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Thank you for your reply, dear LogicWings!

Yes, I am picky and I am speaking to your assertions, not Godwin's.

If it were possible, I would speak in mathematics because that is the most precise language known to me. And I prefer the Oxford Dictionary for definitions.

There, the word "universe" is first defined in the context of science, e.g. astrophysics and physical cosmology. If we were speaking in math terms we would say "universal set" not just "universe" and we would specify the system.

But of course the word "universe" is also used in casual conversation - Oxford's second definition - there it may entail considerably more or less than either science or math.

I suspect that is context for the use of term in philosophy and theology but in that case the boundaries of scientific investigation, methodological naturalism, would not apply anyway.

A creature bound by the space-time continuum has no means by which to determine that anything exists outside of that space-time continuum except upon a hypothetical basis.

That statement equates the universal set of knowables to the subset of knowables by empiricism. That is illogical.

Also, your quotes from Tegmark sound as if he is speaking of Everett's many worlds cosmology. Do you have a link?

As a personal idiosyncrasy, I happen to believe the scene in Daniel --the hand writing on the wall-- is an eyewitness account related through the ages in Jewish scriptures. I am immediately drawn to presume the body to which the hand was attached, though not visible to the folks in Belshazzar's palace party central, exists in a spacetime not readily available to our sensing due to the way God made us for the present spacetime we inhabit. BUT, the fact that one in the 'other' spcaetime can reach into our spacetime and write on the palace wall tells me there is some 'convergence', some shared dimensional variability. In brane theory, higher dimensional branes (more complex, if you will) can 'project' onto lower dimensional branes, and I suspect something akin to that occurred in Babylon long ago.

So, let us also state that in whatever spacetime the body stood, that spacetime would also be a part of OUR UNIVERSE else there would be no convergence, no intersection without catastrophe. THE Universe is indeed more odd than we have yet to imagine, much less 'parallel' universes of only imaginary existence.

If it were possible, I would speak in mathematics because that is the most precise language known to me.

Funny, because Boop said:

One might say that science, as it is currently understood and practiced, is excessively devoted to abstractions, in a sort of process of "reification" in reverse.

You want to speak only in abstractions and she thinks we science uses them “excessively.” (perhaps) Interesting.

And I prefer the Oxford Dictionary for definitions.

I find them inadequate, stilting and rather narrow. Not sufficient for a philosophical , metaphysical discussion.

A creature bound by the space-time continuum has no means by which to determine that anything exists outside of that space-time continuum except upon a hypothetical basis.

That statement equates the universal set of knowables to the subset of knowables by empiricism. That is illogical.

Your definitions are as narrow as Oxford's, maybe that is why you prefer it. Please name for me any “knowable” that exists outside the space-time continuum.

Here and Here