Question for someone who actually knows the details: do Everett/Tegmark really imply nightmare universes (as the article claims)? Or is this yet another instance of the common misconception that "if there are infinitely many universes, then all conceivable universes are realized" (a conclusion which does not follow from the premise at all!)
And by "imply" I really mean "imply", not "imply with high probability". The latter doesn't really mean very much in a context where anthropic principles apply (and we would be utterly arrogant to pretend to understand the full depths and details which anthropic principles would involve in a multiverse setting)
It seems to me this article starts from both an untested speculative hypothesis (infinite multiverse), mixes in some poor theology, and then just babbles on from that point.
To be science, a theory needs testable hypotheses and falsifiability. Per my understanding, the multiverse theories have neither. Just because scientists speculate about something, doesn’t make it science, just as a lot of Isaac Newton’s speculations were not science.
In the Middle Ages, learned people used to debate how many angels could dance on the head of a pin. Now they debate multiverses. Neither are really science.
Incidentally, you might be interested in a recent paper of mine arguing that one extremely specific type of 'multiverse' (an extremely specific type of our living in a simulation run in a higher universe) is falsifiable. It's a super short paper using a deus-ex-machina you would never guess: soft errors! :) https://philpapers.org/archive/ALEATO-6.pdf
And yet someone like Newton did speculate on those matters. Just because something is not science does not mean it does not warrant our attention. Or is not fun to contemplate.
if 'you' are attempting to consider a spectra of possible universes, let alone compare them or analyse them on a hypothetical x, y vector of possible outcomes which stretches from now until the end of the "infinite" multiverse; you will fuck it up royally. Infinity is not a mathematical concept, and is instead abstract and used to practically account for unknown variables. While the many worlds interpretation is cool, considering how it actually affects anything we do or how we sit in the universe is a miserably hopeless feat. probably have more luck searching for god in a piece of toast.
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[ 4.4 ms ] story [ 28.2 ms ] threadAnd by "imply" I really mean "imply", not "imply with high probability". The latter doesn't really mean very much in a context where anthropic principles apply (and we would be utterly arrogant to pretend to understand the full depths and details which anthropic principles would involve in a multiverse setting)
In the Middle Ages, learned people used to debate how many angels could dance on the head of a pin. Now they debate multiverses. Neither are really science.
Incidentally, you might be interested in a recent paper of mine arguing that one extremely specific type of 'multiverse' (an extremely specific type of our living in a simulation run in a higher universe) is falsifiable. It's a super short paper using a deus-ex-machina you would never guess: soft errors! :) https://philpapers.org/archive/ALEATO-6.pdf