Today’s New Reason To Believe

by Jeff Zweerink

Since May 2007, I have been regularly addressing the subject of multiverse models. To recap, I’d like to summarize the various previous topics covered on this subject. Additionally, I would like to know what multiverse questions and issues concern you.

The “Multiverse Musings” series began by defining some multiverse terminology, and then described how a spatially infinite (or even very large) Level I multiverse affects various design arguments. The next discussion outlined several philosophical objections to physical infinities.

After describing how scientists use the cosmic microwave background to measure cosmological parameters, the succeeding entries each highlighted a different bizarre question arising from multiverse models:

1. Do multiple copies of me making slightly different choices exist?
2. Do random processes spontaneously pop sentient beings briefly into existence?
3. Are we just part of a highly complex, but unreal, simulation?

Most recently, I discussed how multiverse models impact the most powerful, scientifically relevant argument for God’s existence: the cosmological argument.

The articles above provide an introductory overview to what I consider the most relevant issues regarding the multiverse. As I continue to fill in more details, I am interested to know about your multiverse questions and concerns. Please forward them to multiverse@reasons.org.

Jeff Zweerink, Ph.D.

In past Multiverse Musings TNRTBs, I have described not just one, but two bizarre implications of the multiverse. This TNRTB addresses a third.

Due to its box-office acclaim, most people are familiar with the Matrix trilogy. The series’ premise presents a scenario where the world experienced by human beings results from a vast computer simulation piped directly into each human’s brain. Neo, the unwitting yet key player in the fight against the Matrix, meets Morpheus, leader of a band of free human rebels, who presents Neo with a choice: escape to the gritty reality of the real world or remain in the blissful ignorance of the Matrix simulation.

Alternate universes such as those in The Matrix may be things of fiction, but if the multiverse exists and if sufficiently complex simulations exist, then a remarkable scenario ensues. Simulated universes with simulated beings vastly outnumber any sentient life in “real”, physical universes! Sir Martin Rees explains the consequences of the multiverse in this way:

“All the multiverse ideas lead to a remarkable synthesis between cosmology and physics….But they also lead to the extraordinary consequence that we may not be the deepest reality, we may be a simulation. The possibility that we are creations of some supreme or super-being, blurs the boundary between physics and idealist philosophy, between the natural and the supernatural, and between the relation of mind and multiverse and the possibility that we’re in the matrix rather than the physics itself.” (See Paul Davies, The Cosmic Jackpot, Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston (2007): 179-90.)

However adequately multiverse theories address the fine-tuned appearance of our observable universe and the events that made advanced life possible, they still raise more complicated questions than they answer. To the previously highlighted bizarre questions (Do multiple copies of me making slightly different choices exist? Do random processes spontaneously pop sentient beings briefly into existence?), we must now ask: Are we just part of a highly complex, but unreal, simulation?

Interestingly, the picture painted by the Bible shares much with the idea that we are a “simulation.” For instance, one reason God created this universe is to provide an arena for the conquest of good over evil. Upon completing that conquest, God will replace this universe with a more permanent creation where humans will enjoy an intimate relationship with Him—which is the ultimate reality.

However, unlike simulations where everything ceases to exist, God will transport us into the new “simulation” where wonders beyond our imagination await. Furthermore, death, decay, and pain will no longer exist because the old “simulation” will have passed away.

Jeff Zweerink, Ph.D.

It is widely accepted that cosmologists, astronomers, physicists, chemists and geologists have detected fine-tuning and design in the universe. Most skeptical responses to this apparent design seek to explain the low probability of our life-friendly universe when compared to the vastly more numerous life-hostile universes. The “single possible universe” solution aims to rule out all but one of the seemingly infinite explanations. As Sherlock Holmes declared, “eliminate all other factors, and the one which remains must be the truth.” Others argue for a “life-force universe” where a yet undiscovered law directs the universe to support and develop life. Both of these models acknowledge the rarity of life, particularly advanced life.

In contrast, advanced life abounds in the multiverse. (A previous Multiverse Musings posting discussed some of the bizarre implications of life in the multiverse.) While the overall fraction of the multiverse containing advanced life might be small, the multiverse contains an infinite number of intelligent life-forms. The relevant question now becomes: Of all the possible life-forms capable of observing the universe, how likely is human life on a 4.5 billion-year-old rocky planet orbiting a third-generation star in an old, spiral galaxy in a 13.7 billion-year-old universe? At least one other option represents a far more likely possibility.

That possibility, known as a Boltzmann Brain (BB) argues against the order we discern in the universe around us. The idea behind a BB relates to the chance assembly of atoms into a sentient being due to thermal fluctuations permitted by the second law of thermodynamics. The popular rendition of the second law states that the total order of a system decreases over time. However, the order of some smaller part of a system may increase as long as the organization of the whole system still decreases. Thus, with some very small probability, atoms in a region of space will assemble into a being capable of observing the universe for some period of time. The probability dramatically decreases as the period of time grows longer and the orderliness of the region observed increases. Thus, a BB in a solitary solar system surrounded by a disorderly universe occurs far more frequently than a BB in a solar system contained within an orderly spiral galaxy.

Additionally, most of the natural ways to count the number of intelligent life-forms compared to BBs reveal that the BBs far outnumber ordinary observers. Thus, the typical observer in a multiverse should not see the well-ordered universe that we study. This multiverse proposed may not even adequately address the organized appearance of our detectable universe to support life and the fine-tuned sequence of events responsible for life arising. However, even if it does, it also raises equally serious issues which I’ll tackle next month.