Interesting Captain, a parallel universe.
Posted on 12/25/2011 7:25:35 AM PST by SeekAndFind
In the fifth century B.C., the philosopher Democritus proposed that all matter was made of tiny and indivisible atoms, which came in various sizes and textures—some hard and some soft, some smooth and some thorny. The atoms themselves were taken as givens. In the nineteenth century, scientists discovered that the chemical properties of atoms repeat periodically (and created the periodic table to reflect this fact), but the origins of such patterns remained mysterious. It wasn’t until the twentieth century that scientists learned that the properties of an atom are determined by the number and placement of its electrons, the subatomic particles that orbit its nucleus. And we now know that all atoms heavier than helium were created in the nuclear furnaces of stars.
The history of science can be viewed as the recasting of phenomena that were once thought to be accidents as phenomena that can be understood in terms of fundamental causes and principles. One can add to the list of the fully explained: the hue of the sky, the orbits of planets, the angle of the wake of a boat moving through a lake, the six-sided patterns of snowflakes, the weight of a flying bustard, the temperature of boiling water, the size of raindrops, the circular shape of the sun. All these phenomena and many more, once thought to have been fixed at the beginning of time or to be the result of random events thereafter, have been explained as necessary consequences of the fundamental laws of nature—laws discovered by human beings.
This long and appealing trend may be coming to an end. Dramatic developments in cosmological findings and thought have led some of the world’s premier physicists to propose that our universe is only one of an enormous number of universes with wildly varying properties, and that some of the most basic features of our particular universe are indeed mere accidents—a random throw of the cosmic dice. In which case, there is no hope of ever explaining our universe’s features in terms of fundamental causes and principles.
It is perhaps impossible to say how far apart the different universes may be, or whether they exist simultaneously in time. Some may have stars and galaxies like ours. Some may not. Some may be finite in size. Some may be infinite. Physicists call the totality of universes the “multiverse.” Alan Guth, a pioneer in cosmological thought, says that “the multiple-universe idea severely limits our hopes to understand the world from fundamental principles.” And the philosophical ethos of science is torn from its roots. As put to me recently by Nobel Prize–winning physicist Steven Weinberg, a man as careful in his words as in his mathematical calculations, “We now find ourselves at a historic fork in the road we travel to understand the laws of nature. If the multiverse idea is correct, the style of fundamental physics will be radically changed.”
The scientists most distressed by Weinberg’s “fork in the road” are theoretical physicists. Theoretical physics is the deepest and purest branch of science. It is the outpost of science closest to philosophy, and religion.
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I believe much of these speculative theories/concepts for the Universe arise from our poor understanding of dimension Time.
When Hawking and Penrose showed mathematically that dimensions Time and Space had an incident of origin (the big bang), that starting incident didn't sit well with those who have a need to subtract The Creator from their belief field.
No matter how many 'alternate universes' are speculated, the reality is that we exist in this particualr universe, with these particularly delicate aspects necessary for contemplative life of our type to exist. How God keeps these delicate parameters in balance so that we continue to have this 'zone of favorability' will likely remain outside of our experimentation so long as we hold to primitive conceptualizations of dimensions Time and Space.
There is a way to contemplate the vagaries which is not comfy for 'hard scientists' so they avoid using that perspective. As an example, consider the photon, which arises at some where/when and travels the expanse of the Universe remaining in the present of its origin, until some interaction occurs which changes the photon's orientation to the real Universe. Because of the fact that we were created unable to sense the actual present of our existence, we conjecture everything based upon things arriving to our sensing from past occurences. To our rational mind, everything is arranged upon a linear Time variability. But there may also exist planar temporal variation (we seem to exist upon such a variability, while processing linear past, for our comprehension), and volumetric Time may be the actual state of the Universe in which we exist, whether balanced in that delicate position by a near infinite number of alternate universes or not.
Such existence does not exclude the need for a Creator of the multiverses, Guth, Dawkins, Penrose, Weinberg, and Hawking notwithstanding.
A very tiny variable held constant for our universe to exist may actually be so because our mixture of variables is relative to a grand array of multiple universes which maintain the balance. There could be 10500 alternates in the array necessary to maintain our particular Universe in balance. That number is, BTW, greater than all the believed actual particles in our Universe, way larger.
The entire World of Tiers series was a revelation of adventure and wonder the first time I read it.
It doesn’t really matter if there are or aren’t multiple universes. We live in this one and we most likely won’t be able to visit any others any time soon. We have still so much to learn and improve. We were made to explore and learn and do great things. This century will see us utilizing the resources of our solar system and next century we will possibly head to other stars. I wish I could live to see that.
Merry Christmas Beep!
Thanks for posting this.
Of course, there is always the possibility I will wake up and all of this (and you) will vanish as I find myself in the Real Universe, more inexplicable than this one.
Fortunately for all, I am deep sleeper
;)
And you have right perfesser?
Interesting Captain, a parallel universe.
Or they drink my coffee.
If I were you I'd get to work on it right away.
The article specifically mentions Intelligent Design and the fact that some scientists can’t accept that idea, hence string, eternity and multiverse theories.
God has chosen the foolish things of this world to confound the wise...
Case in point:
"A vast number of universes may exist, with many different values of the amount of dark energy. Our particular universe is one of the universes with a small value, permitting the emergence of life. We are here, so our universe must be such a universe. We are an accident. From the cosmic lottery hat containing zillions of universes, we happened to draw a universe that allowed life. But then again, if we had not drawn such a ticket, we would not be here to ponder the odds."
Notice how self-consistency is taken as granted, so that the author can make the case that everything is an accident. Self-consistency would imply that conservation laws and symmetry would apply in the multitude of Universes, an awesome concept, which would make the conclusion that "it's all an accident" an impossible one to make.
We keep what we kill.
The arguments on this all are more than i have been able digest, but I found the response by Dawkins to Stein’s question in “Expelled” (good but which has some faults) as to where life came from to be revealing. Having expressed his utter disdain for the God of the Bible in particular, Dawkins then unequivocally disallowed an Intelligent Designer God, but was willing to postulate that maybe an advanced civilization (AC) developed this life form and seeded the earth, and expressing confidence that this might be verified soon, stipulating that this AC would have to have evolved also.
What was not asked was where this AC first came from, or energy or matter (mail order?) and the laws of gravity.
And since an ultimate Creator was rejected out of hand, but an AC was allowed, what needed to be explored is why this AC is acceptable and God is not.
Is it simply because eternal existence is objectionable, or because the God of the Bible in particular represents moral authority (i think atheists tend to have an animus toward authority telling them what to do) and judgment, and is a reminder of their finite condition which stands in need of God, rather than man being a god himself? That at least is my perception, knowing myself that the carnal mind cannot be subject to the law of God. (Rm. 8:7)
I’m just parroting what the theoreticians are saying. If I were you I’d do some reading on the subject.
There is life in our universe because the multiverse assures all possible outcomes will occur. God is a possible outcome as well since all outcomes will occur in the multiverse. Except God is banned from the multiverse outcomes because Alan Guth says so. Popper, if he had a sense of humor, has to be LOL at that scientific method.
How exactly does one falsify multiverse hypotheses?
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