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One difference is that the multiverse emerges as a natural extension of many existing physical theories (string theory, inflation, many-worlds, etc). The deist

One difference is that the multiverse emerges as a natural extension of many existing physical theories (string theory, inflation, many-worlds, etc). The deist perspective is a more ad-hoc solution: it doesn't have any evidence that supports it directly, just that we currently don't know the answer to this problem.

Veelox 9y ago
>the multiverse emerges as a natural extension of many existing physical theories (string theory, inflation, many-worlds, etc). I might have looked in the wrong places but I have looked a little why the multiverse is a good explanation but I haven't found anything of the sort. The best explanations I have seen seem to amount to "we got lucky with our universe, the best way to explain that luck is that there are a lot of universes". I haven't seen any reason why it shouldn't be "we got lucky with our universe, the best way to explain that luck is that it was done on purpose". Would you be willing to explain how you get from observed data or well regarded theories to a multiverse?
- deleted 9y ago
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- xelxebar 9y ago
  Occam's Razor, essentially. The basic idea is that most multiverse notions arise naturally out of lower level mechanisms. A theistic explanation requires extra low level mechanics. Say all of our experiments are explained by Theory X. Then positing Thoery X + God is a model with strictly more moving parts and equal explanatory power as Theory X alone. On a wider level, explanations like "God did it" tend to operate on the same level as calling the phenomenon "magic"---it's an analysis that doesn't really provide any actionable information on how to influence said phenomenon. In that way, I personally see "magic" and "God" as operating more in the realm of storytelling. Practically, I find good storytelling is helpful for things like identity-building and theatre, but if I wanna build a bridge then my money's on minimum Kolmogorov complexity, i.e. Occam's Razor.
  - natecavanaugh 9y ago
    I see it as a something that arises out of first principles. Everything in our world has a cause, and something always comes from something else. Now a deity, being outside of our universe and separate from it wouldn't be subject to that rule necessarily. The multiverse is an inductive line of reasoning that infers things to explain away observances. But is it measurable? I'm not saying we should "God away" the questions, but coming up with inferences that we can't actually measure (and don't answer the question of where the multiverse comes from) really doesn't do much scientifically or philosophically.
  - jcranmer 9y ago
    Well, it's not quite that simple. A Deist theology basically posits that the universe was created by some entity that exists apart from the universe and doesn't interfere with the workings of the universe. A multiverse theology basically posits that the universe exists in some entity that exists apart from the universe that contains sufficiently many such universes that the improbability of our own universe is immaterial. In terms of complexity, both theologies necessitate the existence of a space which is inaccessible to our own measurements. You can't favor or disfavor one over the other since there is no distinction in explanatory capabilities, and the complexity exists in an immeasurable state. In a sense, both theologies basically state that the universe is the way it is because it was made that way, and the means of that making is described via effectively bullshittery in both cases.
    - yorwba 9y ago
      The difference is that e.g. quantum mechanics already operates on a vector space that contains all possible world-states, so many-worlds doesn't really add anything to the theory, it just interprets them differently. That's similar to the idea of a Platonic universe of mathematical truths, in that it doesn't give you any different predictions, just a different perspective. What a multiverse "explanation " of the observed constants adds to that is a prior that puts probability mass on every possible state, from which we can get the possibility of our personal universe. (I think that's a bit dubious, since it only shifts around the arbitraryness to some meta-heuristic about priors, thus the scare quotes.) Similarly, you could imagine a theology that takes all the same laws of physics and interprets them as "God's plan", which again is just a different perspective. But to get additional predictions, you then need to have some idea of what God's plan specifically is, which tends to require thick books of ancient stories that still don't explain everything clearly. So in the end you could disfavor both theories based on the difficulty of getting them to explain what they are intended to explain.
- coldtea 9y ago
  >The best explanations I have seen seem to amount to "we got lucky with our universe, the best way to explain that luck is that there are a lot of universes". Perhaps you haven't looked that hard? The idea of multiverse as the "best way to explaining our luck with our universe" was in the bottom of the list of concerns to theorize a multiverse - if it appeared at all: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiverse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiverse
  - Veelox 9y ago
    I been to the wiki page before. If anything my question is common enough it is discussed in the wiki page which contains this quote. >Indeed, invoking an infinity of unseen universes to explain the unusual features of the one we do see is just as ad hoc as invoking an unseen Creator. The multiverse theory may be dressed up in scientific language, but in essence it requires the same leap of faith. — Paul Davies, The New York Times, "A Brief History of the Multiverse" So while it may be at the bottom of the list, it very much appears.
    - MrBingley 9y ago
      I think one crucial difference is that this actually has scientific precedence. For example, the Earth lies in an incredible number of "Goldilocks zones", which have just the right conditions for life to develop. For example, the Earth lies at just the right distance from the Sun for water to be in liquid form. To close and it would all evaporate, too far and it would all freeze. Why is this? Early astronomers (Kepler, I think) spent many years trying to discover some physical reason for why the Earth should be at this particular distance. From what physical principles could the distance be deduced? As we know now, this search was in vain, because there was no fundamental reason. Turns out, it was just a coincidence! With the discoveries of the (appropriately) named Kepler telescope, we have discovered thousands of exoplanets in thousands of star systems. With the billions upon billions of stars in the universe, there are likely trillions of planets out there. With odds like that, it is almost certain that a planet with our properties would show up somewhere, which it did. As it turns out, astronomers do invoke an "infinity" of unseen planets to explain the unusual features of this one, and I doubt Paul Davies thinks that's a leap of faith!
- MrBingley 9y ago
  Sure. For example, string theory posits the existence of an extra 6 dimensions of space, which need to be wrapped up in something called a Calabi-Yau manifold. The exact properties of this manifold determine some of the basic properties of the universe, such as the values of the fundamental constants and the number of elementary particles. The only problem: there are about 10^500 possible Calabi-Yau manifolds, each of which looks just as valid as another. Early string theorists had hoped all the extra manifolds would somehow be ruled out, leaving only one that would uniquely determine the properties of our universe. However, this avenue is now looking pretty hopeless; it seems we're stuck with all 10^500 possibilities. So, what does one do with all these manifolds? Well, it turns out that the early universe went through a phase of incredible, extraordinary expansion called inflation. The inflation was boosted by something called an inflaton field, and due to quantum properties the inflaton field could spontaneously destabilize and spawn a bubble universe, each of which with a different Calabi-Yau manifold. It's possible that we are inside such a bubble universe, and outside of us the inflaton field is continuing to expand and producing more bubble universes. If this is the case, then it's not much of a surprise why our universe has the properties it does. Out of the 10^500 possibilities, a bubble universe spawned with the right Calabi-Yau manifold for life, and (unsurprisingly) we find ourselves living in that universe. This is the landscape multiverse theory. (I originally read about this theory in Brian Greene's excellent book The Hidden Reality, which describes many other multiverse theories too.) Now, something important to note is that all this is still highly conjectural. String theory has many pleasing theoretical properties, but about zero physical evidence to support it. What then is the difference between string theory and deism? The difference is that for string theory (and more generally other multiverse theories) we actually have physical and mathematical theories that describe them. Deism doesn't. For string theory, we have papers, conferences, books, equations, and physicists and mathematicians who study this problem. We have something to work with. What do we have for deism? Well, pretty much nothing. No data, no theories, no anything. Deism is a fall-back theory when nothing else works out, and it has no theoretical roots and makes no predictions. This may change in the future, but as of now, deism is a scientific dead end. Of course, I don't know if string theory or another multiverse theory will pan out (indeed, the failure of the LHC to detect supersymmetry is raising some eyebrows), or even if deism actually turns out to be correct. However, on a scientific basis, string theory has more going for it now.
- snowwrestler 9y ago
  We would only say "we got lucky with our universe" if we already presume the existence of other random universes. If there's only one universe that was purposefully created, then luck had nothing to do with it. So the equivalence you're trying to draw is more of an opposite. Saying "our universe was done on purpose" is the opposite of saying "we got lucky with this universe," in much the same way that carefully placing 4 coins heads-up on a table is the opposite of flipping the same coin 4 times. Once you're willing to entertain gods as an explanation, then no other explanation is needed, or will suffice. You don't need to go so far as elementary physics before considering a god. You can just look around and say "a god created this one second ago, including our memories." From the other perspective, if you want to consider the idea of a god scientifically, then the obvious question is, where did the god come from? If they were powerful enough to purposefully create our universe, then they must have REALLY gotten lucky to have evolved that way in their own universe, right?

Veelox 9y ago

>the multiverse emerges as a natural extension of many existing physical theories (string theory, inflation, many-worlds, etc). I might have looked in the wrong places but I have looked a little why the multiverse is a good explanation but I haven't found anything of the sort. The best explanations I have seen seem to amount to "we got lucky with our universe, the best way to explain that luck is that there are a lot of universes". I haven't seen any reason why it shouldn't be "we got lucky with our universe, the best way to explain that luck is that it was done on purpose". Would you be willing to explain how you get from observed data or well regarded theories to a multiverse?

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
xelxebar 9y ago
Occam's Razor, essentially. The basic idea is that most multiverse notions arise naturally out of lower level mechanisms. A theistic explanation requires extra low level mechanics. Say all of our experiments are explained by Theory X. Then positing Thoery X + God is a model with strictly more moving parts and equal explanatory power as Theory X alone. On a wider level, explanations like "God did it" tend to operate on the same level as calling the phenomenon "magic"---it's an analysis that doesn't really provide any actionable information on how to influence said phenomenon. In that way, I personally see "magic" and "God" as operating more in the realm of storytelling. Practically, I find good storytelling is helpful for things like identity-building and theatre, but if I wanna build a bridge then my money's on minimum Kolmogorov complexity, i.e. Occam's Razor.
- natecavanaugh 9y ago
  I see it as a something that arises out of first principles. Everything in our world has a cause, and something always comes from something else. Now a deity, being outside of our universe and separate from it wouldn't be subject to that rule necessarily. The multiverse is an inductive line of reasoning that infers things to explain away observances. But is it measurable? I'm not saying we should "God away" the questions, but coming up with inferences that we can't actually measure (and don't answer the question of where the multiverse comes from) really doesn't do much scientifically or philosophically.
- jcranmer 9y ago
  Well, it's not quite that simple. A Deist theology basically posits that the universe was created by some entity that exists apart from the universe and doesn't interfere with the workings of the universe. A multiverse theology basically posits that the universe exists in some entity that exists apart from the universe that contains sufficiently many such universes that the improbability of our own universe is immaterial. In terms of complexity, both theologies necessitate the existence of a space which is inaccessible to our own measurements. You can't favor or disfavor one over the other since there is no distinction in explanatory capabilities, and the complexity exists in an immeasurable state. In a sense, both theologies basically state that the universe is the way it is because it was made that way, and the means of that making is described via effectively bullshittery in both cases.
  - yorwba 9y ago
    The difference is that e.g. quantum mechanics already operates on a vector space that contains all possible world-states, so many-worlds doesn't really add anything to the theory, it just interprets them differently. That's similar to the idea of a Platonic universe of mathematical truths, in that it doesn't give you any different predictions, just a different perspective. What a multiverse "explanation " of the observed constants adds to that is a prior that puts probability mass on every possible state, from which we can get the possibility of our personal universe. (I think that's a bit dubious, since it only shifts around the arbitraryness to some meta-heuristic about priors, thus the scare quotes.) Similarly, you could imagine a theology that takes all the same laws of physics and interprets them as "God's plan", which again is just a different perspective. But to get additional predictions, you then need to have some idea of what God's plan specifically is, which tends to require thick books of ancient stories that still don't explain everything clearly. So in the end you could disfavor both theories based on the difficulty of getting them to explain what they are intended to explain.
coldtea 9y ago
>The best explanations I have seen seem to amount to "we got lucky with our universe, the best way to explain that luck is that there are a lot of universes". Perhaps you haven't looked that hard? The idea of multiverse as the "best way to explaining our luck with our universe" was in the bottom of the list of concerns to theorize a multiverse - if it appeared at all: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiverse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiverse
- Veelox 9y ago
  I been to the wiki page before. If anything my question is common enough it is discussed in the wiki page which contains this quote. >Indeed, invoking an infinity of unseen universes to explain the unusual features of the one we do see is just as ad hoc as invoking an unseen Creator. The multiverse theory may be dressed up in scientific language, but in essence it requires the same leap of faith. — Paul Davies, The New York Times, "A Brief History of the Multiverse" So while it may be at the bottom of the list, it very much appears.
  - MrBingley 9y ago
    I think one crucial difference is that this actually has scientific precedence. For example, the Earth lies in an incredible number of "Goldilocks zones", which have just the right conditions for life to develop. For example, the Earth lies at just the right distance from the Sun for water to be in liquid form. To close and it would all evaporate, too far and it would all freeze. Why is this? Early astronomers (Kepler, I think) spent many years trying to discover some physical reason for why the Earth should be at this particular distance. From what physical principles could the distance be deduced? As we know now, this search was in vain, because there was no fundamental reason. Turns out, it was just a coincidence! With the discoveries of the (appropriately) named Kepler telescope, we have discovered thousands of exoplanets in thousands of star systems. With the billions upon billions of stars in the universe, there are likely trillions of planets out there. With odds like that, it is almost certain that a planet with our properties would show up somewhere, which it did. As it turns out, astronomers do invoke an "infinity" of unseen planets to explain the unusual features of this one, and I doubt Paul Davies thinks that's a leap of faith!
MrBingley 9y ago
Sure. For example, string theory posits the existence of an extra 6 dimensions of space, which need to be wrapped up in something called a Calabi-Yau manifold. The exact properties of this manifold determine some of the basic properties of the universe, such as the values of the fundamental constants and the number of elementary particles. The only problem: there are about 10^500 possible Calabi-Yau manifolds, each of which looks just as valid as another. Early string theorists had hoped all the extra manifolds would somehow be ruled out, leaving only one that would uniquely determine the properties of our universe. However, this avenue is now looking pretty hopeless; it seems we're stuck with all 10^500 possibilities. So, what does one do with all these manifolds? Well, it turns out that the early universe went through a phase of incredible, extraordinary expansion called inflation. The inflation was boosted by something called an inflaton field, and due to quantum properties the inflaton field could spontaneously destabilize and spawn a bubble universe, each of which with a different Calabi-Yau manifold. It's possible that we are inside such a bubble universe, and outside of us the inflaton field is continuing to expand and producing more bubble universes. If this is the case, then it's not much of a surprise why our universe has the properties it does. Out of the 10^500 possibilities, a bubble universe spawned with the right Calabi-Yau manifold for life, and (unsurprisingly) we find ourselves living in that universe. This is the landscape multiverse theory. (I originally read about this theory in Brian Greene's excellent book The Hidden Reality, which describes many other multiverse theories too.) Now, something important to note is that all this is still highly conjectural. String theory has many pleasing theoretical properties, but about zero physical evidence to support it. What then is the difference between string theory and deism? The difference is that for string theory (and more generally other multiverse theories) we actually have physical and mathematical theories that describe them. Deism doesn't. For string theory, we have papers, conferences, books, equations, and physicists and mathematicians who study this problem. We have something to work with. What do we have for deism? Well, pretty much nothing. No data, no theories, no anything. Deism is a fall-back theory when nothing else works out, and it has no theoretical roots and makes no predictions. This may change in the future, but as of now, deism is a scientific dead end. Of course, I don't know if string theory or another multiverse theory will pan out (indeed, the failure of the LHC to detect supersymmetry is raising some eyebrows), or even if deism actually turns out to be correct. However, on a scientific basis, string theory has more going for it now.
snowwrestler 9y ago
We would only say "we got lucky with our universe" if we already presume the existence of other random universes. If there's only one universe that was purposefully created, then luck had nothing to do with it. So the equivalence you're trying to draw is more of an opposite. Saying "our universe was done on purpose" is the opposite of saying "we got lucky with this universe," in much the same way that carefully placing 4 coins heads-up on a table is the opposite of flipping the same coin 4 times. Once you're willing to entertain gods as an explanation, then no other explanation is needed, or will suffice. You don't need to go so far as elementary physics before considering a god. You can just look around and say "a god created this one second ago, including our memories." From the other perspective, if you want to consider the idea of a god scientifically, then the obvious question is, where did the god come from? If they were powerful enough to purposefully create our universe, then they must have REALLY gotten lucky to have evolved that way in their own universe, right?