tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-759178030677978044.post8663696647709700946..comments2024-02-19T07:24:42.397-08:00Comments on Anglican Curmudgeon: Frank Tipler's God of the Multiverse - Part IIIA. S. Haleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05108498446058643166noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-759178030677978044.post-33489531086228243092010-09-08T12:22:07.017-07:002010-09-08T12:22:07.017-07:00I'm not sure if I can give you any reassurance...I'm not sure if I can give you any reassurance, TU&D, but let me try.<br /><br />Because humans, like everything else, are representable as wave functions in quantum mechanics, it is impossible for any human to observe what Tipler is calling "the multiverse", or establish its existence by observation of simultaneous results in more than one universe at a time. Our own quantum limitations prevent us from perceiving more than one universe at a time, and the one we are "in" seems like a continuously unfolding environment to us. <br /><br />But if quantum mechanics is sound, then each wave function must have many solutions -- one each in a different universe of the multiverse. That is why quantum mechanics requires the multiverse.<br /><br />The problems you point up are not trivial -- it is very difficult to get one's head around the philosophical and theological ramifications of the multiverse. But one reason I so admire Tipler's book is that he has thought these problems through, and offers a very Christian interpretation of what he says quantum mechanics, the Standard Model and general relativity all require. I shall lay out his interpretation in the future posts in this series, and then you can see how well he has addressed your concerns.A. S. Haleyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05108498446058643166noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-759178030677978044.post-6182409990403521112010-09-08T10:22:46.155-07:002010-09-08T10:22:46.155-07:00Dear Anglican Curmudgeon,
Thanks for posting thos...Dear Anglican Curmudgeon,<br /><br />Thanks for posting those excerpts from Tipler's book. I'm still a bit muddled and unclear, however.<br /><br />Let me present my muddled thoughts and see if you (or anyone else) can help sort them out.<br /><br />(1) "[M]uch discussion of other theories, for example, inflation cosmology, superstring theory, and M-theory. Ignore these other theories. <b>They have no experimental support whatsoever.</b> In contrast, quantum mechanics, general relativity, and the Standard Model have enormous support from experiment."<br /><br />(2) I ask, "What is the experimental support for the Multiverse? And where is it?" I'm merely using the same criteria that Dr. Tipler uses to establish critical acceptance of physics' theories.<br /><br />(3) Dr. Tipler then says: "Then it follows, of mathematical necessity, that the multiverse exists."<br /><br />Is this not a case of special pleading? I.e., Ignore all theories that lack experimental support. BUT we must accept the theory of the multiverse because of its mathematical necessity, and lets overlook its lack of experimental support. And this will be the only theory that we'll accept with its lack of experimental support.<br /><br />-------<br /><br />Alright, that seems weird to me, uneducated layman that I am. Let's grant Tipler's request for the existence of the multiverse. (which, by the way, Hawking also affirms.)<br /><br />What then are the implications of the multiverse and Christian theism? There seems to be a wide spectrum of opinion about this. From Tipler's perspective to this fellow who wrote <a href="http://mikeduran.com/?p=2711" rel="nofollow">Multiverse Theory - Apologetic Tool or Atheist Construct?</a><br /><br />Excerpts:<br /><br />"While putting forth teleological arguments for the existence of God in Saturday night’s debate, William Craig mentioned the emergence of multiverse theories as a possible refutation of theism. <br /><br />Because if multiple universes do exist, it could challenge our notions about God, Christ, the creation event, and morality. For instance, If there are multiple universes, then the Genesis event spoken of in Scripture is not all that unique. Furthermore, Does Christ dying for the sins of the world have any impact upon other possible worlds? And do the laws of morality embrace all possible worlds, or are they specific just to our own?<br /><br />In The Multiverse Problem, Seed magazine suggests that the growing popularity of multiverse theory among scientists may be an intentional ploy to undermine traditional theism.<br /><br />In a 2005 New York Times op-ed, Christoph Cardinal Schönborn, the archbishop of Vienna, accused scientists of concocting the idea of a multiverse specifically “to avoid the overwhelming evidence for purpose and design found in modern science.” Since then, a handful of other prominent Christian thinkers have also argued that multiverse theory is motivated by a refusal to accept evidence of god’s handiwork in the cosmos. Evangelical philosopher and Discovery Institute fellow William Lane Craig has called the idea an act of “desperation” on the part of atheist scientists. And Canadian journalist Denyse O’Leary, an ally of the intelligent design movement who is writing a book about cosmology, also asserts that “religious or anti-religious motives dominate the discussion” among scientists developing multiverse models."<br /><br />Do read the rest.<br /><br />Anyways, I'm just a Christian layman trying to ask the right questions. And trying to understand difficult subject matters.Truth Unites... and Divideshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08891402278361538353noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-759178030677978044.post-39933649595911470382010-09-08T07:45:02.748-07:002010-09-08T07:45:02.748-07:00TU&D, for Prof. Tipler, all the experimental d...TU&D, for Prof. Tipler, all the experimental data to date is explainable <i>only</i> by means of the multiverse. Here is a quote from pages 14-15 of the book:<br /><br />"But make no mistake: if quantum mechanics is true, the many universes necessarily exist. The mathematics of quantum mechanics gives no alternative. The existence of the many universes, which collectively are called the <i>multiverse</i>, is really also implied by the Hamilton-Jacobi equation [in classical mechanics], but because they are nonlinear, one could have supposed that only one particle trajectory was actually followed. The linearity of Schrödinger's equation does not leave us that option. So the multiverse exists even in classical Newtonian mechanics if this theory is expressed in its most powerful mathematical form. <br />". . .<br />". . . However, it must be kept firmly in mind that we are not postulating the existence of the multiverse. Instead, we are postulating that quantum mechanics -- and classical mechanics in Hamilton-Jacobi form -- applies to all systems without exception. Then it follows, of mathematical necessity, that the multiverse exists. Once again, all experiments conducted to date show that quantum mechanics (or classical mechanics) applies to every system we have been able to test over the last century (the last three centuries if we include classical mechanics). The multiverse is forced on us by observation."A. S. Haleyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05108498446058643166noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-759178030677978044.post-15678832600662345982010-09-08T07:31:46.480-07:002010-09-08T07:31:46.480-07:00chrylis, thank you for those contributions. I am n...chrylis, thank you for those contributions. I am not sure whether you saw the link in my first Tipler post to his <a href="http://www.iop.org/EJ/abstract/0034-4885/68/4/R04/" rel="nofollow">article in <i>Reports on Progress in Physics</i></a>, which gives a detailed and fully mathematical treatment of his ideas about how to reconcile quantum gravity (as developed by Feynman, DeWitt and Weinberg) with general relativity, by basing the former on the metric of the latter (the continuum). The article also describes his theory that the cosmic microwave background radiation is a pure <i>SU(2)sub-L</i> gauge field, with predictions that are testable.<br /><br />My objection to the use of the word "random" in Odenwald's quote was not to its use in the quantum mathematical sense; he used the word to describe the outcome (in our present spacetime) of an admittedly quantum-random tunneling process, which, however, could not ("as yet") be explained as the random outcome of a particular wave function. As he states, the primeval tunneling process somehow determined, "<b>perhaps</b> in a <b>random</b> way, how the dimensionality of spacetime would 'crystallize' into the 6+4 combination that represents the plenum of our universe." Here I think "random" is just a word thrown in (along with "perhaps" and "as yet unknown") to fudge the explanation of why our spacetime is as we find it, rather than naming an attribute of the quantum tunneling process itself.<br /><br />Be that as it may, I am glad to have you looking over my shoulder, and I would be happy to have your continued contributions as the series goes forward.A. S. Haleyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05108498446058643166noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-759178030677978044.post-21983086902841991482010-09-08T01:02:39.289-07:002010-09-08T01:02:39.289-07:00"Modern physicists hate the idea that somethi...<i>"Modern physicists hate the idea that something real could be beyond the power of the laws of physics. . ."</i><br /><br />Thankfully, not all modern physicists. <br /><br />I'm a bit confused about something. Tipler correctly stresses empirical data to validate and/or support the theories of physicists. And he is a big proponent of the theory of multiple universes. So then where is the empirical data to validate multiple universes?Truth Unites... and Divideshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08891402278361538353noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-759178030677978044.post-82174646024330070762010-09-07T21:29:03.369-07:002010-09-07T21:29:03.369-07:00Topper, there are a number of alternative suggesti...Topper, there are a number of alternative suggestions to string theory, which IMHO is "multiplying entities unnecessarily". In particular, the proposal of loop quantum gravity is that space and time are divided into discrete chunks just like energy states of an atom are.<br /><br />LQG is hardly "simple" in the sense of using elementary-school mathematics, but it does provide a much simpler and more coherent model than string theory does, and it makes some predictions that are being tested right now--essentially, we ought to be able to see some "rounding error" in the universe at large scales. (Tipler's proposal of an infinite-order construction rather than a second-order is also mathematically simpler and more coherent, but I've yet to see an explanation of how to distinguish the two orders.)<br /><br />All this is still up in the air, though, because of the question why inertial mass and gravitational mass are the same thing, and I don't see that Tipler's construction satisfactorily addresses the issue. We're hoping that observation of the Higgs boson will give us some key clue that will enable the kind of fundamental perspective shift that you prescribe, but it's taking some time to get the necessary machines running.chrylishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08417282205206760286noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-759178030677978044.post-50706567202701616092010-09-07T20:12:19.710-07:002010-09-07T20:12:19.710-07:00Without addressing the rest of this essay (Dr. Tip...Without addressing the rest of this essay (Dr. Tipler's claim is fascinating in the extreme, but it's hard to which side of the genius-madness line he falls on), I'd like to note that in mathematics and the hard sciences, "random" usually isn't a weasel-word (though the rest you so described surely are). Particularly in relation to quantum mechanics, "random" has a particular meaning that is itself part of the well-testedness Tipler points out.chrylishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08417282205206760286noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-759178030677978044.post-51421495148532597812010-09-07T17:45:15.579-07:002010-09-07T17:45:15.579-07:00The increasingly obscure postulations of theoretic...The increasingly obscure postulations of theoretical physicists, which are impossible to understand for ordinary mortals, remind me very much of the similar efforts of astronomers to explain the motions of the planets during the early middle ages.<br /><br />The problem with planetary models at that time was that they were all geocentrically based (i.e., founded on the idea that the Earth is at the center, with everything else going around it). While they became steadily more sophisticated, all these models still had fundamental problems in explaining the regressive (i.e., backward) motion of some of the planets (e.g., mercury). We have no difficulty explaining this type of motion in modern times. It is due simply to the relative positions and velocities of the Earth and these planets as they all orbit around the Sun.<br /><br />The early astronomers, however, hung on to geocentric models, and tried to explain the regressive motions by adding more and more concentric spheres to their astrolabes. These finally became so complicated that they were impossible to understand.<br /><br />Finally, Ptolemy produced a theory of astronomy so impenetrable that it lead Alphonso X of Castile to (reputedly) say: "If the Lord Almighty had consulted me before embarking on creation thus, I should have recommended something simpler."<br /><br />No amount of development based on the old assumptions was going to work. It needed time for Copernicus to come along with a revolutionary new idea (i.e., heliocentrism) to break the logjam, and reduce everything to simplicity again.<br /><br />I rather suspect the same is eventually going to happen with modern theories of the universe. There is some basic assumption the physicists are all making that needs to be reevaluated, some basic change of perspective that needs to be made, which will lead to a coherent and comprehensive explanation. It will also have the virtue of being much simpler than the multiple dimension universes currently being proposed.<br /><br />Who is going to be our modern Copernicus?Topperhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14537239370392917165noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-759178030677978044.post-14694825303631384382010-09-07T10:36:27.522-07:002010-09-07T10:36:27.522-07:00I was very disappointed in the recent WSJ article ...I was very disappointed in the recent WSJ article re: Hawking's theories. He listed the improbabilities associated with this universe/world, but then simply asserted the "truth" of his theory. Perhaps he didn't think folks would be able to follow the math (probably correct), but surely he could have made at least an attempt at convincing us of his position. Thanks for your many fine posts.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18048863893895777721noreply@blogger.com