What does the idea of the multiverse bring to the table?
New books mount aggressive but ultimately unpersuasive defenses of multiverses
31–40 of 72 posts
Re: New books mount aggressive but ultimately unpersuasive defenses of multiverses
#32> Today, physicists still lack evidence of other universes, or even good ideas for obtaining evidence. Until this is no longer true, I will view discussions of the multiverse as akin to medieval philosophers discussing how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. One of the biggest lessons of the scientific revolution is that logic alone is a poor predictor of reality. We need at some point to go out and test our…
Well, it was pretty much “logic alone” that led us to general relativity, for example.
Incorrect, phenomena that cannot be explained by current theories is already a kind of experiment. Relativity was developed to explain unexplained, observed phenomena. It was not a purely speculative endeavor.
Re: New books mount aggressive but ultimately unpersuasive defenses of multiverses
#33> Today, physicists still lack evidence of other universes, or even good ideas for obtaining evidence. Until this is no longer true, I will view discussions of the multiverse as akin to medieval philosophers discussing how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. One of the biggest lessons of the scientific revolution is that logic alone is a poor predictor of reality. We need at some point to go out and test our…
> I will view discussions of the multiverse as akin to medieval philosophers discussing how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.
Interestingly, this is almost certainly anti-catholic protestant agitprop that lost context.
As such, the question never seems to have been asked; similar questions of extreme minutae were widely parodied but were probably never a matter of actual debate or discussion by scholastics.
Re: New books mount aggressive but ultimately unpersuasive defenses of multiverses
#34[deleted]
Re: New books mount aggressive but ultimately unpersuasive defenses of multiverses
#35What does the idea of the multiverse bring to the table?
A god that does not tell you what to do. It's the god of random chance and it has it's temples and followers.
Re: New books mount aggressive but ultimately unpersuasive defenses of multiverses
#36> Today, physicists still lack evidence of other universes, or even good ideas for obtaining evidence. Until this is no longer true, I will view discussions of the multiverse as akin to medieval philosophers discussing how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. One of the biggest lessons of the scientific revolution is that logic alone is a poor predictor of reality. We need at some point to go out and test our…
> I will view discussions of the multiverse as akin to medieval philosophers discussing how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Interestingly, this is almost certainly anti-catholic protestant agitprop that lost context. As such, the question never seems to have been asked; similar questions of extreme minutae were widely parodied but were probably never a matter of actual debate or discussion by scholastics.
Similarly, how many actual physicists actually seriously argue about interpretations of quantum mechanics? I'm not a physicist but i'm pretty sure its a thing more talked about by philosophers and the popular press than actual physicists.
Not that there is anything wrong with philosophizing and inquiring into metaphysical questions.
Re: New books mount aggressive but ultimately unpersuasive defenses of multiverses
#37What does the idea of the multiverse bring to the table?
If they discovered that there are infinite universes similar to our own, and they figured out a way to communicate between them, they could do distributed research and experimentation like the way we do distributed computing. Instead of one team spending years doing trial and error, they could divide the experiment among however many universes they can communicate with, and whoever gets the solution shares it with everyone else. It wouldn't work for iterative experiments, but if they have a lot of potential solutions and just need time to try each solution, things could get done much quicker.
I know nothing at all about multiverses beyond what I read in articles though, so I don't know if my idea would even be possible.
Re: New books mount aggressive but ultimately unpersuasive defenses of multiverses
#38> Today, physicists still lack evidence of other universes, or even good ideas for obtaining evidence. Until this is no longer true, I will view discussions of the multiverse as akin to medieval philosophers discussing how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. One of the biggest lessons of the scientific revolution is that logic alone is a poor predictor of reality. We need at some point to go out and test our…
I don't really understand what the problem is if it's not testable. Many of the greatest scientific discoveries were not testable until decades later. Would you also have viewed Einstein as just a medieval philosopher back in his day ?
> Would you also have viewed Einstein as just a medieval philosopher back in his day ?
Einstein's theories were a response to experiments and known facts of the day, that didn't fit the current theoretical models. Sure plenty of it was difficult to test at the time (and still is in some ways when it comes to human scale. How many people do you know that have actually experianced human scale time dialation?) but its not like it was some castle in the sky totally divorced from the observable reality of the day.
Additionally even for predictions that weren't practically testable immediately, they were still testable theoretically given enough engineering effort. There is a big difference between not yet knowing how to test something, and not even knowing what you would test if resources/effort were no issue.
Re: New books mount aggressive but ultimately unpersuasive defenses of multiverses
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I will view discussions of the multiverse as akin to medieval philosophers discussing how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Interestingly, this is almost certainly anti-catholic protestant agitprop that lost context. As such, the question never seems to have been asked; similar questions of extreme minutae were widely parodied but were probably never a matter of actual debate or discussion by scholastics.
Similarly, how many actual physicists actually seriously argue about interpretations of quantum mechanics? I'm not a physicist but i'm pretty sure its a thing more talked about by philosophers and the popular press than actual physicists. Not that there is anything wrong with philosophizing and inquiring into metaphysical questions.
Sufficiently few that it is beginning to be said by a small number of physicists that it is a point of embarrassment that the Measurement Problem is about as unresolved as when it first came up a hundred years ago.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/07/opinion/sunday/quantum-ph...
Re: New books mount aggressive but ultimately unpersuasive defenses of multiverses
#40The Vedic literature clearly says each universe is an atom and innumerable come out of the nostrils of the Divine Person Visnu. The multiverse is a natural paradigm. Srimad Bhagavatam is very precise because its perfect knowledge.