God vs the multiverse

[Drummer Guy]

A friend of mine recently told me that he thought god was a better supported theory than the multiverse...

His reason for this is that there are lots of people who have "personal evidence" for god's existence, and there is no evidence for the multiverse.

Now, I have no problem explaining why his evidence for god isn't really evidence, but I didn't know of any hard evidence for the multiverse.  In fact, I'm pretty sure there isn't any yet, but it is a much more viable model than god because of the mathematics behind it and how it explains things.  But I don't really understand all this well enough to explain how it is a supported model.

I've googled this but papers are either really really vague dumbed down news articles, or technical university stuff.  Can anyone explain what support we have for the multiverse, or point me to a web site with a good explanation?

[aileron]

The multiverse is conjecture.  There's nothing wrong with conjecture in science as long as you represent it as such.  Unfortunately, theists don't mention the fact that real scientists know it's conjecture, and unfairly represent it as a desperate attempt to explain nature without God.

[Shol'va]

OP, you are allowing yourself to be put on the defense. You need to point out that shifting the burden of proof doesn't hold. Firstly one must define what "god" is, otherwise what you are discussing is a word, not a concept.
Look up arguments regarding the incomprehensibility of god and godly attributes and go from there.
In this case "god" is just a placeholder for whatever the interlocutor perceives it to be.
If it were a Muslim, it'd be Allah, Christian Yahweh, ancient Greek would be Zeus, etc etc.

[stromboli]

The multiverse has more arms and would out punch god.

[Jason Harvestdancer]

OP, you are allowing yourself to be put on the defense. You need to point out that shifting the burden of proof doesn't hold. Firstly one must define what "god" is, otherwise what you are discussing is a word, not a concept.
Look up arguments regarding the incomprehensibility of god and godly attributes and go from there.
In this case "god" is just a placeholder for whatever the interlocutor perceives it to be.
If it were a Muslim, it'd be Allah, Christian Yahweh, ancient Greek would be Zeus, etc etc.

Yeah, this about sums it up.

Also what aileron said.

[josephpalazzo]

A friend of mine recently told me that he thought god was a better supported theory than the multiverse...

His reason for this is that there are lots of people who have "personal evidence" for god's existence, and there is no evidence for the multiverse.

Now, I have no problem explaining why his evidence for god isn't really evidence, but I didn't know of any hard evidence for the multiverse.  In fact, I'm pretty sure there isn't any yet, but it is a much more viable model than god because of the mathematics behind it and how it explains things.  But I don't really understand all this well enough to explain how it is a supported model.

I've googled this but papers are either really really vague dumbed down news articles, or technical university stuff.  Can anyone explain what support we have for the multiverse, or point me to a web site with a good explanation?

The Multiverse is more philosophical than scientific. There are no equations that say: here, we have a Multiverse. As Aileron pointed out, it is a conjecture, or as I would say, a pseudo-scientific hypothesis as it is not testable. Of course, this feeds into the theists' argument for atheist being desperate to replace God by the Multiverse. The counter-argument is that there are a number of physicists who don't buy into it - Peter Woit, Paul Reinhardt, David Gross, Neil Turok to name a few .

[SGOS]

His reason for this is that there are lots of people who have "personal evidence" for god's existence, and there is no evidence for the multiverse.

Personal evidence that cannot be shown to another person should not be called evidence.  It's nothing more than belief.  Both God and the multiverse fall into the category of belief.  It is pointless to argue which belief is better.  Evidence is all that really matters.

[stromboli]

http://www.astronomy.pomona.edu/Project ... verse.html
 

The Multiverse theory for the universe has been a recently accepted theory that describes the continuous formation of universes through the collapse of giant stars and the formation of black holes.  With each of these black holes there is a new point of singularity and a new possible universe.  As Rees describes it, "Our universe may be just one element - one atom, as it were - in an infinite ensemble: a cosmic archipelago.  Each universe starts with its own big bang, acquires a distinctive imprint (and its individual physical laws) as it cools, and traces out its own cosmic cycle.  The big bang that triggered our entire universe is, in this grander perspective, an infinitesimal part of an elaborate structure that extends far beyond the range of any telescopes."  (Rees 3)  This puts our place in the Multiverse into a small spectrum.  While the size of the earth in relation to the sun is minuscule, the size of the sun, the solar system, the galaxy, and even the universe, could pale in comparison to this proposed Multiverse.  It would be a shift in thinking that may help explain our big bang theory and possibly give light to the idea of parallel universes.

It is a theory, but in point of fact it does offer an explanation of what happens on the other side of the Big Bang.  God has no progenitor- no direct ancestor. A multiverse at least describes a possibility of a continuous state of existence. It also allows for the finite nature of our universe, not a god with no beginning and no end.

[Mister Agenda]

There is math for the multiverse, it's just that there's math for a single universe as well, and we don't have enough evidence yet to justify adhering to one or the other. It's important to note, however, that the multiple universe hypothesis was invoked as an explanation for issues in physics, not as an ad hoc refutation of the fine tuning argument.

[Shol'va]

If I understand it correctly, the multiverse theory is a theory in the scientific sense at this moment, correct? In that case, it then means it is on par with germ theory, theory of gravity etc.
Drummer Guy, ask your friend if he "believes" in germs and gravity.

[josephpalazzo]

http://www.astronomy.pomona.edu/Projects/moderncosmo/Sean's%20mutliverse.html
 

The Multiverse theory for the universe has been a recently accepted theory that describes the continuous formation of universes through the collapse of giant stars and the formation of black holes.  With each of these black holes there is a new point of singularity and a new possible universe.  As Rees describes it, "Our universe may be just one element - one atom, as it were - in an infinite ensemble: a cosmic archipelago.  Each universe starts with its own big bang, acquires a distinctive imprint (and its individual physical laws) as it cools, and traces out its own cosmic cycle.  The big bang that triggered our entire universe is, in this grander perspective, an infinitesimal part of an elaborate structure that extends far beyond the range of any telescopes."  (Rees 3)  This puts our place in the Multiverse into a small spectrum.  While the size of the earth in relation to the sun is minuscule, the size of the sun, the solar system, the galaxy, and even the universe, could pale in comparison to this proposed Multiverse.  It would be a shift in thinking that may help explain our big bang theory and possibly give light to the idea of parallel universes.

It is a theory, but in point of fact it does offer an explanation of what happens on the other side of the Big Bang.  God has no progenitor- no direct ancestor. A multiverse at least describes a possibility of a continuous state of existence. It also allows for the finite nature of our universe, not a god with no beginning and no end.

Well, the physics community is highly divided on this question. Here's what David Gross said in one interview:

There are frustrating theoretical problems in quantum field theory that demand solutions, but the string theory "landscape" of 10[sup:3ft5ecsl]500[/sup:3ft5ecsl] solutions does not make sense to me. Neither does the multiverse concept or the anthropic principle, which purport to explain why our particular universe has certain physical parameters. These models presume that we are stuck, conceptually.

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/ ... ysics/all/

Peter Woit had some questionable reservations over wikipedia's page on the multiverse:

The quality of Wikipedia entries about mathematics is often quite good, but unfortunately the same cannot be said for their entries about physics. I happened to take a look today at the Wikipedia entry for Multiverse, which is an outrageously one-sided promotional piece for pseudo-science.
http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=6758

Having studied QFT, GR and cosmology quite extensively in my life, I agree fully with these known physicists: Multiverse is a copout and a pseudo-science.

[SGOS]

Having studied QFT, GR and cosmology quite extensively in my life, I agree fully with these known physicists: Multiverse is a copout and a pseudo-science.

I have actually contemplated such a theory on my own a couple years ago.  Perhaps I have a calling in theoretical pseudo-physics. :-D

[Shol'va]

My mistake, I did not take note that multiverse is not a scientific theory.

[josephpalazzo]

Having studied QFT, GR and cosmology quite extensively in my life, I agree fully with these known physicists: Multiverse is a copout and a pseudo-science.

I have actually contemplated such a theory on my own a couple years ago.  Perhaps I have a calling in theoretical pseudo-physics. :-D

You could do no worse than Michio Kaku - get on the speach circuit, get famous and make oodles of money.

Physics of the Impossible: A Scientific Exploration into the World of Phasers, Force Fields, Teleportation, and Time Travel by Michio Kaku

From a reviewer:

Kaku's passion is the impossible, and in this book he explores different kinds of impossibilities. Class I ideas -- -- force fields, invisibility, phasers and death stars, teleportation, telepathy, psychokinesis, robots, extraterrestrials and UFOs, starships, antimatter and anti-universes -- could come true within a hundred years. Class II impossibilities, such as travel faster than light, time travel and parallel universes, may be possible in the next millennium. Class III ideas, like perpetual motion machines and precognition, may never be possible, given the underlying science.

[stromboli]

And here I've been hoping I will die and wind up in a universe where I am thin and rich. Damn.