'Multiverse Theory'

[Guest guest]

'Multiverse Theory' Holds That the Universe is a Virtual Reality

Matrix

 

Sydney Morning Herald | July 22 2004

 

Comment: Isn't it amazing that scientists have finally had to admit

that the design of the universe is so perfectly crafted so as to

indicate intelligent design and yet they still try to avoid any

explanation which includes the word God.

http://www.propagandamatrix.com/articles/july2004/220704multiversethe

ory.htm

 

The multiverse theory has spawned another - that our universe is a

simulation, writes Paul Davies.

 

If you've ever thought life was actually a dream, take comfort. Some

pretty distinguished scientists may agree with you. Philosophers

have long questioned whether there is in fact a real world out

there, or whether "reality" is just a figment of our imagination.

 

Then along came the quantum physicists, who unveiled an Alice-in-

Wonderland realm of atomic uncertainty, where particles can be waves

and solid objects dissolve away into ghostly patterns of quantum

energy.

 

Now cosmologists have got in on the act, suggesting that what we

perceive as the universe might in fact be nothing more than a

gigantic simulation.

 

The story behind this bizarre suggestion began with a vexatious

question: why is the universe so bio-friendly? Cosmologists have

long been perplexed by the fact that the laws of nature seem to be

cunningly concocted to enable life to emerge. Take the element

carbon, the vital stuff that is the basis of all life. It wasn't

made in the big bang that gave birth to the universe. Instead,

carbon has been cooked in the innards of giant stars, which then

exploded and spewed soot around the universe.

 

The process that generates carbon is a delicate nuclear reaction. It

turns out that the whole chain of events is a damned close run

thing, to paraphrase Lord Wellington. If the force that holds atomic

nuclei together were just a tiny bit stronger or a tiny bit weaker,

the reaction wouldn't work properly and life may never have happened.

 

The late British astronomer Fred Hoyle was so struck by the

coincidence that the nuclear force possessed just the right strength

to make beings like Fred Hoyle, he proclaimed the universe to be "a

put-up job". Since this sounds a bit too much like divine

providence, cosmologists have been scrambling to find a scientific

answer to the conundrum of cosmic bio-friendliness.

 

The one they have come up with is multiple universes, or "the

multiverse". This theory says that what we have been calling "the

universe" is nothing of the sort. Rather, it is an infinitesimal

fragment of a much grander and more elaborate system in which our

cosmic region, vast though it is, represents but a single bubble of

space amid a countless number of other bubbles, or pocket universes.

 

Things get interesting when the multiverse theory is combined with

ideas from sub-atomic particle physics. Evidence is mounting that

what physicists took to be God-given unshakeable laws may be more

like local by-laws, valid in our particular cosmic patch, but

different in other pocket universes. Travel a trillion light years

beyond the Andromeda galaxy, and you might find yourself in a

universe where gravity is a bit stronger or electrons a bit heavier.

 

The vast majority of these other universes will not have the

necessary fine-tuned coincidences needed for life to emerge; they

are sterile and so go unseen. Only in Goldilocks universes like ours

where things have fallen out just right, purely by accident, will

sentient beings arise to be amazed at how ingeniously bio-friendly

their universe is.

 

It's a pretty neat idea, and very popular with scientists. But it

carries a bizarre implication. Because the total number of pocket

universes is unlimited, there are bound to be at least some that are

not only inhabited, but populated by advanced civilisations -

technological communities with enough computer power to create

artificial consciousness. Indeed, some computer scientists think our

technology may be on the verge of achieving thinking machines.

 

It is but a small step from creating artificial minds in a machine,

to simulating entire virtual worlds for the simulated beings to

inhabit. This scenario has become familiar since it was popularised

in The Matrix movies.

 

Now some scientists are suggesting it should be taken seriously. "We

may be a simulation ... creations of some supreme, or super-being,"

muses Britain's astronomer royal, Sir Martin Rees, a staunch

advocate of the multiverse theory. He wonders whether the entire

physical universe might be an exercise in virtual reality, so

that "we're in the matrix rather than the physics itself".

 

Is there any justification for believing this wacky idea? You bet,

says Nick Bostrom, a philosopher at Oxford University, who even has

a website devoted to the topic ( http://www.simulation-

argument.com). "Because their computers are so powerful, they could

run a great many simulations," he writes in The Philosophical

Quarterly.

 

So if there exist civilisations with cosmic simulating ability, then

the fake universes they create would rapidly proliferate to

outnumber the real ones. After all, virtual reality is a lot cheaper

than the real thing. So by simple statistics, a random observer like

you or me is most probably a simulated being in a fake world. And

viewed from inside the matrix, we could never tell the difference.

 

Or could we? John Barrow, a colleague of Martin Rees at Cambridge

University, wonders whether the simulators would go to the trouble

and expense of making the virtual reality foolproof. Perhaps if we

look closely enough we might catch the scenery wobbling.

 

He even suggests that a glitch in our simulated cosmic history may

have already been discovered, by John Webb at the University of NSW.

Webb has analysed the light from distant quasars, and found that

something funny happened about 6 billion years ago - a minute shift

in the speed of light. Could this be the simulators taking their eye

off the ball?

 

I have to confess to being partly responsible for this mischief.

Last year I wrote an item for The New York Times, saying that once

the multiverse genie was let out of the bottle, Matrix-like

scenarios inexorably follow. My conclusion was that perhaps we

should retain a healthy scepticism for the multiverse concept until

this was sorted out. But far from being a dampener on the theory, it

only served to boost enthusiasm for it.

 

Where will it all end? Badly, perhaps. Now the simulators know we

are on to them, and the game is up, they may lose interest and

decide to hit the delete button. For your own sake, don't believe a

word that I have written.

 

Paul Davies is professor of natural philosophy at Macquarie

University's Australian Centre for Astrobiology. His latest book is

How to Build a Time Machine.