Q&A: A World Different from Ours
A World Different from Ours
Question
Hello Rabbi!
I read your book The First Existent. I have to say that it is an excellent book, unlike anything else I have found in the current generation. Thank you!
Just one question. Regarding your claim about the laws of physics, I had difficulty with something. Suppose the laws of physics had been different from the outset, so that the relations between substances were different. I myself am a physics student (I am aware that the Rabbi knows much more physics than I do, and that is why I am turning to him), and I once read that there is indeed a scientific possibility that the laws of physics could have been different.
Let us assume that there really were other laws. The universe would have been different. It is possible that a universe of “blobs” would have been created altogether (forms without a defined shape). And yet, even in this blob universe, it is possible that after billions of years and evolutionary processes, life would have formed (people in blob form). It is possible that their life would have been different from ours; maybe they would exist on particles moving through space. I do not know. But their reality could have been utterly different from our experience of the universe. For them, that blob world would be ordered. In fact, it would also seem intelligent to them. And the only difference would be that the relation between the forces was different from the outset. The society of the blob-people would be built entirely on such a blobby reality.
Doesn’t that mean that we too are marveling at something rightly, but it could also be that billions of other different material relations would likewise have produced amazement in worlds that in fact do not exist?
It is important for me to emphasize: I am not talking about infinite universes that fail the teapot test. I am speaking only about a theoretical possibility, which merely shows that existing reality is not necessarily unique.
Thank you very much!
Answer
It seems to me that I answered this question there, and also here on the site more than once. This is basically the anthropic argument. If we are talking about beings with a level of complexity like human beings or animals, then the probability that they would be found in other universes is also very small. Of course, if there were masses of universes that came into being, then in a few of them this could happen. But there is no indication whatsoever that there are masses of such universes. And even if there are, their very formation itself requires an explanation (who is this generator of universes? And who created it?). And even if we accept that they exist, then in each of them there could be all kinds of bizarre beings of astonishing complexity: angels, demons, gods, human beings, and other aliens. So why shouldn’t there be in one of them some god, for example? Notice that the atheistic alternative you are proposing to the claim that there is a God is that there are masses of universes of every kind and type (not one of which we have the slightest indication exists), and within them all sorts of wildly bizarre creatures as crazy as you like (including gods). And that is the simpler alternative than saying that God created our universe?
Discussion on Answer
I explained that too through concepts of entropy. The complexity of our world is objective and not in the eye of the observer (beings with low entropy). Therefore it is rightly astonishing. If you were to randomly generate a different system of natural laws, in almost no case would beings arise with complexity like that of our world.
But that is exactly my point—wouldn’t the blobs I described earlier think the same thing? And if not, why not?
I do not understand where this discussion is going. If the blobs were as complex as we are, then they really would be right.
First of all, thank you!
But I did not mean that such universes actually exist, but rather that our universe amazes us, while in exactly the same way the blob-creatures could have been amazed by a different universe, so what really is the necessary definition of this “complexity”?