"...contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints."- Jude 1:3

Sunday, September 14, 2014

Problems with the Multiverse


I myself am open to the reality of a multiverse. I don't believe its existence threatens the existence of God. I agree with Robin Collins views as he's explained it in the 2nd video HERE.

As Robin Collins points out th multiverse would be consistent with the infinite creativity of God (or Divine principle of plenitude). Nevertheless, the idea that a multiverse exists apart from a designer does seem unlikely and ad hoc to me. It goes against the principle of parsimony or Occam's Razor which argues that all things being equal, the simpler explanation or hypothesis is to be preferred over more complex ones.  As Richard Swinburne wrote:

"…it is the height of irrationality to postulate an infinite number of universes never causally connected with each other,  merely to avoid the hypothesis of theism. Given that simplicity makes for prior probability, and a theory is simpler the  fewer entities it postulates, it is far simpler to postulate one God than an infinite number of universes, each differing  from each other in accord with a regular formula, uncaused by anything else."
- Richard Swinburne on the multiverse  theory in his book The Existence of God

"Some have said that the laws of nature are simply accidental results of the way the universe cooled after the big bang. But, as Rees has pointed out, even such accidents can be regarded as secondary manifestations of deeper laws governing the ensemble of universes. Again, even the evolution of the laws of nature and changes to the constants follow certain laws. 'We’re still left with the question of how these "deeper" laws originated. No matter how far you push back the properties of the universe as somehow "emergent," their very emergence has to follow certain prior laws.'1 So multiverse or not, we still have to come to terms with the origin of the laws of nature. And the only viable explanation here is the divine Mind.” —Antony Flew (There is a God, pp. 121-122.) [Anthony Flew was a well known 20th century atheist philosopher who converted to theism near the end of his life.]
1. Martin Rees, “Exploring Our Universe and Others,” in The Frontiers of Space (New York: Scientific American, 2000), 87. 

“[The multiverse theory] can explain anything . . . If a theory allows anything to be possible, it explains nothing; a theory of anything is not the same as a theory of everything.”- John Polkinghorne (is an Anglican priest and philosopher, a theist. He was also at one time a theoretical particle physicist at Cambridge.)
Polkinghorne's statement renders the multiverse theory trivial—or at least the infinite universes version of the theory.

Victor Stenger, a retired physics prof from the University of Hawaii, has given us two books that explain both atheism and "multiverses", and behold, they are one. Few other proponents of multiverses are quite as forthcoming with their logic, but clearly something besides data must motivate the science of multiverses, because by definition multiverses are not observable. Stenger makes the connection explicit, whereas Hawking or Susskind is a little more coy with their metaphysics. Multiverse-theory is designed for one purpose, and one purpose only, and that is to defend atheism. It makes no predictions, it gives no insight, it provides no control, it produces no technology, it advances no mathematics, it is a science in name only, because it is really metaphysics.- physicist Rob Sheldon
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/2746500/posts

William Lane Craig has made an interesting point when comparing the competing hypotheses of cosmic design and a multiverse. There's independent evidence for the existence of God, but there is no independent evidence for the multiverse/world ensemble. Much less that it's also infinitely numbered and randomly ordered.
John Lennox rightly noted that though atheists may present the options of either God OR the multiverse, that's a false dilemma since God could have created the multiverse. Don Page is a Canadian Christian and theoretical physicist who is a colleague of Stephen Hawking and he believes in the multiverse. Craig has pointed out that theism is the best hope for the existence of the multiverse because an omnipotent God can create as many worlds as He wants.


Physicist Paul Davies’ killer argument against the multiverse
http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/physicist-paul-davies-killer-argument-against-the-multiverse/


Stephen C. Meyer giving his reasons for why cosmic intelligent design is more plausible even if a multiverse theory is true. He speaks on the topic for about 10 minutes. I've already qued the video at 70 minutes. View video by Clicking HERE




Here's another critique of the Multiverse theory.

The Teleological Argument (What it really says)
(video link)


The Big Bang, Multiverses, and the Anthropic Principle Discussed by William Lane Craig 






"If, for some unforeseen reason, the landscape turns out to be inconsistent – maybe for mathematical reasons, or because it disagrees with observation – I am pretty sure that physicists will go on searching for natural explanations of the world. But I have to say that if that happens, as things stand now we will be in a very awkward position. Without any explanation of nature’s fine-tunings we will be hard pressed to answer the ID critics. One might argue that the hope that a mathematically unique solution will emerge is as faith-based as ID." - From the New Scientist interview of Leonard Susskind
To the hard-line physicist, the multiverse may not be entirely respectable, but it is at least preferable to invoking a Creator. Indeed, anthropically inclined physicists like Susskind and Weinberg are attracted to the multiverse precisely because it seems to dispense with God as the explanation of cosmic design.- Bernard Carr

[Bernard J. Carr is a British professor of mathematics and astronomy at Queen Mary University of London] 

 


William Lane Craig's Debate with Sean Carroll

This link includes 1. Craig's pre-debate assessment, 2. the debate, 3. Craig's after debate reflections





As I understand it, the Multiverse theory is a cosmological postulate distinct (and different from) from the Many Worlds interpretation of Quantum Mechanics.

Here's a critique of the many worlds interpretation


A Critique of the Many Worlds Interpretation
(video link)





No comments:

Post a Comment