Tuesday, April 15, 2014

Quick Thoughts on the Multiverse

I actually love Dawkins' claim that the multiverse is the Darwinian approach to solving the issue of the fine-tuning of the universe. The Darwinian approach is purely by imagining connections between distinct observatons, and creating fantasy observations to fill the holes in the observational history.

But there is a logical disconnect even outside the Darwinian fantasy approach, which is this:

Materialist claim:
All things which exist are material (note 1);

The source of all things which exist is therefore material.
This is a direct example of Russell's "Set of All Sets Paradox". When Russell and Whitehead were writing Principia Mathematica, which they intended to explain all mathematical concepts, Russell encountered the paradox whereby a "set of all sets" must also include itself, and therefore could not be a true set of all sets. Paradoxically, there can be no set of all sets.

The materialist claim, above, is paradoxical for the same reason. If the source of all things which exist material, then it must be the source of itself (self-referencing), or have existed forever in infinite time (infinite regression), or else require a non-material source (the claim is false).

The multiverse is an extension of the known universe (actually only partially known), and is an attempt to assert the infinite regression without having to face the usual philosophical disdain for such a claim.

Some try to assert the "material source created itself" position, but unsuccessfully. Hawking required preexisting physical laws which affected a quantum field. Krauss claimed that "coming from nothing" meant coming from the preexisting quantum field or foam or whatever preexisted, which was not material but only pre-material (or something like that). In every case, there is never an actual absence of all concepts of preexistence involved in creation-from-nothing. So it devolves to another infinite regression.

But under Godel's theorems, a hierarchy must exist if knowledge is to be certain. This brings us back to Darwinian Just So Stories, which are created imaginings of connections, fables without evidence, and then considered to actually BE evidence. That is exactly what the multiverse is.

Note 1: This claim cannot be proven materially or rationally; it is an assertion only. The use of this assertion as a premise renders the entire argument to be false. Further, it is part of a Category Error, in which material methodology (required) is used in attempts to claim that there is no material evidence for non-material existence.

5 comments:

DannyM said...

Not only that, but postulating 'billions and billions' of parallel universes in this way is desperate and wholly ad hoc. Dawkins says as much, and it is hardly a tacit admission: 'The multi-verse hypothesis is a kind of Darwinian way of solving that problem [the fine-tuned constants of the universe].' (44:19 of video)

So there you have it. It is the Darwinian 'solution' to an admitted problem. Dawkins concedes this. Are atheists really happy with this fantastical and unscientific 'solution'? Apart from the multi-verse 'hypothesis' being ad hoc, it does not seem to bother Dawkins and his buddies that it is unobservable, untestable and unverifiable. Isn't this what Dawkins would, in other contexts, call 'unscientific'?

Anonymous said...

The Atheist's desperation for the belief in the multiverse has led him into new and unlimited fantasies.In these multiverses (aka Parallel Universes),everything is possible.
I bet in one of those universes Dawkins is a brilliant philosopher and the theory of evolution is proved conclusively

Moor said...

@atheistcrimes: is that the same universe where down is up and water burns?

Robert Coble said...

Climbing Mt. Improbable one more time, one little universe at a time.

Given an infinity of universes with an infinite number of possibilities (so as to establish that anything not only CAN happen but DOES happen), then perhaps we can infer (since we are merely speculating about one out of an infinite number of possible universes) that there is a universe (maybe this one!) that includes "heaven" and "hell."

It COULD happen, given the multiverse of infinite universes. Wouldn't that be a "kick in the teeth" for Dr. Dawkins?!? Out of all those infinite universes, he gets stuck in one that has theistic implications.

The non-existent God has a very rich sense of humor!

Anonymous said...

@PR Brian

Yep,the same one where squirrels feed nuts to humans in the park and James Randi finally gets his high school diploma.