And there would be no one around to take note of that fact. You are failing to account for the anthropic principle as discussed above.
Yes, this gambit is called ‘God of the Gaps,’ whereby God is inserted into our fund of knowledge to explain those natural phenomena for which an accepted scientific accounting has not been developed. It has been with us throughout recorded history, and remains with us still.
The downside to the God of the Gaps is that, to date, it has always proven eventually to be superfluous; ie, science invariably catches up, and that-which-was-unexplainable becomes readily explainable. In short, it is a highly unstable foundation upon which to build one’s faith.
You could also argue that if there was Multiple or infinite universes there must be one in which the four fundamental forces are in the right ratios to each other allowing for sentient life.
I’m not a college-educated theoretical physicist, but I’ve smoked plenty of weed, took a field trip to Fermilab and read one of Stephen Hawking’s books.
This is what we physicists call “bullshit you hear at a bar.”
How are multiple universes relevant to the puzzle? The basic idea is straightforward.
For any improbable outcome of a trial ~e.g., dealing a royal flush, hitting
a hole in one, throwing a bull’s eye! if you repeat the trial enough times
you can expect to get an outcome of that type eventually. If we suppose that
our universe is just one of very many universes, randomly varying in their initial
conditions and fundamental constants, it is to be expected that at least one
of them is life-permitting. Add to this the fact that we could only find ourselves
in a life-permitting universe and we seem to have satisfyingly accounted for
what at first seemed amazing, removing the temptation to suppose that there
was a Fine-Tuner, who adjusted the physical constants for a purpose. It is widely
thought therefore, that the fact that our universe is fine-tuned for life, provides
evidence for the Multiple Universe theory. In fact almost everyone who has written
on the topic accepts that the fine-tuning facts count in favor of multiple universes,
even if they are not persuaded that there are other universes.4 But they
are mistaken, or so I will argue. Perhaps there is independent evidence for the
existence of many universes. But the fact that our universe is fine-tuned gives
us no further reason to suppose that there are universes other than ours. I will
examine the two main lines of reasoning found in the literature from finetuning
to multiple universes to see where they go wrong.
Thought this was something interesting to think about.
I like you and you’re lifting is looking much better, so I’ll take the time to explain why you are full of shit. What you said falls into the category of “bullshit you hear at a bar” because you lack the understanding of theoretical physics to actually back up this statement you made earlier.
Really? YOU could argue this?
How would you rate your knowledge of Riemannian geometry, geometry of principal and vector bundles, Spinor geometry, and Lie groups and representation theory? Have you even taken any linear algebra?
Differential equations? How about calculus?
You’re a pretty bright kid, and there’s nothing wrong with reading what Hugh Everett writes and sharing it with other people. But you’re just bullshitting about it really. Invoking theoretical physics is just cloaking your argument in armor made out of the most complex scientific frontiers known to man. Which is why @EyeDentist was prudent to dodge your non-argument with the humble concession that he lacks the knowledge to speak on that subject. Pretty much everyone does.
Deepak Chopra does the same thing with physics. He’s an actual MD, but he still has no fucking clue about quantum mechanics. Yet he weaves the terminology into his woo as if he was some kind of authority on quantum physics, which he absolutely is not. This helps him sell a ton of fucking books and other crap to suckers all over the globe who like how his bullshit sounds too. You can find a clip of him getting exposed when he tried to play the quantum card in a room full of theoretical physicists at Cal Tech. I really got a kick out of it.
I hope this helps you understand the difference between making a coherent argument and slinging bullshit. Make sense?
While I’m sure you’re correct that Hugh does not have the scientific and mathematical background to derive a case for multi universes, I’m not sure I get why this is suddenly a criteria to post and discuss theories put up by modern scientists. If Hugh himself had said “Hey, I just worked through a set of equations, and guess what? My calculations suggest the possibility of multi verses and countless Big Bangs, thus the statistical likelihood of a combination of the constants we observe in Nature”. We’d all call bullshit unless he produced credentials. But he’s just putting out there a theory that some astrophysicists have postulated, he’s not claiming he checked their math and confirmed this possibility.
Yep. My sister does the same thing. She always has some trendy new buzzword stolen from theoretical phys. that she lazily plunks out to explain the “magic” of the universe.
She thinks I’m dumb for for having some sort of belief in a higher power. I think she’s dumb for trying to explain one using stolen words and misunderstood concepts.
I’m not saying it is, per se. But if you play the theoretical physics card in a discussion about faith, I’m sorry, but that’s just slinging bullshit UNLESS you can actually get into the weeds of why it is applicable. Again, it is taking a fairly basic idea that there is a possibility of multiple universes and ours was designed by a god, and then armoring it up with scientific jargon that nobody can really pick apart because nobody really understands it.
That’s another way of putting it bluntly. That’s what makes it impossible to discuss productively, unless of course you agree with whoever is claiming that advanced science backs them up. That’s why it was so entertaining to watch Deepak Chopra sling bullshit in front of actual physicists.
That is a perfect example of the silliness of it. Every time he was called on the misuse of term, he tried to sequester the conversation into a realm that he hopes the physicist doesn’t understand- using terms that the physicist does understand.
It comes back to “words have meaning” vs. “I’ll use them how ever I want”. Unfortunately, a shyster like him is the pied piper of this new agey, superficial “spirituality” that has nothing to do with either a god of any understanding OR physics.
I’ve noticed that this is particularly appealing to people that don’t want to put down their ax that they have to grind with a traditional religion, and aren’t intellectually diligent enough to formally study physics- but still want to feel good. (can’t really blame them for that.)
