other galaxies and stars), and then they claim the strong nuclear force is not constant (so we can't calculate the age of fossils, etc).

So apparently the constants are constant, proving they're fine-tuned and therefore God, except when when they're not constant, which also proves God.

I personally don’t think that a very finely tuned universe would be a reason to conclude that there is a personal God, I was just trying to get a feel for the steel man version of their argument. Yeah that’s true that YEC would run into those types of contradictions.

 

[HitchSlap]

God is the simplest, most elegant and most logical explanation for everything.

I'm not sure what you mean by "simplest," but isn't no god, simpler than one god?

 

[o_mlly]

As it happens, our best theories predict the multiverse (various versions!), which makes the Weak Anthropic Principle a reasonable explanation for apparent fine-tuning

It seems the logic is as follows:

1. A multiverse is possible.
2. No one has proved it is impossible.
3. Therefore, a multiverse is true.

According to (atheist) scientist Stephen Weinberg, American theoretical physicist and Nobel Laureate in Physics, Theory of Multiverse is merely a speculative with no mathematical underpinnings.

“I don’t think one should underestimate the fix we are in. That in the end we will not be able to explain the world. That we will have some set of laws of nature (that) we will not be able to derive them on the grounds simply of mathematical consistency. Because we can already think of mathematically consistent laws that don’t describe the world as we know it. And we will always be left with a question ‘why are the laws nature what they are rather than some other laws?’. And I don’t see any way out of that.
The fact that the constants of nature are suitable for life, which is clearly true, we observe ... ”
(Weinberg then comments on the multiverse conjecture of atheists)
“No one has constructed a theory in which that is true. I mean,, the (multiverse) theory would be speculative, but we don’t even have a theory in which that speculation is mathematically realized. But it is a possibility.”​

 

[durangodawood]

It seems the logic is as follows:

1. A multiverse is possible.
2. No one has proved it is impossible.
3. Therefore, a multiverse is true.

According to (atheist) scientist Stephen Weinberg, American theoretical physicist and Nobel Laureate in Physics, Theory of Multiverse is merely a speculative with no mathematical underpinnings.

“I don’t think one should underestimate the fix we are in. That in the end we will not be able to explain the world. That we will have some set of laws of nature (that) we will not be able to derive them on the grounds simply of mathematical consistency. Because we can already think of mathematically consistent laws that don’t describe the world as we know it. And we will always be left with a question ‘why are the laws nature what they are rather than some other laws?’. And I don’t see any way out of that.
The fact that the constants of nature are suitable for life, which is clearly true, we observe ... ”
(Weinberg then comments on the multiverse conjecture of atheists)
“No one has constructed a theory in which that is true. I mean,, the (multiverse) theory would be speculative, but we don’t even have a theory in which that speculation is mathematically realized. But it is a possibility.”​

Thats my sense: the multiverse is a conjecture proposed to solve certain physics problems.

It might be true. And there's no reason at all why it cannot be true. But there's no actual evidence for it at all.... and maybe there cannot ever be evidence, even if its real.

Intuitively it makes a lot of sense tho. Usually a whole category/type of thing like "planet" or "table" doesnt have just one single member.

 

[Hans Blaster]

It seems the logic is as follows:

1. A multiverse is possible.
2. No one has proved it is impossible.
3. Therefore, a multiverse is true.

Isn't that the "god is a necessary being" argument?

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

It seems the logic is as follows:

1. A multiverse is possible.
2. No one has proved it is impossible.
3. Therefore, a multiverse is true.

No, that's not the logic.

The various multiverses are predictions or implications of physical theories. The logic is something like:

1. Theory X is a good explanation for a significant set of observations.
2. Theory X predicts or implies a multiverse.
3. If theory X is correct, the predicted multiverse is very probably correct.​

According to (atheist) scientist Stephen Weinberg, American theoretical physicist and Nobel Laureate in Physics, Theory of Multiverse is merely a speculative with no mathematical underpinnings.

That unreferenced Weinberg quote doesn't give any indication of which theory he's talking about, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Opinions vary, though most cosmologists now take it seriously. He is one of those less taken with the idea, but he is quoted as saying it should be taken seriously, and why:

"I am not a proponent of the idea that our Big Bang universe is just part of a larger multiverse. It has to be taken seriously as a possibility, though.
...
It’s not part of the requirement of a successful physical theory that everything it describes be observable, or that all possible predictions of the theory be verifiable.
...
...string theory, which predicts a multiverse, can’t be verified by detecting the other parts of the multiverse. But it might make other predictions that can be verified. For example, it may say that in all of the big bangs within the multiverse, certain things will always be true, and those things may be verifiable. It may say that certain symmetries will always be observed, or that they’ll always be broken according to a certain pattern that we can observe. If it made enough predictions like that, then we would say that string theory is correct. And if the theory predicted a multiverse, then we’d say that that’s correct too. You don’t have to verify every prediction to know that a theory is correct."​

He even published a paper titled "Living in the Multiverse", where he mentions one should keep an open mind about it, and talks about the confidence that his colleagues have about it:

"About the multiverse, it is appropriate to keep an open mind, and opinions among scientists differ widely. In the Austin airport on the way to this meeting I noticed for sale the October issue of a magazine called Astronomy, having on the cover the headline “Why You Live in Multiple Universes.” Inside I found a report of a discussion at a conference at Stanford, at which Martin Rees said that he was sufficiently confident about the multiverse to bet his dog’s life on it, while Andrei Linde said he would bet his own life. As for me, I have just enough confidence about the multiverse to bet the lives of both Andrei Linde and Martin Rees’s dog."​

I can't say whether he's a dog lover or not, but I don't think he harbours ill will towards Linde.

I hope that puts things in perspective for you.

 

[Hans Blaster]

[clip]

I started to watch the video. At about 2 minutes Leonard Susskind makes a claim about the cosmological constant and fine tuning that is just wrong. I might come back to it later, but it is a point I've made on this site before.

(Perhaps in this thread, I don't know. I've got other things to do right now.)

 

[SelfSim]

I started to watch the video. At about 2 minutes Leonard Susskind makes a claim about the cosmological constant and fine tuning that is just wrong. I might come back to it later, but it is a point I've made on this site before.

I think its taken well out the context from which Susskind was speaking.
IIRC, that number he mentions, (10^120), is a completely theoretical String Theory number, which itself doesn't necessarily have to have physical significance (other than for a String Theorist thinker).
One has to listen very carefully for Susskind's preamble/buildup contexts, in order to argue outside of the String Theory mode of thinking ..

 

[SelfSim]

No, that's not the logic.

The various multiverses are predictions or implications of physical theories. The logic is something like:

1. Theory X is a good explanation for a significant set of observations.
2. Theory X predicts or implies a multiverse.
3. If theory X is correct, the predicted multiverse is very probably correct.

I think you may have omitted the key term of 'interpreted' in step (2) of that sequence there(?)

I'm not quite sure of how 'interpret' is distinguished from 'implied' in that logic, other than by way of, as Weinberg's puts it, evidence of observations(?):
'It may say that certain symmetries will always be observed, or that they’ll always be broken according to a certain pattern that we can observe'

 

[Bradskii]

I don't get why a few Christians argue against this.

We are the only planet.
We're not? OK, but we're the centre of all the other ones.
Oh, we're not? But these planets are all there are.
There are more? Really. Oh, well this is the only galaxy.
You're kidding...how many? Wow, well this is the only universe.
There could be a multiverse? Hah! Prove it!

Where in any of that was God denied?

 

[Shemjaza]

I don't get why a few Christians argue against this.

We are the only planet.
We're not? OK, but we're the centre of all the other ones.
Oh, we're not? But these planets are all there are.
There are more? Really. Oh, well this is the only galaxy.
You're kidding...how many? Wow, well this is the only universe.
There could be a multiverse? Hah! Prove it!

Where in any of that was God denied?

I agree with the whole point of your post... but I think we saw other galaxies before we found proof for exo-planets.

 

[Bradskii]

I agree with the whole point of your post... but I think we saw other galaxies before we found proof for exo-planets.

Agreed. I meant it to be the other 8 in our backyard. Oops...other 7 now that Pluto has been demoted. But that's what you get if you're named acter a Disney dog.

And yeah, we can add another couple of lines:

But there are no other planets outside the solar system that could support life!
What? How many so far?

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

I think you may have omitted the key term of 'interpreted' in step (2) of that sequence there(?)

I'm not sure how it would fit there. If there's an interpretation, it would seem to be the theory being an interpretation of the data.

I'm not quite sure of how 'interpret' is distinguished from 'implied' in that logic

To me they're words with very different meanings... 'interpret' means to explain or derive new meaning; 'imply' here is to suggest a logical consequence.