Ruminations on multiverses; they are not real (Introduction)

by David Turell , Sunday, July 12, 2020, 21:57 (1383 days ago) @ David Turell

Another negative article:

https://medium.com/the-infinite-universe/i-do-not-believe-in-the-multiverse-the-case-fo...

"The problem with it is that it fails Ockham’s razor and rests on the most tenuous physical arguments. It tells us that not only are there an infinite number of alternate realities out there but that this must be so because it is the only way to explain quantum theory coherently. The latter statement is hardly true, and the strawman argument that its only rival is something called “wavefunction collapse” is also false.

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"To say that the universe is one of many parallel ones is just one of many possible explanations. Being confined to this point in time and space in a potentially infinite universe where we have only been observing its expansion for the last 100 years, we can hardly make such bold claims. The answer is neither “we are special” nor “many universes”, it is “we don’t know”.

"I’m not going to beat around the bush here: I don’t believe in the multiverse. Not only is it scientifically premature, I think it is logically weak too, on par with the simulation hypothesis in terms of philosophical merit.

***

"While Bohmian mechanics has some issues with relativity (which I have written about extensively elsewhere) as well as how to interpret particle creation and annhilation, it reestablishes realism and does away with the notion that how we choose to observe the universe changes reality itself.

"In the double slit experiment, unlike the multiverse, Bohmian mechanics says the photon goes through one slit or the other, not both, but that the wavefunction guides it into a wave interference pattern anyway. When you try to observe which slit it went through you are interfering with the wavefunction and particle and so you no longer get the pattern. It is very straightforward.

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"Far from refuting Bohr, it upholds his interpretation on the whole because it says that experimenters are just viewing different aspects of reality through their experimental setups, not changing it. How they look at reality changes how they see it, but the underlying state is definite. While experiments destroy or alter the state of the particles under observation, they do not fundamentally change what is real for the observer. That is relativism not subjectivism.

"I would suggest that Bohmian mechanics accurately extends and reinterprets Bohr’s original ideas of complementarity, putting them on a more solid mathematical footing. It rejects subjectivism and positivism (anti-realism) and embraces relativism in a single universe. In addition, it mathematically refines quantum theory, opening the door to potential tests of its validity. So far, the multiverse invites no such tests. (my bold)

"As for the anthropic principle, like I said, it’s a big universe and we have really been looking at it for a short time. We don’t even know answers to questions like: what really happened at the Big Bang, what is time, and what is beyond the observable universe. We don’t know what happens inside black hole singularities where new laws of physics may exist. Do the same laws of physics apply in the parts of the universe we can’t see? It seems lazy to jump to the MWI to explain our own existence because we think it is too big a coincidence. We don’t even have the knowledge to say such a thing. While we have discovered in the past 100 years that the universe is vast with countless stars and planets, it may be vaster still and yet still be one universe."

Comment: We should not let our confusion about quantum reality to drive us to the nutty conclusion there are multiple parallel universes.