Re: [asa] The Multiverse - Physics or Metaphysics?

Hi, Phil again,

> Yes, I agreed. I was just pointing out that there is no way within
> science to choose between God and the extra parts of the physics that would
> be needed to drive a multiverse, since both are transcendent, self-existent,
> and creative. Their only difference is that one is of them is
> conscious/intelligent and the other is not. So unless we have a specific
> test for the part of them that is different, then we can't distinguish
> between them.
>
> But I also see your point that neither one should be allowed within
> science to begin with since neither is testable. I would propose that we
> class all such transcendent explanations together and call them the
> "Transcendence Hypothesis." Any attempt to explain improbable things that
> lie within the chain of origins (whether physics or biology) by appealing to
> the Great Beyond outside the universe are philosophically equivalent.

I agree. But I think there are similar hypotheses to beware of that are not
"transcendent" but equally need to be treated with caution. For example the
appeal to the sheer size of the universe, number of planets and so forth,
and the immense timescales is just a hand-waving explanation and not a
substitute for searching for, say, evolutionary pathways. One interesting
thing about Koonin's paper is that he DOES at least take into account the
likely number of habitable planets in our observable universe and does the
maths for the probability calculation based on it, and comes to the
conclusion that one universe is not enough. The maths doesn't work.

Richard Dawkins comes unstuck in one of his books (The Blind Watchmaker I
think) by imagining the extremely improbably event of getting a perfect deal
in bridge (each player having 13 cards of the same suit). He goes on to say
that if you had a creature that lived for a million centuries, that they
would not consider such a deal to be anything to write home about - they
would EXPECT to have it happen in their lifetime. However, a few back of
envelope calculations show that Dawkins is hopelessly wrong. Even given
playing about 100 hands a day over a million centuries, the probability of
getting a perfect deal in that time is about the same as getting the lottery
jackpot twice in succession. Now, OK, everyone can make mistakes, but
perhaps the "appeal to long timescales" also makes us less willing to do the
science properly.

By the same token, the appeal to "psychosomatic-of-the-gaps" that I
mentioned with respect to my supposedly "Electro-Sensitive" friend seems to
be on dangerous grounds. I still think the most likely explanation is the
psychosomatic effect. However, her husband challenged me and said "Are you
saying it's IMPOSSIBLE for there to be a physical cause?". To which I
replied that of course I wasn't saying that - to do so would not, in my
opinion, be scientific. However, many people dismiss anything other than
psychosomatic as deluded nonsense.

Not sure if I agree here. If there are 1000 reps then in 0.1% of the
> universes she will measure a live husband if MWI is true. But if Copenhagen
> is true, then the chance of measuring a live husband is surely 2^(-1000).
>
>
> Another major problem with Quantum Suicide is that it leads logically to
> the conclusion that you never experience death. (Quantum Immortality). The
> same argument applies, that a quantum event that leads to your death either
> happens or doesn't happens, so you always survive in one universe.
>
> I think these are the key statements, where i don't agree or else I don't
> understand. I think the main assumption behind these statements is that you
> only have One consciousness per person, and that is the One consciousness
> that always survives. But my understanding of an atheistic worldview that
> includes MWI is that there are an infinite number of consciousnesses that
> believe themselves to be Iain. In a physicalist view, every appearance of
> the neural patterns capable of processing conscious concepts would actually
> "BE" consciousness, and so there would be a great many of them. And they
> would have no connections, so most of these consciousnesses would die and
> only one would survive in each experiment.
>
> Have I missed the point and critiqued the wrong thing?

I do think that the correct view is that there are many consciousnesses with
the same person and not One Consciousness per person. That is why the
experiment is set up so that you have to die in one universe, so only one
consciousness survives. The (unanswerable) philosophical question is "is
that one the real you". The same problem occurs with the fictional Star
Trek "Transporter Beam", which destroys you by dematerialising you and then
"beams" your information somewhere else where you rematerialise. Whilst
this is just a convenient sci-fi plot device, there is still the same
problem. What happens to the copy of your consciousness that
dematerialises? Does it experience death? The one that rematerialises at
the other end has all the memories intact, so to the outsider the person
has experienced continuity. But I'm not sure I'd really want to go in such
a device and experience being dematerialised because I would never know if
it was the "same" consciousness.

Iain

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Received on Sat Sep 8 13:25:51 2007