{"id":272,"date":"2008-06-05T20:22:00","date_gmt":"2008-06-05T20:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/2008\/06\/05\/272\/"},"modified":"2014-11-23T12:36:09","modified_gmt":"2014-11-23T17:36:09","slug":"272","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/?p=272","title":{"rendered":"Beliver vs. Atheist: The Multiverse"},"content":{"rendered":"

The NY Times had a recent article on cosmic physics<\/a> and the increasing pessimism within it that we will ever truly understand the nature of the universe. The discovery some years ago of dark energy threw all of the “big picture models” out of whack. Most everything now being proposed as a mathematical \/ conceptual explanation for what has been observed about atoms and galaxies seems messy and ad-hoc. And even worse, there isn’t just one explanation; there are plenty of different forms and formats of equations that, with the right tuning of their parameter values and starting conditions, can equally well explain what is going on. But when you get four or four hundred explanations and they’re all unique, but they all give the same answer, than which one is right? <\/p>\n

So, a lot of the high-powered theorists are abandoning the notion that there is “one truth”, and are adapting a “multiverse” view. This posits that our universe isn’t anything special; there have been, are, and will yet be trillions of universes out there, each with different sets of parameters regarding stuff like gravitational attraction and internal atomic forces and quantum sizes. For some universes, nothing much happens. But for just a few that randomly hit the right balance, time evolves and little convergence points occur amidst the vast expanses of nothingness, tiny points where interesting things occur. One of those things is nuclear fusion, that which makes the stars shine. Another is the gravitational collapse of certain stars which causes great explosions, supernovae, which form and scatter a wide variety of heavy elements like copper and silicon and carbon. When these various elements come together in just the right way under the right conditions, the phenomenon of life somehow occurs. <\/p>\n

And in some super-tiny portion of that tiny portion of “convergence points”, conscious \/ sentient life occurs. We just happen to be in the right spot in the right kind of universe; we’d never know a “wrong universe”, because we couldn’t exist in it. So, the cosmic science institution is a rather atheist undertaking these days. After reading the article, I couldn’t help but imagine the start of a conversation between a typical atheist cosmologist (e.g. Neil Grasse Tyson) and the relatively rare “believer” scientist.<\/p>\n

Atheist:<\/span> We and our consciousness, and the matter and energy which support us and in which we delight, represent just a tiny spec, a “disputatious froth” in the vast, bizarre voids of the universe.<\/p>\n

Believer:<\/span> This is just one way that God tells us that we are important.<\/p>\n

Atheist:<\/span> The equation parameters are bizarre, there is no ‘harmony of the spheres’ behind it. It’s ugly, no beauty and elegance to it at all. We just happen to be in one of the extremely few ‘cosmic accidents’ that supports sentient life — and not much of it, and not always a very sensible version of it, for that matter.<\/p>\n

Believer:<\/span> Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. One man’s mess is another’s work of art. Ever been to a museum of modern art? And how could we ever know what is ‘sensible’ if we hadn’t come from a mixed reality?<\/p>\n

Atheist:<\/span> Just as life here on earth evolved over unimaginable time spans from random, senseless forces, the biggest of the big pictures must involve a multiverse, something that just keeps on stupidly and randomly knocking out universes. Some involve time and space and tiny congregations of interesting events, like ours does; most probably do not. To the degree that we do have “sense”, despite our wars and crimes and cruelties, it is overwhelmed by the insensate randomness of the cosmos.<\/p>\n

Believer:<\/span> Why do you apply evolutionary theory to the cosmos? Evolution is responsible for your “tiny spec” of life, the “disputatious froth” that humanity is. I would not disagree with that. But why should something that applies on the scale of this ‘froth’ apply across the vastness of the ‘vacuum reality’? Why shouldn’t the bedrock reality behind everything surprise us just as evolution surprised the 18th century worldview, and quantum physics the 20th? Have we experienced our last meta-surprise?<\/p>\n

Atheist:<\/span> [TILT — not that there aren’t arguments that a smart atheist cosmologist could make at this point; but for now, I can’t think of what they would be. So I’m gonna leave it here for now, unfairly enough.]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The NY Times had a recent article on cosmic physics and the increasing pessimism within it that we will ever truly understand the nature of the universe. The discovery some years ago of dark energy threw all of the “big picture models” out of whack. Most everything now being proposed as a mathematical \/ conceptual […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=272"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4935,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272\/revisions\/4935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}