8 ms·

Who/what created the multiverse? Do matter and energy simply exist without creation? Is proving the existence of the multiverse possible?

jerf 8y ago
"Is proving the existence of the multiverse possible?" It's proving it's nonexistence that is quite a challenge. Proving their existence could be demonstrated by, for instance, traveling to them. I personally see no reason to believe that is possible, but if somebody traveled to one and thereby disproved me, that would be that. That said, it might just about take that to prove one. Even if one produces theories that say a multiverse might be possible, I expect there will always be a simple transform for which the equations still work but there is only the one universe. For instance, taking well-established existing equations, while the QM field equations may imply that a quantum multiverse is possible, no matter how mathematically distasteful some people may find it the Copenhagen interpretation is still possibly the truth, and I'm not sure what possible experiment could disprove that. (The Universe may do as it damn well pleases.) I'm unsure what evidence we could collect other than concrete proof of existence that would somehow prove multiverses.
- maxfurman 8y ago
  > if somebody traveled to one and thereby disproved me That person would have to travel back as well, thereby making this proof doubly hard :-)
  - assblaster 8y ago
    Conscious thought requires a delicate interplay of neurons and chemicals, that if disturbed by visiting a permutation of the multiverse, would cease to function. Humans can not directly observe an alternative permutation, but even if they could, how would they be able to find their way back to their original permutation if there's an infinite number of permutations?
    - jerf 8y ago
      "Conscious thought requires a delicate interplay of neurons and chemicals, that if disturbed by visiting a permutation of the multiverse, would cease to function." The multiverse need not have different physical laws; the quantum multiverse if true, for example, is basically our universe just viewed from a different point of view. "Humans can not directly observe an alternative permutation, but even if they could, how would they be able to find their way back to their original permutation if there's an infinite number of permutations?" Unsurprisingly, science fiction authors have pondered this for a while, and one popular answer is a travel machine where part of it still stays in the universe of origin, so returning home is like pulling a rope back in. Even if we're in a quantum multiverse where the source universe and the destination universe are continuing to fuzz, you can still imagine there's some sort of correspondance that means that any given individual will still have a uniquely-corresponded universe to travel home to. I believe this is all technobabble bunk since I doubt it can correspond to any possible real configuration of atoms and energy, but, like I said, someone could well prove me wrong by building one, and that would be that.
      - Osiris 8y ago
        If every action that can happen, does happen, then the "universe" that you left only exists in that exact moment of departure because every quantum interaction from that point forward creates more branches of infinite universes. Thus, which of those would you return to? You could only return to the exact moment you left or to some random branch that's created after you leave.
    - sametmax 8y ago
      Maybe you can just observe something coming out of an alternative universe into yours. Maybe you could go in an alternative universe that is different, but not different enough that it prevents you to function.
      - assblaster 8y ago
        The absence of observing someone or some object to date suggests that multiverse can not be observed or can not exist, because if it was possible to observe or if it did exist we would have seen some evidence of it by now. In an infinite universe, there should be constant evidence of multiverse apparent.
- assblaster 8y ago
  Proving nonexistence is impossible because there is an infinite number of possible explanations for how the multiverse can exist without being able to be proven, and that these explanations can themselves require proof of nonexistence. The premise of proving nonexistence is the wrong way to assess credence of a theory. Likewise, proving existence of multiverse is as impossible as proving nonexistence for the reason that the multiverse is postulated as existing independently in an infinite number of permutations that can not interact with each other. If multiverse permutations can exist in the same time and space as another permutation, then matter and energy are supposed to exist in infinite number of states simultaneously, and would be impossible to measure.
  - Osiris 8y ago
    This is the same argument around the existence of "God". It is not possible to prove God's nonexistence. Similarly, it's unlikely to be possible to prove God's existence and thus the debate continues. On the nature of God, I read a theory that God is "truth", and thus any being that comprehends all truth is essentially God. In our human quest to gain knowledge of the truth of the universe, we have developed the ability to accomplish things that hundreds and thousands of years ago would have been considered God-like. In 13.7 billion years of the existence of the universe, is it not possible that some entity was able to obtain sufficient knowledge of the truth of reality (laws of nature) to be indistinguishable from "God"?
- mietek 8y ago
  In his 1985 paper, “Quantum theory as a universal physical theory”, Deutsch writes: > I have pointed out several times in the preceding sections that the C.I. and the Everett “interpretations” are really different formalisms for quantum theory—in effect, different physical theories. It is usually claimed that although their assertions as to the nature of objective facts are radically different, the two “interpretations” agree about all subjective experiences of observers, and cannot therefore be distinguished experimentally. That this claim is false is shown by equations (40) and (42) which summarize the different predictions of the two “interpretations” concerning further measurements on subsystems one of which has completed a measurement on the other. https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/c948/44bc9128e77077abdf36a6e2cd0807252ea5.pdf https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/c948/44bc9128e77077abdf36a6...
  - jerf 8y ago
    I judge by the fact that there aren't very many people doing experiments meant to distinguish the various proposals that physicists continue to generally believe there isn't much that can be done to distinguish the various interpretations from each other. Given the incentives to complete such an experiment and even just eliminating one possibility (even if one couldn't nail down which is true), and the fact that it seems to me many of the possible experiments that could do this are more lab-bench style experiments with a laser and a handful of mirrors and electronics rather than Large Hadron Collider-class experiments, I'm guessing the idea that the theories are distinguishable is a minority view, and one that the minority has not yet managed to do something so compelling with that the majority has no choice but to take note.
    - mietek 8y ago
      The specific experiment proposed by Deutsch is not yet possible to perform in practice.
- kazinator 8y ago
  Any place you can travel to is by definition part of this universe. According to the multiverse hypothesis, any mathematical structure is a universe. For instance, "the locus of points equidistant from a given point" is one of the universes. You cannot travel there; that universe has no way to accomodate a representation of you, let alone a representation which could record the experiences of being in that universe and then travel back to tell about it.
kazinator 8y ago
> Who/what created the multiverse? The multiverse hypothesis (in the style of Tegmark, et al) is partially motivated to render this sort question invalid. You're asking, effectively, "what are the hidden variables behind the multiverse", whereas the idea specifically asserts that there aren't any. The idea is that what underlies each possible universe is just math, "all the way down". So the question you're asking is exactly like, who created the sinusoid curve, pi, or prime numbers. Proving the idea may be impossible. That doesn't make it wrong. If some aspect of reality is not provable, then that can't be helped. The fascinating thing is that the hypothesis cannot be disproven either. The hypothesis that there is only one universe also isn't provable; the fact that other universes haven't been discovered/accessed doesn't prove it, since lack of evidence of existence isn't a proof of nonexistence. The hypothesis that there are multiple universes is simpler than the hypothesis that there is just the one. It's more believable, and explains more. For instance, all remarkable coincidences in the structure of our universe are explained via the anthropic principle, which is greatly boosted by the multiple universe hypothesis.
- TheOtherHobbes 8y ago
  What created math? I don't see how the essentially magical appearance of an incredibly complex set of axioms from nothing at all is a plausible answer to the 'Why something instead of nothing?" question. To be clear, I have absolutely no idea how to answer that question. I'm certainly not a closet theist. My best guess is that a useful answer is currently some way beyond our pay grade as a species. So I don't find "Because math" to be any more convincing as an answer than suggesting god did it.
  - kazinator 8y ago
    It's not so "magical" if all conceivable sets of axioms are understood to exist. > any more convincing as an answer than suggesting god did it. Doesn't have the problem of 1) asserting that no other gods exist other than this specific god or group of gods and 2) the issue of who created god. We don't ask, who put pi about 14% of the way between 3 and 4; that's almost silly. :)
  - 8y ago
fallingfrog 8y ago
The laws of physics seem to point towards some form of multiverse. Do some research on schrodinger's cat and quantum superpositions to understand that. As far as "creation" is concerned, you are making unwarranted assumptions about the nature of time when you talk about the universe itself having been "created". These are very difficult questions and no simple answer will be the right one.
darkmighty 8y ago
Those questions are irrelevant to multiverse hypothesis because they apply to any theory. That is, if there is no multiverse, you can still ask "Who/what created the universe? Do matter and energy simply exist without creation?", etc. Do matter and energy simply exist without creation? It depends on your definition of "creator" but indeed it is almost a logical necessity for something to exist without a creator. Since if you assume a creator is necessary, you'd still need someone to create the creator, and so on going infinitely. And then there's the question of creation of this infinite chain itself, etc -- the recursion never ends. It seems much more simple to assume some system must simply exist without necessity of creation.
- kazinator 8y ago
  Do elliptic curves, pi, Catalan numbers, spaces Euclidean and otherwise, ... exist without creation?
  - YouAreGreat 8y ago
    Mathematical structures are hypothetical, e.g. given a structure that is a group, here's a book full of properties it will have. To get concrete, if our universe happens to be finite (which I suspect is true), a lot of mathematics doesn't describe anything that exists within this universe.
- justhelpingout 8y ago
  > It seems much more simple to assume some system must simply exist without necessity of creation. You are spot on. This system must exist in-itself. That is, it must be so simple that its existence cannot be separated from its nature (to use Aristotelean terms). In other words, I AM WHO AM.
MadcapJake 8y ago
> Is proving the existence of the multiverse possible? I remember reading somewhere an argument that universes could interact in a fashion not unlike bubbles in foam and perhaps we can measure the amount by which our particular universe is being "squished" by the surrounding universes. But on another note, I would like to call Kant to the debate. Kant argued that humanity will never arrive at any useful understanding of universal origin (or even microscopic/macroscopic limits) because it is beyond our mental tools of comprehension. Science does attempt to bridge that gap, however how much can it help if our initial assertions require using subjective reason? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kant%27s_antinomies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kant%27s_antinomies

jerf 8y ago

"Is proving the existence of the multiverse possible?" It's proving it's nonexistence that is quite a challenge. Proving their existence could be demonstrated by, for instance, traveling to them. I personally see no reason to believe that is possible, but if somebody traveled to one and thereby disproved me, that would be that. That said, it might just about take that to prove one. Even if one produces theories that say a multiverse might be possible, I expect there will always be a simple transform for which the equations still work but there is only the one universe. For instance, taking well-established existing equations, while the QM field equations may imply that a quantum multiverse is possible, no matter how mathematically distasteful some people may find it the Copenhagen interpretation is still possibly the truth, and I'm not sure what possible experiment could disprove that. (The Universe may do as it damn well pleases.) I'm unsure what evidence we could collect other than concrete proof of existence that would somehow prove multiverses.

maxfurman 8y ago
> if somebody traveled to one and thereby disproved me That person would have to travel back as well, thereby making this proof doubly hard :-)
- assblaster 8y ago
  Conscious thought requires a delicate interplay of neurons and chemicals, that if disturbed by visiting a permutation of the multiverse, would cease to function. Humans can not directly observe an alternative permutation, but even if they could, how would they be able to find their way back to their original permutation if there's an infinite number of permutations?
  - jerf 8y ago
    "Conscious thought requires a delicate interplay of neurons and chemicals, that if disturbed by visiting a permutation of the multiverse, would cease to function." The multiverse need not have different physical laws; the quantum multiverse if true, for example, is basically our universe just viewed from a different point of view. "Humans can not directly observe an alternative permutation, but even if they could, how would they be able to find their way back to their original permutation if there's an infinite number of permutations?" Unsurprisingly, science fiction authors have pondered this for a while, and one popular answer is a travel machine where part of it still stays in the universe of origin, so returning home is like pulling a rope back in. Even if we're in a quantum multiverse where the source universe and the destination universe are continuing to fuzz, you can still imagine there's some sort of correspondance that means that any given individual will still have a uniquely-corresponded universe to travel home to. I believe this is all technobabble bunk since I doubt it can correspond to any possible real configuration of atoms and energy, but, like I said, someone could well prove me wrong by building one, and that would be that.
    - Osiris 8y ago
      If every action that can happen, does happen, then the "universe" that you left only exists in that exact moment of departure because every quantum interaction from that point forward creates more branches of infinite universes. Thus, which of those would you return to? You could only return to the exact moment you left or to some random branch that's created after you leave.
  - sametmax 8y ago
    Maybe you can just observe something coming out of an alternative universe into yours. Maybe you could go in an alternative universe that is different, but not different enough that it prevents you to function.
    - assblaster 8y ago
      The absence of observing someone or some object to date suggests that multiverse can not be observed or can not exist, because if it was possible to observe or if it did exist we would have seen some evidence of it by now. In an infinite universe, there should be constant evidence of multiverse apparent.
assblaster 8y ago
Proving nonexistence is impossible because there is an infinite number of possible explanations for how the multiverse can exist without being able to be proven, and that these explanations can themselves require proof of nonexistence. The premise of proving nonexistence is the wrong way to assess credence of a theory. Likewise, proving existence of multiverse is as impossible as proving nonexistence for the reason that the multiverse is postulated as existing independently in an infinite number of permutations that can not interact with each other. If multiverse permutations can exist in the same time and space as another permutation, then matter and energy are supposed to exist in infinite number of states simultaneously, and would be impossible to measure.
- Osiris 8y ago
  This is the same argument around the existence of "God". It is not possible to prove God's nonexistence. Similarly, it's unlikely to be possible to prove God's existence and thus the debate continues. On the nature of God, I read a theory that God is "truth", and thus any being that comprehends all truth is essentially God. In our human quest to gain knowledge of the truth of the universe, we have developed the ability to accomplish things that hundreds and thousands of years ago would have been considered God-like. In 13.7 billion years of the existence of the universe, is it not possible that some entity was able to obtain sufficient knowledge of the truth of reality (laws of nature) to be indistinguishable from "God"?
mietek 8y ago
In his 1985 paper, “Quantum theory as a universal physical theory”, Deutsch writes: > I have pointed out several times in the preceding sections that the C.I. and the Everett “interpretations” are really different formalisms for quantum theory—in effect, different physical theories. It is usually claimed that although their assertions as to the nature of objective facts are radically different, the two “interpretations” agree about all subjective experiences of observers, and cannot therefore be distinguished experimentally. That this claim is false is shown by equations (40) and (42) which summarize the different predictions of the two “interpretations” concerning further measurements on subsystems one of which has completed a measurement on the other. https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/c948/44bc9128e77077abdf36a6e2cd0807252ea5.pdf https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/c948/44bc9128e77077abdf36a6...
- jerf 8y ago
  I judge by the fact that there aren't very many people doing experiments meant to distinguish the various proposals that physicists continue to generally believe there isn't much that can be done to distinguish the various interpretations from each other. Given the incentives to complete such an experiment and even just eliminating one possibility (even if one couldn't nail down which is true), and the fact that it seems to me many of the possible experiments that could do this are more lab-bench style experiments with a laser and a handful of mirrors and electronics rather than Large Hadron Collider-class experiments, I'm guessing the idea that the theories are distinguishable is a minority view, and one that the minority has not yet managed to do something so compelling with that the majority has no choice but to take note.
  - mietek 8y ago
    The specific experiment proposed by Deutsch is not yet possible to perform in practice.
kazinator 8y ago
Any place you can travel to is by definition part of this universe. According to the multiverse hypothesis, any mathematical structure is a universe. For instance, "the locus of points equidistant from a given point" is one of the universes. You cannot travel there; that universe has no way to accomodate a representation of you, let alone a representation which could record the experiences of being in that universe and then travel back to tell about it.

kazinator 8y ago

> Who/what created the multiverse? The multiverse hypothesis (in the style of Tegmark, et al) is partially motivated to render this sort question invalid. You're asking, effectively, "what are the hidden variables behind the multiverse", whereas the idea specifically asserts that there aren't any. The idea is that what underlies each possible universe is just math, "all the way down". So the question you're asking is exactly like, who created the sinusoid curve, pi, or prime numbers. Proving the idea may be impossible. That doesn't make it wrong. If some aspect of reality is not provable, then that can't be helped. The fascinating thing is that the hypothesis cannot be disproven either. The hypothesis that there is only one universe also isn't provable; the fact that other universes haven't been discovered/accessed doesn't prove it, since lack of evidence of existence isn't a proof of nonexistence. The hypothesis that there are multiple universes is simpler than the hypothesis that there is just the one. It's more believable, and explains more. For instance, all remarkable coincidences in the structure of our universe are explained via the anthropic principle, which is greatly boosted by the multiple universe hypothesis.

TheOtherHobbes 8y ago
What created math? I don't see how the essentially magical appearance of an incredibly complex set of axioms from nothing at all is a plausible answer to the 'Why something instead of nothing?" question. To be clear, I have absolutely no idea how to answer that question. I'm certainly not a closet theist. My best guess is that a useful answer is currently some way beyond our pay grade as a species. So I don't find "Because math" to be any more convincing as an answer than suggesting god did it.
- kazinator 8y ago
  It's not so "magical" if all conceivable sets of axioms are understood to exist. > any more convincing as an answer than suggesting god did it. Doesn't have the problem of 1) asserting that no other gods exist other than this specific god or group of gods and 2) the issue of who created god. We don't ask, who put pi about 14% of the way between 3 and 4; that's almost silly. :)
- 8y ago

fallingfrog 8y ago

The laws of physics seem to point towards some form of multiverse. Do some research on schrodinger's cat and quantum superpositions to understand that. As far as "creation" is concerned, you are making unwarranted assumptions about the nature of time when you talk about the universe itself having been "created". These are very difficult questions and no simple answer will be the right one.

darkmighty 8y ago

Those questions are irrelevant to multiverse hypothesis because they apply to any theory. That is, if there is no multiverse, you can still ask "Who/what created the universe? Do matter and energy simply exist without creation?", etc. Do matter and energy simply exist without creation? It depends on your definition of "creator" but indeed it is almost a logical necessity for something to exist without a creator. Since if you assume a creator is necessary, you'd still need someone to create the creator, and so on going infinitely. And then there's the question of creation of this infinite chain itself, etc -- the recursion never ends. It seems much more simple to assume some system must simply exist without necessity of creation.

kazinator 8y ago
Do elliptic curves, pi, Catalan numbers, spaces Euclidean and otherwise, ... exist without creation?
- YouAreGreat 8y ago
  Mathematical structures are hypothetical, e.g. given a structure that is a group, here's a book full of properties it will have. To get concrete, if our universe happens to be finite (which I suspect is true), a lot of mathematics doesn't describe anything that exists within this universe.
justhelpingout 8y ago
> It seems much more simple to assume some system must simply exist without necessity of creation. You are spot on. This system must exist in-itself. That is, it must be so simple that its existence cannot be separated from its nature (to use Aristotelean terms). In other words, I AM WHO AM.

MadcapJake 8y ago

> Is proving the existence of the multiverse possible? I remember reading somewhere an argument that universes could interact in a fashion not unlike bubbles in foam and perhaps we can measure the amount by which our particular universe is being "squished" by the surrounding universes. But on another note, I would like to call Kant to the debate. Kant argued that humanity will never arrive at any useful understanding of universal origin (or even microscopic/macroscopic limits) because it is beyond our mental tools of comprehension. Science does attempt to bridge that gap, however how much can it help if our initial assertions require using subjective reason? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kant%27s_antinomies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kant%27s_antinomies