Multiple Multilevel Multiuniverses

The multiuniverse theories get a lot of play these days, as string theory gains intellectual traction and unanswerable questions within our limited physical domain require outside-da-box speculations.

Maverick cosmologist Max Tegmark contributes another model of the multiuniverse concept, number 4 below. Tegmark’s concepts are somewhat compelling from a logic standpoint.

Not to be outdone by these genius types, I contribute my own multiuniverse concept, number 5 below, for which I have rented a tux to receive my Nobel prize in Lala Physics.

Here are some Multiuniverse Theories:

1. The universe we know is spatially infinite, therefore infinite possible universes like ours can exist out there in the same space.

2. String Theory Multiverses: Branes, which are parallel existences that cannot communcate except possibly through the modulation of open ended strings, specifically gravity. Other possibilities are created by the same big bang but moving such that communication is not possible.

3. Hugh Everett’s Measurement split. Every time a measurement is made, a universe splits off: if we see result A, then result B is seen in a parallel universe. Schroedinger’s equation doesn’t collapse. We exist in parallel with ourselves on every branch off. This is possible in the abstract Hilbert Space.

4. In the article in Discover on-line, Tegmark claims that all reality is math. The underlying foundation for this is:

Tegmark:
THE EXTERNAL REALITY HYPOTHESIS:
“…the assumption that there is a reality out there that is independent of us. I think most physicists would agree with this idea.” (Tegmark) “If a reality exists independently of us, it must be free from the language that we use to describe it. There should be no human baggage.”

Interviewer:
"Without these descriptors, we’re left with only math.

Tegmark:
"The physicist Eugene Wigner wrote a famous essay in the 1960s called “The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences.” In that essay he asked why nature is so accurately described by mathematics. The question did not start with him. As far back as Pythagoras in the ancient Greek era, there was the idea that the universe was built on mathematics. In the 17th century Galileo eloquently wrote that nature is a “grand book” that is “written in the language of mathematics.” Then, of course, there was the great Greek philosopher Plato, who said the objects of mathematics really exist."

"Stephen Hawking once asked it this way: “What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe?” If I am right and the cosmos is just mathematics, then no fire-breathing is required. A mathematical structure doesn’t describe a universe, it is a universe."

"John Wheeler put it this way: Even if we found equations that describe our universe perfectly, then why these particular equations and not others? The answer is that the other equations govern other, parallel universes, and that our universe has these particular equations because they are just statistically likely, given the distribution of mathematical structures that can support observers like us."

5. But guess what? I have my own MMM to contribute. What if the Big Bang were really more like a Big Faucet? Hang on now, I’ll ‘splain.

We exist in a flow of time. In fact all mass/energy exists only at one point in time, which flows inexorably outward like the crest of a wave, from which we cannot extricate ourselves (OK a just little bit according to Relativity).

So it is possible, prove me wrong if you can, that there was another entity just before us and another just before that and so on. Plus there could be another one just after us, and another just after that, etc. Like this: an infinite series, where we are Un0 (universe number zero).

….Un-2, Un-1, Un0, Un+1, Un+2…..

We generally think of our universe possibly existing in physical-parallel with other universes, why do we not consider time-sequential as well? So the Big Bang would not be a single event, it would be a perpetual spewing of time-sequential universes, like unto a faucet.

I modestly call this “Stan Time”, a complement to Hilbert Space.

But let’s conclude all this with a hugely panoramic overview. If all these universes exist, and why not, then the question remains – untouched – whence? If it is not “what is the source of the fire breated into the equations”, then back off one Godel level: “what is the source of the equations?”

Being “timeless abstract constructs”, they still require a source, do they not? So the First Cause issue remains, unscathed by human rumination. Perhaps for clarity and to remove the time issue with “cause and effect”, it should be referred to as the “First Source”:

Whence the First Source?