The Multiverse proposal - a valid hypotheses ?

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=multiverse&aq=f&oq=&aqi=

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiverse

The multiverse (or meta-universe (metaverse)) is the hypothetical set of multiple possible universes (including our universe) that together comprise all of reality. The different universes within the multiverse are sometimes called parallel universes. The structure of the multiverse, the nature of each universe within it and the relationship between the various constituent universes, depend on the specific multiverse hypothesis considered.

http://www.scienceandreligiontoday.com/2010/05/13/does-a-fine-tuned-universe-lead-to-god/

“It could be that universes evolve—that as some universes die, baby universes are created by advanced civilizations, and the DNA of these new universes is precisely the physical constants of our universe. Of course, they would have to be unimaginably advanced, but this controlled evolution of universes is consistent with the laws of physics. It would then be no accident that our universe has these conditions because it was a spin-off of another universe. In some sense, we would then not be winners of a cosmic jackpot, but simply winners of survival of the fittest.”
But even if super-advanced civilizations were creating universes, there had to have been a first universe—and there the fine-tuning problem would reassemble itself and re-emerge, stronger than ever.

In the case of the fine-tuning, we already know that minds often produce fine-tuned devices, such as Swiss watches. Postulating God--a supermind--as the explanation of the fine-tuning, therefore, is a natural extrapolation from of what we already observe minds to do. In contrast, it is difficult to see how the atheistic many-universes hypothesis could be considered a natural extrapolation from what we observe. Moreover, unlike the atheistic many-universes hypothesis, we have some experiential evidence for the existence of God, namely religious experience. Thus, by the above principle, we should prefer the theistic explanation of the fine-tuning over the atheistic many-universes explanation, everything else being equal.


Is the Universe Designed?

http://www.st-edmunds.cam.ac.uk/faraday/resources/Faraday%20Papers/Faraday%20Paper%2010%20Holder_EN.pdf


How are these extraordinary numbers to be explained? The most popular explanation and the one that appeals to Dawkins, is the ‘multiverse’. The idea here is that, unbeknown to us, there are other universes, all slightly different, so that it becomes more likely that in that number, a universe like ours might exist. Davies wrote, “The multiverse theory seeks to replace the appearance of design by the hand of chance.”[9] I have read some accounts that leave one to believe that a relatively small number of other universes would significantly alter the probabilities. That however is clearly not the case.

How many universes then would you need to make it at all probable that one of them could be like our universe? String theorists posit a number of 10 to the power of 500. It might help to see that number written out. It is 1 with 500 zeroes after it.

Here goes: 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.

http://davidappell.blogspot.com/2006/06/string-theory.html

The problem is, as I understand it, that string theory (or, more generally, the theory that physicist call "M-theory") seems to allow a very large number of possible solutions, or as the physicists call them, vacuua (as in the plural of "vacuum"). In fact, there are roughly 10-to-the-500th-power vacuua. That's an immense number that I don't even know how to describe except by using scientific notation. It's much more than a googol, or even a googol of googols. But it's less than a googolplex.

It's about 10^109! (10-to-the-109-factorial). (Oops. Obviously not.)

So rather than asking "how do we manipulate the mathematics to choose the one vacuum that represents our universe?" string theoriests like Susskind are saying, all these vacuums are allowed and all describe possible universes. In one or two of them the photon mass is zero and the electron has a mass of 0.511 MeV (and...), but in others the graviton is massive and quarks can be light-years apart and atoms can't even form and nothing is the way it seems here. And in still others..., well, you get the picture, times 10^500.




http://www.scienceandreligiontoday.com/2010/05/13/does-a-fine-tuned-universe-lead-to-god/

McMullin sees only four possible answers: luck, premature science, the multiverse theory, and a Creator God. He rejects “luck” as being wildly unlikely. He rejects premature science because “there are so many coincidences in the laws of nature that it’s not very likely that they could all follow from a simple, single theory.”

the multiverse (of perhaps an infinity of universes) requeres “an enormous additional postulate” and being “quite extreme.” “To postulate something so totally new, something for which there is no evidence at all, is wishful thinking.”

Multiple universes would explain the fine-tuning of our universe, but a fine-tuned “universe generator” for the vast ensemble of multiple universes is still needed.

One can still explain the universe by randomness—this universe is one of a run of universes and big bangs, and ours happened to have the right characteristics for life. Or one can invoke the many-worlds theory: the universe is constantly splitting into many worlds, some of which will be right for life. But to invent myriads of other worlds in order to explain how this one came to be seems to show an addiction to randomness in one's explanatory scheme. It seems more economical (and remember that science often recommends simplicity in explanations) to posit that there were some constraints on the only universe we know that made it right for life.

http://www.cosmicfingerprints.com/blog/big-bang-precisely-planned/

One of the more common explanations seems to be “There was an infinite number of universes, so it was inevitable that things would have turned out right in at least one of them.”
The “infinite universes” theory is truly an amazing theory. Just think about it, if there is an infinite number of universes, then absolutely everything is not only possible… It’s actually happened!
It means that somewhere, in some dimension, there is a universe where the Chicago Cubs won the World Series last year. There’s a universe where Jimmy Hoffa doesn’t get cement shoes; instead he marries Joan Rivers and becomes President of the United States. There’s even a universe where Elvis kicks his drug habit and still resides at Graceland and sings at concerts. Imagine the possibilities! I might sound like I’m joking, but actually I’m dead serious. To believe an infinite number of universes made life possible by random chance is to believe everything else I just said, too.


discovermagazine's article :

Science's Alternative to an Intelligent Creator: the Multiverse Theory

http://michaelsiegel.net/?p=860

Dawkins should stick to biology. He’s now supporting the multiverse theory to explain why we live in a universe so finally tuned to the needs of life. The idea is that there are many universe, all with different physical properties and we happen to occupy one of those suitable to life.

Problem: the multiverse theory, while pretty, is not scientific. It’s just not. It sounds scientific. It speaks the language and does the dance. But it’s not scientific at all because it is not testable. A lot of evolutionary psychology is unscientific as well by virtue of being untestable.

Well, maybe I just need to have my “consciousness raised” so that I can be an uberman like Dawkins.

He can really come across as arrogant on that account.

Dawkins’ most convincing anti-God argument is the complexity argument — that any God who controls the Universe must be more complex and difficult to explain than the Universe itself.

This is only true if you believe in a God who controls the path of every electron and the fall of every sparrow. However, a God who set the Universe in motions and guides it from time to time is not very complex.

Thinks of it this way. Let’s say I start an avalanche in the mountains. Thousands of boulders crash into the town below. According the Dawkins, a thousand boulders means at least a thousand people throwing them. But it was only one person doing something simple.

Suppose, in the future, we were to figure out how to start evolution on a lifeless planet. Occasionally, we would go in and adjust. Change some genes, wipe out a useless creature, save a good one. It doesn’t even take God to do that. Because comparatively simple acts — starting life, adjusting a gene — become massive complex operations once the machinery of evolution grinds them.

We see complexity growing out of simple process in nature all the time. In fact, the entire fucking universe is the outgrowth of a set of very simple principles. From crystals to nebulae to galaxies of billions of stars to life itself, we see dazzling complexity being guided by very simple, sometimes singular events.

So yes, a God who makes sure that the gravitational constant is always the same is too complex. But a God who laid down the laws of the Universe and set them in motion does not have to be very complex at all.

The apotheosis of this line of reasoning is Dawkins’ argument against prayer, in which he says that God hearing our prayers would require he be the most sophisticated computer ever built. This is a *slight* exaggeration in the age of the internet and Moore’s Law. But is also assumes that God and humanity are two different things. The entire idea of an immortal soul is that it is a piece of the divine within our flesh. I don’t need a sophisticated computer to sort and interpret the millions of signals I am receiving from my body every day. My brain is sufficient to take care of that, without my higher brain functions even being aware of it.

I’m not advocating a religious view here. I’m just saying that Dawkins, like most dogmatic atheists, fails to understand that there are ways of thinking about God that are different from the fundamentalist garbage. Ways that incorporate science. A simple God who creates a Universe on simple principles. He evolves with it, growing more complex. His own divine spark begins to grow in the form of evolving life.

There are other ways to think. Other ways to go. Yes, it is time for us to put away some of our myths and legends. But it’s not yet time, if it will ever be, to assume that we know everything. That there is nothing beyond the physical world. We just don’t know that much yet. Maybe, we never will.



http://hypography.com/forums/astronomy-and-cosmology/608-the-true-infinite-multi-universe-theory.html

The True Infinite Multi-Universe Theory
This theory is based on two beliefs, that our universe is currently expanding and that is resembles a spherical shape. This raises the question of what can exist outside this spherically expanding universe?

The answer is, there are similar spherical shaped universes surround our universe. All simulatenously expanding at the same rate because of a synchronization that exists with these symmetrically organized universes. The reason for this behavior is that is creates a chain effect which allows an infinite expansion and deflation process. This process explains how an infinite existance is possible and furthermore explainsthe future of what we currently know as the universe. This expansion/deflation process can best be described by the following analogy:

Picture a bowl of marbles. There spheres arrange themselves in such a way that there is one point which holds SIGNIFICANT important. I call it, the triple point. The triple point is the smallest empty space available between three marbles, even when considering the three-dimensional layers created by the marbles. Each of the marbles in the bowl represent a single universe. Now in reality, these universes exist infinitely in numbers and are not limited to some sort of cosmic bowl. In the center of each clear marble is a black dot. At some point in time this black dot represents all the matter, particles, anti-matter, dark-matter, and energy compressed within that universe. This compressed ball is so unstable it explodes (corresponding with the Big Bang Theory). Now the black dot in the center of the clear marble grows. It grows equally at the same rate and same relative time as the other black dots within every other marble. They are synchronized. Once the black dot grows to the boundary of the clear marble you will now have a bowl filled with black marbles.These universe have no where left to expand to, except for the empty void of the triple point. While the universes collide, the triple point fills up. The triple point becomes a massive ball of energy, particles, and matter. This creates a gravity powered vacuum that takes in all the particles and matter of the surround universes. This creates a new black dot within a new marble. It would appear to an observer viewing this event from a three-dimensional perspective, that the marbles have shifted over, because now where there were triple points, there are marbles, and at the center of where the old set of universes were, there are now triple points.
Now once again, the new super massive ball of particles and energy explodes again into another Big Bang. This is a endless cycle that has always existed and explains how infinite existance can be possible, which I suggestisa synchronized and symmetric system.

Video's :

Theories of Everything- The Multiverse



http://vimeo.com/1864692

Books :

By Rodney D. Holder
God, the multiverse, and everything: modern cosmology and the argument from ...

By Bernard Carr
Universe or multiverse?

http://www.cambridge.org/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780521848411

The Multiverse and Theories of Everything

Frontiers/Controversies in Astrophysics (ASTR 160)

Professor Bailyn begins the class with a discussion of a recent New York Times article about the discovery of a new, earth-like planet. He then discusses concepts such as epicycles, dark energy and dark matter; imaginary ideas invented to explain 96% of the universe. The Anthropic Principle is introduced and the possibility of the multiverse is addressed. Finally, biological arguments are put forth for how complexity occurs on a cosmological scale. The lecture and course conclude with a discussion on the fine differences between science and philosophy.

Complete course materials are available at the Open Yale Courses website: http://open.yale.edu/courses

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAxwmiKrjgU&feature=related



Does the Multiverse Really Exist?

To read along, please go to http://imaginingthetenthdimension.blo...
Here is the link to the Discover Magazine story on d'Espagnat's award:
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80b...
Here is the link for the New Scientist magazine article quoted in this blog:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/m...


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9187JKkKxx4&feature=related

Multiple Universes and Creation

http://www.doesgodexist.org/JulAug99/MultipleUniversesAndCreation.html

One of the many strong evidences for the existence of God is the evidence seen in the Creation itself. When you compare the view that there was a beginning and a cause with the view that there was no cause and that matter/energy is eternal, the evidence is strongly in support of the former. Skeptics have tried a variety of techniques to avoid such a conclusion. In 1927, according to US News and World Report ( July 20, 1998, page 46) George Lemaitre argued for the view that the universe was expanding from a single place. The article states "Most researchers scoffed at Lemaitre's concept, partly because they worried that it represented an attempt to grant credence to a theological notion of a discrete moment of Genesis." Denial has continued to be a tool of the skeptic, even after evidence has shown the validity of the fact of the beginning and a cause.

Most recently the discovery that the universe seems to be accelerating in its expansion, has put the final nail in the coffin of the oscillating universe theory (U.S. News & World Report, July 20, 1998, pages 45-52). This theory had been used by skeptics to avoid accepting the idea that the universe had a beginning. The idea was that the universe expanded and then stopped and pulled back, collapsing to a single point from which it expanded again--going in and out, in an eternal cycle. There had been many problems with the theory, but the fact that the cosmos is accelerating puts an end to this theory as a possibility. If everything is accelerating away from everything else, there is no possibility that the cosmos could come to a stop in its expansion and be pulled back to a single point.

To find an alternative to replace the oscillating universe theory (an explanation of why one should not believe there was a beginning that was caused) a theory called The Multiple Universe Theory has been proposed. There are several versions of this idea, but a commonly expressed one goes like this.

Deep in the past, some unknowable event triggered the first foundations of a multiuniverse. Chance reigned, and many heavens were born with physical laws adverse to life. They collapsed back on themselves or diffused into vapor and were never heard from again. But those universes that were born with physicals laws familiar to us were also the ones able to make black holes: That allowed them to trigger "daughter" universes. Over time, a fantastically large and complex multiverse resulted with most parts of the cosmos having physical laws that allow life--natural selection functioning on a cosmic scale (Dr. Lee Smolin, Pennsylvania State University).

The multiuniverse theory supposes that black holes spawn universes in other dimensions. There, universes would inflate in a process like the big bang. Multiuniverse theory makes the cosmos so huge and interactions between various daughter universes so frequent that an "eternal inflation" is proposed. Since the daughter universes are not coming from a physical process in their own dimension, they are coming from nothing. The process can never end because you can- not run out of nothing.

Wading through the various proposals like these, one cannot help but wonder if this whole discussion is not more fantasy than scientific theory. There are numerous reasons to question such an approach:

All of this is based on numerous untested ideas. False vacuums are proposed as mechanisms involved in the process, but these are highly speculative. Empty space is assumed to have energy associated with it.
The assumption that other physical universes exist is totally void of any evidence.
All proposals in this area use terms like Smolin's first sentence: "Some unknowable event triggered." This is not a falsifiable statement. There is no way to test it, so it is a matter of faith.
Chance is believed to be the driving force in the process. Many reputable scientists find such a proposal untenable. Allan Sandage, one of the world's leading astronomers, has stated that all of this has made him a believer in God, "willing to accept that creation could only be explained as a miracle."
We live in an exciting time. New evidence becomes available on a daily basis. Humans will make proposals like multiple universes, and some of them will never be disproven because there is no way to test them. All of these proposals, however, fail to give any answers to the questions of why? Why does something exist instead of nothing. No matter how big you imagine things to be, there can always be something bigger.

Those of us who believe in God are working from the other direction. We see God not just as stupendously large, but rather totally infinite. Whatever number of universes one can imagine, God is greater than that. In addition to that infinite makeup, God is also seen in other ways. These involve design in everything we are and can imagine. These also involve love and a purpose in our lives. They also provide personal strength and help in all times of human pain and loss.

Gregg Easterbrook says, "Attributing the virtues of this cosmos to unseen other universes is a little like attributing the virtues of existence to God--in either case, you might be right, but you're assuming an article of faith."

The difference is that the faith of the multiuniverse believers is totally blind while those who believe and follow God have a wealth of other evidence to support what they believe.

http://biologos.org/questions/fine-tuning/

The Multiverse
There is a final response, known as the multiverse hypothesis. The multiverse hypothesis claims that there are many other universes in addition to our own. Each of these has different properties, and different values of the basic constants of physics. If the number of these universes is extremely large, it would be less surprising that one of them would happen to provide the specific conditions for life. At first glance, the proposition of many other universes sounds impressively scientific. However, one must keep in mind that the likelihood of ever being able to observe evidence of another universe is extremely remote, since it is unlikely that information could ever pass from one universe to another. Furthermore, there is no guarantee that the process which produces all of these universes would randomly set all the physical parameters in such a way that every possibility is realized. It could be that there are constraints on the characteristics of these many universes and that the production process itself would have to be fine-tuned in some way to guarantee that we get enough variety of universes to account for our remarkable cosmic home. Additional problems arise with the details of proposing a multiverse, which are enumerated in the suggested readings below.

http://god-and-science.org/gs/new/finetuning.html

Albert Einstein, theoretical physicist
The scientist is possessed by the sense of universal causation… His religious feeling takes the form of a rapturous amazement at the harmony of natural law, which reveals an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection.

Stephen Hawking, theoretical physicist
The laws of science… contain many fundamental numbers, like the size of the electric charge of the electron and the ratio of the masses of the proton and the electron… The remarkable fact is that the values of these numbers seem to have been very finely adjusted to make possible the development of life.

Sir Fred Hoyle, astrophysicist
A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question.

Desperately Fleeing God in Cosmology

Desperately Fleeing God in Cosmology 11/17/2008

Nov 17, 2008 — Does the fine-tuning of the universe require belief in God? Or will multiverse theory allow for a self-perpetuating, eternal, godless cosmos? Tim Folger explored this topic in an interview with Andrei Linde, a cosmologist currently at Stanford, in Discovery Magazine. The opening line sums up the controversy: “Our universe is perfectly tailored for life. That may be the work of God or the result of our universe being one of many.”
Folger and Linde stated repeatedly and emphatically that our universe appears designed. They discuss the multiple fine-tuning coincidences, like the mass of protons, that would rule out stars and life if they were just 0.2% more massive than they are. “We have a lot of really, really strange coincidences, and all of these coincidences are such that they make life possible,” Linde says. Folger asserted that physicists dislike coincidences. To avoid them, some cosmologists have been driven to postulate that our universe may be just one of many. We just inhabit one of the very, very rare lucky ones where the constants of physics came together by chance to permit life:
Call it a fluke, a mystery, a miracle. Or call it the biggest problem in physics.

Short of invoking a benevolent creator, many physicists see only one possible explanation: Our universe may be but one of perhaps infinitely many universes in an inconceivably vast multi춚erse.

Most of those universes are barren, but some, like ours, have conditions suitable for life.
The idea is controversial. Critics say it doesn’t even qualify as a scientific theory because the existence of other universes cannot be proved or disproved. Advocates argue that, like it or not, the multiverse may well be the only viable non춓eligious explanation for what is often called the “fine-tuning problem”–the baffling observation that the laws of the universe seem custom-tailored to favor the emergence of life.
“For me the reality of many universes is a logical possibility,” Linde says. “You might say, ‘Maybe this is some mysterious coincidence. Maybe God created the universe for our benefit.’ Well, I don’t know about God, but the universe itself might reproduce itself eternally in all its possible manifestations.”
Those interested can read the whole article, where Linde and others elaborate on the pros and cons of the multiverse hypothesis. One line on page 3 stands out. Bernard Carr, a cosmologist at Queen Mary University in London, said, “you might have to have a fine-tuner. If you don’t want God, you’d better have a multiverse.” Linde admitted in the end that he cannot predict whether the multiverse hypothesis will gain traction any more than he can know anything at all: “What can you predict? What can you know about the future?”

'Multiverse' Theory Fails to Explain Away God

New discoveries continue to reveal the life-friendly properties of our universe, in which physical laws are seemingly fine-tuned to allow life to exist. To get around the appearance of design, secular scientists have to invent naturalistic explanations that exclude the possibility of supernatural origins. The latest of these inventions is “multiverses.”

The force of gravity, the specific masses of subatomic particles, the exact strengths of fundamental physical forces, and the distance of the earth from other galaxies and from the sun are all essential for the delicate balance needed to sustain life. Bernard Carr, cosmologist at Queen Mary University of London, told Discover, “If there is only one universe, you might have to have a fine-tuner. If you don’t want God, you’d better have a multiverse.”1

The multiverse hypothesis holds that our entire universe is only one of an infinite number of other universes. In this way, all conceivable fundamental construction parameters could exist in a vast array of alternate realities. Most of these imaginary universes would not have the right conditions for life to exist, but by a cosmic coincidence, all the life-friendly forces of our universe happened to line up correctly.

There is no evidence for the existence of alternate universes, and if a concept cannot be proved or disproved, it is not open to scientific investigation. Stanford University visionary physicist Andrei Linde seemed adamant, however, that though this theory is not scientific, it must be true because it is logically necessary. When asked whether physicists will ever be able to prove the multiverse in the absence of any hope for physical confirmation, he told Discover, “Nothing else fits the data.”

What data? Even tiny variations in planetary distances, any more or less gravity, or any other difference in the current structure of the universe would make it hostile to life. The one model that explains this data without inventing fictional, unprovable multiverses is the creation model, which presents the planned, purposeful origin of space, time, matter, and life by a Creator. The only “data” that would seem to require multiverses is the absence of God—but this is not data, it is “science falsely so called,”2 empty imaginings devoid of evidentiary support.

When atheistic bias is removed, the old teleological argument still holds: Precise specification of fundamental parameters implies a precisely-minded “specifier.” University of Texas theoretical physicist Stephen Weinberg told Discover, “I don’t think that the multiverse idea destroys the possibility of an intelligent, benevolent creator. What it does is remove one of the arguments for it.” But it does not do that. Rather, the multiverse hypothesis is a conclusion based on the assumption that there is no Creator. Whereas there may be spiritual reasons to reject the Creator, there is not a scientific or logical one.3

DO INFINITE UNIVERSES EXPLAIN THE FINE-TUNING?

http://www.reasons.org/do-infinite-universes-explain-fine-tuning

Life, the multiverse and everything

http://www.philosophypress.co.uk/?p=137

Is God in the Details?
From cosmic coincidence to conservative cosmopolitics.

http://www.reason.com/news/show/31071.html

In God: The Evidence, Glynn dismisses all multiple-universe theories, including Smolin's. These, he argues, are contrivances produced by "secular-minded scientists" to explain away the evidence for design. Glynn writes that "some scientists have speculated that there may exist billions of `parallel' universes--which, mind you, we will never be able to detect --of which ours just happens to be one. If there were billions of invisible universes, then the series of miraculous coincidences that produced life in this one might not seem so unlikely." Such theories, according to Glynn, are "reminiscent of medieval theologians' speculations about the number of angels that could dance on the head of a pin."

The Anthropic Principle:
Is the fine tuning of nature due to
a Multiverse and/or Intelligent Design?

http://www.asa3.org/ASA/education/origins/anthropic-cr.htm

Philosophical Objections to a Multiverse

ROBIN COLLINS OBJECTS TO THE MANY-UNIVERSES HYPOTHESIS

http://www.johnpiippo.com/2009/02/robin-collins-on-many-worlds-hypothesis.html

Bayesian considerations on the multiverse explanation
of cosmic fine-tuning

http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0802/0802.4013.pdf

Subject: Multiverse and the Design Argument

http://www.reasonablefaith.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5741

http://www.cosmicfingerprints.com/blog/big-bang-precisely-planned/