Ruminations on multiverses; if they are evil (Introduction)

by David Turell , Sunday, March 12, 2017, 18:56 (2602 days ago) @ David Turell

A theist philosopher tackles the question:

http://nautil.us//issue/46/balance/evil-triumphs-in-these-multiverses-and-god-is-powerl...

"The challenge that the multiverse poses for the idea of an all-good, all-powerful God is often focused on fine-tuning. If there are infinite universes, then we don’t need a fine tuner to explain why the conditions of our universe are perfect for life, so the argument goes. But some kinds of multiverse pose a more direct threat. The many-worlds interpretation of quantum physicist Hugh Everett III and the modal realism of cosmologist Max Tegmark include worlds that no sane, good God would ever tolerate. The theories are very different, but each predicts the existence of worlds filled with horror and misery.

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"Everett’s many-worlds and Tegmark’s modal realism both seem to imply that there are huge numbers of horrific universes inhabited solely by such unfortunates. Someone like myself, who remains attracted to the traditional picture of God as loving creator, is bound to find such consequences shocking, and will wonder just how strong the evidence is for these theories.

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"A theist may also take comfort in the fact that the many-worlds interpretation is still far from scientific orthodoxy. Although beloved by Oxford philosophers and accepted by a growing number of theoretical physicists, the theory remains highly controversial, and there are fundamental problems still being hashed out by the experts.

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"There is one way, then, in which Everett’s multiverse poses less of a challenge to the theist than Tegmark’s. Everett’s theory doesn’t predict that God won’t do anything for people with short, miserable lives, and it doesn’t predict that God won’t somehow compensate them in an afterlife. Rather, it only predicts that there will be many more short, miserable lives than just the ones in our universe; whereas Tegmark’s theory implies that there have to be worlds in which there are short miserable lives and no afterlife.

"Adding insult to injury, since the horrifying worlds are consequences of pure mathematics, they exist as a matter of absolute necessity—so there is nothing God can do about it! The resulting picture will remain offensive to pious ears: A God who loved all creatures, but was forced to watch infinitely many of them endure lives of inconsolable suffering, would be a God embroiled in a tragedy.

"But there is still hope for the theist.

"Unlike the Everettian many worlds, which issue from experimental theories in physics and so are harder to dismiss, Tegmark’s theory is based on frail philosophical arguments. Take, for example, his claim that the physical universe is a purely mathematical structure: Why should we accept this? Ordinarily, physicists use mathematical structures as models for how the physical world might work, but they do not identify the mathematical model with the world itself. Tegmark’s reason for taking the latter approach is his conviction that physics must be purged of anything but mathematical terms. Non-mathematical concepts, he says, are “anthropocentric baggage,” and must be eliminated for objectivity’s sake. But why think that the only objective descriptions that can truly apply to things as they are in themselves are mathematical descriptions? So far as I can see, he never justifies this assumption. And such a counterintuitive starting point isn’t enough to threaten one’s belief in a benevolent God.

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"... the idea that we inhabit a multiverse doesn’t have to undermine a belief in God. Every theist should take seriously the possibility that there might exist more universes, simply on the grounds that God would have reason to create more good stuff. Indeed, an infinitely ingenious, resourceful, and creative Being might be expected to work on canvases the size of worlds—some filled with frenetic activity, others more like vast minimalist paintings, many maybe even featuring intelligent beings like ourselves. And the theories of physicists such as Alan Guth and Andrei Linde—whose multiverse is an eternally inflating field that spins off baby universes—or Paul Steinhardt and Neil Turok—whose multiverse amounts to an endless cyclical universe punctuated by big bangs and big crunches—are arguably compatible with this theological vision.

"It may turn out that our world is fairly middling, one among the many universes that were good enough for God to create. And the idea of a multiverse consisting of disconnected spacetime universes may make it easier to believe that our world—our universe—is a part of a larger one that is on balance very good and created by a perfectly benevolent deity."

Comment: A philosopher who swallows the possibility of a multiverse and then defends God is dancing on the head of a pin with innumerable angels, but as John Leslie notes God might have created a multiverse.