Slashdot Mirror
Parallel Universes Are Real
It's in Scientific American, it must be true. This month's cover story:
Parallel Universes.
"The simplest and most popular cosmological model today predicts that you have a twin in a galaxy about 10 to the 1028 meters from here." That number's a lot bigger than 10 to the 101.42 meters, which are the farthest observable objects in what we call our universe. And anyway, twin or not, anyone outside my light-cone is dead to me. That's just a rule I have. If you're skeptical of the multiverse, go read our discussion of a similar article from
two days ago.
What does religion have to say about multiple universes? Would this figure in somehow?
What? 2 x 10^118 probablity of the protons matching up in a hubble space. The problem with this type of math in cosmology is no one knows where to set the baseline numbers. The fact that the COBE discovered 1/100,000 K difference in temperatures seperated across the survey accounts for theory of distribution accross our observable region only.
You might as well say that heaven exists X meters from here because of the probability that there is an equivalent 100 ly radius of space where I exist but my puppy dog is still alive and their is no war and I eat ice-cream everyday.
Man, I am going to have to sleep on this one...
If there are infinitely many universes and in each one I do something different and play out every possibility. Then one of the other me's will build a means to cross this space and enter mine. I could assume that I am in one of the universes where my double did not go. But why hasn't any other doubles been visiting us and telling us this? Is anyone else getting a headache?
Karma: Smeghead
The article asserts: In infinite space, even the most unlikely events must take place somewhere.
So there is a place where everyone on Slashdot is getting laid! Quick, let's fire up the old improbability drive and head out there and join them!
Seriously though, this is no major jump in thinking, and is rather flawed when you stick to the basics. Just because something may be infinite in size does not necessarily mean there are an infinite number of events taking place within that space. There is no such thing as a probability of exactly 1 or exactly 0. That's why we have probability theory in the first place.
mogorific carpentry experiments
How come theories such as parallel universes, multiple dimesions, strings, etc in Physics are considered acceptable yet when someone suggests the possibility of extraterrestrials visiting the earth they are considered lunatics? We are willing to handwave aways so many instances of groups of people observing UFOs as weather balloons, swamp gas, ball lightnings or mass hallucinations. To me those physics theories seem more bizzare and unlikely than the possibility that with a zillion starsystems that there be many other beings far more advanced than us.
The hand-painted cover art was usually much more aesthetically pleasing than today's Photoshop hacks. I've grown somewhat used to the latest format (it doesn't physically grate on my nerves like it did at first), but I still can't say I like it.
They probably feel that they need all of the visual distractions and information tidbits to compete with the Internet. The ironic part is that I often use the Internet to find an experience like the old Scientific American. I type a topic into Google and I find a nice boringly formatted academic paper to read.
Without falsifiability, what you're talking about not a scientific theory, it's metaphysical speculation. There's nothing wrong with that per se, but it ain't science.
If this were true, why is it the case that science developed greatly in the Christian world (that has now been become secular) and not in the Buddhistic world? IMHO, the reasons is that Buddhism has a cyclic world view, e.g. no real progress is possible, whereas Christianity believes that there is progress. There is this believe in a better world to come.
Good point.
It's probably just for comparison with 10^(10^28) though.
Disclaimer: IANAL. This post is, however, legal advice, and creates an attorney-client relationship.
Lesson? Like the recent rise of the US religious right and gradual breakdown in the separation of the church and the state?
BOO! TERRO
Buddhism is the only 'old' religion (although some argue it's a philosophy as it has no god) which correlates and whose beliefs correspond with science all the way across the board.
Only if you discard reincarnation, Nirvana, various supernatural beings like the "Monkey God" (as seen in the famous classical Chinese book "Voyage to the West" - basically the whole religion. You might as well say Christianity fits with science because there was that flood thing in Genesis and floods have been known to happen. Just like a broken clock which is right twice a day, religions can sometimes be congruent by chance with science.
While scientists would not particularly go for the whole reincarnation game, there is a lot of logic in it
No. At the root of it is the assumption that there is a "soul" responsible for our thoughts that is somehow separate from the brain, just like in Christianity, Islam, etc. According to science, we think because neurons fire in our brains. When the brain dies, no more thoughts.
My bet is 2 or 3.
Higher Logics: where programming meets science.
Althoug I fully agree with you you are confussing hindu and vedic myths (Monkey God) and mixing it with Budhist stuff.
In countries like Thailand all these influences mixed and thus the Budhism practiced there is different to Budhism in other places with less hindu influence.
Reincarnation and Nirvana are of course all as faux as any religion dogmas.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
The universe being created from nothing isn't an extraordinary claim? Whether God created the universe or the universe created itself from nothing, both seem rather extraordinary and difficult/impossible to prove.
All things have a beginning? How does the set of all integers have a beginning?
If every possible "particle position combination" is exhausted, then everything that can possibly exist does exist. So, somewhere in the infinite universe, there must be a giant bomb capable of destroying the entire universe. In fact, there are many of them. In fact, there are an infinite number of them, in all different shapes and sizes. More importantly, they all have different trigger mechanisms. Some have buttons... Some have timers... and since there are an infinite number of them, some of these timers should have already expired. But the universe still exists. ?
I think the flaw in the logic here is that just because there is an infinite amount of space, there must be an infinite amount of "stuff" in that space. Maybe it's just empty, or nearly empty, or whatever. In terms of your "boolean" analogy, maybe everything past a certain point is a "zero" (nothing there).
That's BS, quite frankly. Ancient man didn't have the science we do, so their theories about a flat earth and such are certainly questionable--even discarded at this point. But much of the Bible, for example, are stories of what ancient people lived, saw and, in some cases, supposedly received directly from God.
In the case of the Old Testament, the stories were passed down for generations before they were ever put in writing. Furthermore, every story in the Old Testament has much older variants in other civilizations. The Egyptians have stories of magicians (followers of a pantheon of gods, not one "true" god) walking on water, parting the seas, and so forth. One in particular has a pharoah having a magician part the sees so that he can retrieve a ring dropped by a slave. All stories that predate the Old Testament. Mind you, the Old Testament (with the exception of Genesis) takes place during the height/fall of the Egyptian empire.
Anyway, those stories are almost certainly warped with the passing of time, and the oral traditions involved.
In the case of the New Testament, many of those were indeed penned (quilled?) before Jesus' death. However, it's only 2000 years old, roundabout, and there's no archaeological evidence to support it. IIRC, there's no Roman record of a governor (or whatever the title is) named "Pontius Pilate". The Romans were very thorough about their documentation. We have Julius Caesar's autobiography, that of Brutus, and another biography written about Caesar, and those men lived several centuries before Jesus. But we have no record of Jesus, save the New Testament.
To buy into what you're saying you have to essentially believe that all the people that witnessed Biblical events, wrote them down, or received them from God, were outright liars. You can believe what you want, but there isn't any evidence (that I know of) that indicates that they were liars.
You're right, there's no evidence to believe they were outright liars, and believing so of these people isn't a requirement. We've seen people duped over plenty of other things, historically. Hitler duped his people to some extent (although the story isn't as clear cut as my one sentence summary). Lenin was able to rally a great deal of support for the Communist revolution. In more mundane areas, many people believed that the Titanic was unsinkable. We don't have to accuse anyone in biblical times of lying or believing in a hoax, we know that the psychology of people allows for such believe whether it's true or not. Widespread belief doesn't make something real, but it can provide the illusion of reality. In spite of widespread belief, though, we find communism failing or regressing into totalitarian dictatorships (rather than rule by the people, which it's supposed to be). We find that Hitler was in fact an evil man doing evil things. And, of course, the Titanic sunk. And it doesn't make a damn bit of difference how many people believed otherwise in any of these cases.
They saw, they lived, they wrote it down. It's history.
Don't you know that eyewitnesses are the worst form of testimony? Eyewitnesses see something, and when they recount it later it's filled with bias and prejudice. Lawyers (good ones) can manipulate or discredit the testimony of eyewitnesses in an interactive fashion. Of course, the eyewitnesses in the Bible are no longer here for interactive discussion. However, it's a pretty good bet that if you showed one of them a flashlight, they'd think it was magic and would either decide you were evil, or would believe anything you said. Regardless of that little facet of the psychology in the biblical time, it's also important to note that many of Jesus' contemporaries, as presented in the bible, did not agree with him. Christianity was a persecuted minority for many centuries. Thanks to the Dark Ages, the church was able to assert a great deal of control over the population, and Christianity finally rose up to be the dominant re
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