The Multiverse God

Life on this earth is highly unlikely. note The universe and our earth are so finely tuned to support life that they are inexplicable on physics; the origin of life is so complex and integrated that it is inexplicable note on nature; and human consciousness is inexplicable on biology.

The question is, what caused our universe in such a way that we can now exist here alive? Our existence as living beings is so improbable that naturalistically we should not exist. The statistics are so completely against us that no one sanely any more tries to justify our cosmological origin in a solitary universe by chance and natural causes.

An idea called the multiverse therefore has been suggested as a mechanistic solution for our existence.

In this speculative thinking there are infinitely many different universes continuously being constructed by a generator. We just happen to be in one of them that was just right for us to exist. Our Goldilocks just-right world out of the many is what let us become conscious beings. We then notice that we are here and wonder about it. note

There are serious problems with this multiverse idea.

 

    Some technical details on the multiverse > note

 

Just using basic rational or scientific thinking:

• Unscientific
  • The other-verses are specifically (and permanently) unobservable and immaterial to us, so they are outside of science.
  • Thus, the other-verses are a pure metaphysical solution; therefore again they are not scientific.
  • One of the most fundamental laws of physics is that energy is conserved; it cannot be created or destroyed. However, a multiverse generator must be making new energy all the time. This fails basic natural science.
  • These hypothetical other-verses are all assumed to be different from ours at their most basic levels. This means they don't follow our natural laws and therefore, they are once again unscientific (from our perspective), but also super-natural.
  • The generator of the other-verses is a thing or process that is unnatural to our universe, so by standard definitions it must be unscientific. note

  According to the National Academy of Sciences, “The statements of science must invoke only natural things and processes.” On a straight reading, this would disallow the multiverse as being scientific.

• Independence
  • All the hypothetically generated other-verses are independent entities cast into their own isolated existences. Thus, no one of them is a reason or an explanation for any other (i.e. for us).

• Randomized universes?
  • The multiverse proponents assume that this generator makes random other-verses in all kinds of combinations. (They add in string theory as mechanism to enable this.) However, this is simply a metaphysical opinion and not derived from evidence. It is just as plausible to imagine that the hypothetical generator is a cloner and can’t make other-verses that are fundamentally different from ours.
  • Therefore, multiverse theory cannot predict fine-tuning of our universe any better than a single-universe theory. Therefore then, the substantial evidence of fine-tuning in our universe offers no support for the multiverse theory.

• Fine-tuned multiverse
  • The proponents of this idea imagine a busy generator of the other-verses, one of which became our functional universe. However, this itself is a problem: if the multiverse were to be functional it would require many finely-tuned parameters. What then made the multiverse generator itself be Goldilocks just-right? note This generator is just a “turtles all the way down” story which explains nothing. note

  The story goes that someone went to a talk about planet orbital mechanics. Afterward this listener chatted with the speaker and said that they did not believe what had been said in the talk because they knew what was really holding up the earth.

  “What is that?”, asked the speaker.
  
  “It is resting on the back of a giant turtle.”
  
  “And what is the turtle on?”
  
  “On another turtle.”
  
  “And that one?”
  
  “Oh, I know where you are going,” said the person, “It’s turtles all the way down.”

  One of the things the multiverse and its universe-generating engine is supposed to solve is the difficult problem of fine-tuning in our universe. However in the theory of the multiverse, the universe-generating engine itself must also be fine-tuned so as to be functional. Therefore, the multiverse is not a solution to this issue because it only removes the problem to one step earlier, while the identical problem remains.

• Multiverse beginning and cause
  • By the same logic that our own universe had a beginning, the generator also had to have had a beginning. note Therefore, it explains nothing about the cause of our own universe. It is still just a “turtles all the way down” story.
  • If the multiverse is scientific, it follows laws of science. The law of causation indicates that the multiverse was caused. Therefore the multiverse does not solve the problem of the cause of our universe. note
  • Some propose anyway that the multiverse generator had no beginning because it has an infinite past. However, this infinite characteristic would make logical absurdities, so it cannot be true. note

  If the multiverse generator had no beginning, it must be infinitely old. However, actual infinities cannot exist because it is impossible to create an actual infinity by addition of successive elements. Addition of elements always creates finite sets.

  Therefore, a multiverse generator could not be infinitely old because it is impossible to reach an infinite age by means of accumulation. And so the generator could only have made a finite number of universes.

  Infinity is a concept, but it cannot be an actual thing. For instance, mathematical operations on infinities results in infinities.

  • ∞ + 1 = ∞
    • or re-written: ∞ - ∞ = 1
  • ∞ + 100 = ∞
    • or re-written: ∞ - ∞ = 100
  • ∞ * 2 = ∞
    • or re-written: ∞ / ∞ = 2
  • and so forth...

  These show that an actual infinity cannot exist because of the absurdities it creates. In some ways an actual infinity is undefined, similar to how dividing by zero is undefined. Likewise, an actual multiverse generator of infinite age would have to be undefined. However, one of finite age requires an initial cause. And critically also a multiverse generator of finite age would not successfully overcome the improbabilities of our universe.

   

  As can be seen from above, a small percentage of an infinity is also an infinity. If the Multiverse generator has existed infinitely long and was generating random universes, then it has already generated an infinite number of universes. If even a small percentage of them were viable for life, then an infinite number of life-supporting universes have already been formed. Therefore our life-supporting universe would be ordinary.

  However, simple inspection makes it obvious that our universe is not ordinary because there is nothing that necessitates the physical constants of the universe being as they are to support life. This argument is absurd.

  The law of causation says that anything that has a beginning has a cause, and anything that changes has a cause. Therefore:

  • If the multiverse generator had a beginning it had a cause.
  • If the multiverse generator has changes inside it, it had a cause.

  By the same logic that indicates our universe had a beginning, the multiverse generator requires a beginning. It is described as expanding, and if you run that backwards, it goes to a starting singularity. This is the same reasoning that convinced us of our big bang. Therefore even the multiverse generator had a beginning and needs a cause. (All mechanistic explanations for things require causes.) So, like our universe, the multiverse generator ultimately also needs an uncaused cause (which naturalistic science cannot supply).

  I assume that some beliefs about the multiverse generator see it instead as an eternal entity. However, the idea that the generator was timeless is purely metaphysical, not logically rational and so, not scientific.

  The problem is that we need an ultimate cause for our universe. The hypothetical generator of the multiverses also needs a cause, so this materialistic ultimate cause just gets more and more unlikely.

  Occam's razor is the principle that "entities should not be multiplied without necessity". A multiverse does not solve the problem of ultimate causes, so it is not needed. It only serves to satisfy metaphysical desires.

• Problems with probability
  • A generator making many other-verses is thought to improve the probability of our own existence. However, probability itself requires that a range of possibilities exist and that these are observable. note Since the multiverse concept itself disallows this kind of observation, a multiverse has no bearing on the probability of our existence.
  • Another way to look at this is that the multiverse rules out chance in our universe (externalizing it, putting it instead into the multiverse generator). However, chance is an important part of science and enables us to distinguish which behaviors in the world are law-like. In this way the multiverse removes our ability to make scientific conclusions. note

  This point from Can Materialistic Models Accommodate the Scientific Data?

  If there cannot be knowledge about other possibilities, then there can be no probability about them.

• Probable results of the multiverse
  • The multiverse is an attempt to explain the origin of our universe with us as an observer in it (by a materialistic process). It does this by multiplying probabilistic resources out to infinity.
  • Supposedly our universe with all its matter and energy popped into existence because of the multiverse generator. Then in time by natural processes we came to be here, and now we observe our universe.
  • However, with infinite probabilities, it is just as plausible that we might have popped into existence alive and fully formed with all the other species of life, and ourselves with memories of our history. note Thus the multiverse makes any materialistic evolution of life have no certainty at all.
  • The same result can also be had with what is called a Boltzmann brain. This is an isolated brain that spontaneously forms (out the multiverse generator) with full memories of and full illusory perceptions of existing in a universe.
  • If random fluctuations can cause structures to come into existence, then small consistent structures (like Boltzmann brains) are very much more likely to form than large consistent structures like our universe. Therefore, fake-observer "brains" are the very most likely observer outcome of a multiverse generator.
  • Fully realized universes with living observers are a highly unlikely outcome of the multiverse generator. We should have no confidence that our observations of our world and memories of it are accurate and truthful.
  • The multiverse cannot avoid the poison.

  Infinite resources makes anything and everything possible, and so every possible combination of things will already have happened infinite times!

• Other effects and consequences
  • If large structures can and do pop into existence because of the action of the multiverse generator, then why don't we observe things like (for instance) horses popping into existence inside our houses? Why wouldn't new stars be popping randomly into existence in the sky?
  • Wouldn't the effects the multiverse generator is capable of producing then cause you to (again) doubt your understanding regarding the consistency of our world?
  • Maybe however this could not happen because universes are the only kind of thing that can pop into existence? Maybe this would be because of some characteristic that only they have? However, these ideas don't make sense because before a universe did come to be, nothing would be existing to have any characteristics.

 

The multiverse concept can appear to be mechanistic, but it cannot be scientific. The multiverse generator simply sounds to me like a god of convenience dressed up in materialism.

• It is a god of the gaps for materialists, and as such it is a very shallow answer for a difficult and complex question. note
• It is a science killer because it functions as a final answer to to all possible difficulties. It kills curiosity into the cause of the universe and stops further inquiry. note
• It is a science killer because it should cause you to doubt that the world around you is stable and consistent.
• Atheists have ridiculed religious people for imagining another spiritual world and reality. If they adhere to the multiverse however, then they are doing the exact same thing.
  • The multiverse is imagining many other worlds by faith with no measurable evidence at all for their existence.

  The fine-tuned nature of our universe for life should prompt curiousity to understand more about that. This is the premise of science. However, there is nothing to satisfy curiosity from a random origin. The multiverse suggests it can explain why we exist in this place, but only answers with a roll of dice.

  The materialists say, "We know that the universe could not be made by an immaterial God, therefore we know it was made by a naturalistic cause like the multiverse." This is the form of God-of-the-Gaps arguments.

  In this case the multiverse is the "god" and therefore we don't need to go looking to explain all the other difficult things about our universe because the "god" explains everything.

• A multiverse severely violates the scientific principle of Occam's razor ("entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity"). By this, the multiverse is a very poor theory.
• The imagined multiverse generator appears to exactly fit the ideal of an atheist’s god (uninvolved, mechanistic, random).
  • Note that atheists are no better than theists when trying to explain the unexplainable because they too are metaphysically motivated.

These imagined other-verses offer zero explanatory power for our own improbable existence. A multiverse is an imaginary solution for our universe because our universe is the only one for which we have evidence.

The multiverse is just a materialist's god. It is a non-living god pretended to be scientific, but without scientific evidence.

See also:

• The Atheistic God
• Everyone believes in the supernatural