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L. Susskind -- The "Megaverse"

It seems to me that the "megaverse" conjecture presents an intuitively resonating rationale within which to consider the proposition of the fine tuned universe. What are the alternatives -- Coincidence? Anthropic principle? Intelligent design? Deities?
 
If our universe is one of countless in a megaverse, the one constant in the multiplicity of universes might be is likely to be mathematics. Whatever the charge of the electron, the value of fine structure constant, the value of Λ, etc., other universes must be as logical (hence, mathematical) as ours. Can one argue otherwise?
 
While I have great respect for Susskind (I learned Quantum Theory and Relativity through his Stanford video lectures), I can't stand fine tuning arguments. The most upvoted comment on that Youtube video makes the point clearly:

Just counting our own solar system, Earth is likely the only body with anything resembling life, and certainly the only one with intelligent life. At that, "mind" is restricted to less than half of Earth, less without modern technology. If we're lucky, 1 in 10000 solar systems have planets suitable for such life to develop.
Fine-tuned for life and mind? What!?
Fine-tuned for stars, planets, black holes, vacuum, radiation and colliding galaxies, maybe. But this is a virtually dead Universe.
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More to the point, any argument to explain fine tuning that involves things that can never be observed is not science, it is philosophy.

Quite frankly, until a good, testable explanation comes about, I am perfectly happy with the 'accident' explanation.
 
That life is likely quite rare in the universe doesn't address the point, which is that if the constants were different, it would be much rarer. Ie. non-existant. The question is to do with the fact that the laws of physics, and the values of the constants, are such that life is possible at all. If certain constants were changed by a tiny amount, life would not have been possible.

That seems to me to be an interesting fact, at least, and one which is not explained by the fact that life is rare.
 
It is simply explained by the fact that we are here to wonder about it. There might be deeper underlying reasons we have yet to discover, but unless we can test whether that underlying reason is true, it falls outside the purview of science.

Unless we can test whether there is indeed a multiverse with different laws operating in different universes (or that this is a consequence of something else we can test for), a multiverse explanation of fine tuning is philosophy, not science.
 
Fizil said:
Unless we can test whether there is indeed a multiverse with different laws operating in different universes (or that this is a consequence of something else we can test for), a multiverse explanation of fine tuning is philosophy, not science.
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Before an idea can be tested it first has to be thought of.

You seem to be giving up before going anywhere. Yes, it's true that we can't yet test if any multi-verse idea is true, but there's no fundamental reason that we will never be able to do so. And if we are ever able to do so it will be by thinking about such ideas and their implications.

This is certainly a part of the process of science.
 
Roboramma said:
Before an idea can be tested it first has to be thought of.

You seem to be giving up before going anywhere. Yes, it's true that we can't yet test if any multi-verse idea is true, but there's no fundamental reason that we will never be able to do so. And if we are ever able to do so it will be by thinking about such ideas and their implications.

This is certainly a part of the process of science.
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It is quite possible that a supreme intelligence created the Universe the way it is, and this is the explanation for "fine tuning". Perhaps we could someday in the future find a way to test this. Thus, with your attitude, scientists should be spending as much time looking into intelligent design as an explanation for the constants of nature as they spend looking into multiverse theories.

The multiverse ideas are so far removed from current empirical science it makes no sense to spend time thinking about them, because we have no way of knowing if we are even close to being on the right track. It is a waste of mental energy.

Theoretical Science can range ahead of Experimental Science, but it can't range arbitrarily far ahead.
 
Fizil said:
While I have great respect for Susskind (I learned Quantum Theory and Relativity through his Stanford video lectures), I can't stand fine tuning arguments. The most upvoted comment on that Youtube video makes the point clearly:



More to the point, any argument to explain fine tuning that involves things that can never be observed is not science, it is philosophy.

Quite frankly, until a good, testable explanation comes about, I am perfectly happy with the 'accident' explanation.
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God, megaverse, and accident are all equally philosophic, if they cannot be supported by scientific evidence.
Your not being able to "stand fine tuning arguments" is beside the point. Fine-tuning presents a real scientific question, even if there is no currently available answer.
God and accident are not scientifically testable. However, it seems that the multiverse conjecture could possibly be testable through some future observational means.
 
Roboramma said:
That life is likely quite rare in the universe doesn't address the point, which is that if the constants were different, it would be much rarer. Ie. non-existant. The question is to do with the fact that the laws of physics, and the values of the constants, are such that life is possible at all. If certain constants were changed by a tiny amount, life would not have been possible.

That seems to me to be an interesting fact, at least, and one which is not explained by the fact that life is rare.
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Yes, this is well-stated.

Perpetual, you might be interested in the natural vs. unnatural debate.
http://io9.com/did-the-higgs-boson-discovery-reveal-that-the-universe-512856167

I predict that as the universe appears more and more unnatural, the best explanation for fine-tuning will come down to coincidence or multiverse. Coincidence is rarely a satisfying explanation (esp. the kind of coincidences we're talking about), so Multiverse theory will win out.
 
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Fizil said:
It is quite possible that a supreme intelligence created the Universe the way it is, and this is the explanation for "fine tuning". Perhaps we could someday in the future find a way to test this. Thus, with your attitude, scientists should be spending as much time looking into intelligent design as an explanation for the constants of nature as they spend looking into multiverse theories.

The multiverse ideas are so far removed from current empirical science it makes no sense to spend time thinking about them, because we have no way of knowing if we are even close to being on the right track. It is a waste of mental energy.

Theoretical Science can range ahead of Experimental Science, but it can't range arbitrarily far ahead.
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LOL, definitely read this:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=multiverse-the-case-for-parallel-universe
 
Fudbucker said:
LOL, definitely read this:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=multiverse-the-case-for-parallel-universe
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That's an interesting couple of essays there, thanks Fud (can I call you Elmer? :D)

Here's my little musing, which I came up with last year, and gave myself a sort of brain orgasm in the process:

First, according to Laurence Krauss in A Universe From Nothing the state of "nothing" is mathematically unstable, and demands "something". So if we have a bounded universe, there has to be "nothing" "outside" of it, or it wouldn't be bounded. But that "nothing" demands more "something", and so on ad infinitum.

Secondly, assuming that eternity is the ground state of the potential for something to exist, and that each "something" that pops out of each "nothing" condenses a random set of constants etc, then at some point in the eternity the correct set of finely tuned laws and constants etc must come into existence.

This could be the only one where those things are exactly right. But since we are an island in eternity, there also has to be an infinite number of other islands where the correct balance of everything works for generating matter, galaxies, and life etc.

So, finally: the random condensing of all the fine tuning into this universe is like a miracle, but it is an inevitable miracle!

We are simply a consequence of all that. We grow out of this universe and observe it, and think about it, and think Wow! How lucky!

But it's simply inevitable, and we have no role in it's happening, and the anthropic principle is just like saying Wow! My legs are exactly the right length to reach from my hips to the ground! A miracle!

:D
 
It seems that an underlying assumption in this megaverse conjecture is that these alternate universes would behave in a manner consistent with whatever the fundamental constants (e.g.: electron charge, quark mass, Λ, etc.) happen to be -- with a potentially infinite number of variations. This behavior would still be logical, that is, mathematical in accordance with these different constants. So, one might conclude that the most fundamental aspect of the universe (underlying all reality) is mathematics.
On the other hand, I suppose it is possible to propose a universe devoid of logic where the behavior of all things would be completely random, obeying no laws. But the megaverse conjecture itself is based on logic stemming from a need to deal with the fine-tuning question, which seems to contradict such a random universe.
 
Perpetual Student said:
It seems that an underlying assumption in this megaverse conjecture is that these alternate universes would behave in a manner consistent with whatever the fundamental constants (e.g.: electron charge, quark mass, Λ, etc.) happen to be -- with a potentially infinite number of variations. This behavior would still be logical, that is, mathematical in accordance with these different constants. So, one might conclude that the most fundamental aspect of the universe (underlying all reality) is mathematics.
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Tegmark believes the universe might be made of math. I can't wrap my head around that though.
 
Perpetual Student said:
It seems that an underlying assumption in this megaverse conjecture is that these alternate universes would behave in a manner consistent with whatever the fundamental constants (e.g.: electron charge, quark mass, Λ, etc.) happen to be -- with a potentially infinite number of variations. This behavior would still be logical, that is, mathematical in accordance with these different constants. So, one might conclude that the most fundamental aspect of the universe (underlying all reality) is mathematics.
On the other hand, I suppose it is possible to propose a universe devoid of logic where the behavior of all things would be completely random, obeying no laws. But the megaverse conjecture itself is based on logic stemming from a need to deal with the fine-tuning question, which seems to contradict such a random universe.
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Hmm, don't know enough math or physics to know if this works but isn't the probability of certain results dependent on these constants? If so, you should be getting a pretty random universe and this might apply to objects which we consider to be large.
 
Acleron said:
Hmm, don't know enough math or physics to know if this works but isn't the probability of certain results dependent on these constants? If so, you should be getting a pretty random universe and this might apply to objects which we consider to be large.
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Whatever the constants are, we have never observed any aspect, any part, at any scale, of the universe not to behave mathematically.
 
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