Q&A: Multiverse Theory
Multiverse Theory
Question
In your Emunah lectures you argue that according to the multiverse theory, if someone were to see a coin landing on heads 1,000 times, or any other improbable event, one could always say that it was just part of a billion trials, and therefore statistically probable, and all statistics would fall apart. But one could argue that the reason I don’t assume that is because I have evidence against it. Based on what I know about human nature, I assume that a person does not waste his whole life tossing coins, and therefore I find it unreasonable to assume that to be the case. Others have argued this against Russell’s Teapot: based on what we know about the nature of galaxies and teapots, all the evidence is against such a thing being produced naturally. Nor is it plausible that a government would spend millions of dollars to launch it there. This is unlike the multiverse theory, where the critic could claim that he has no evidence against it and consider it a possible explanation of how the world came about.
Answer
I didn’t understand the question. If there is an empirical basis for some conclusion, then draw that conclusion. Where did I say otherwise? Regarding the coin, I do not accept the claim that if we see a thousand times that it falls on 6, that it is just chance. I don’t reject that because I didn’t see other tosses, but only these ones. If I saw it in a film, I might suspect that someone edited the film and didn’t show the unsuccessful tosses.
I don’t understand what in my remarks you are questioning here.
Discussion on Answer
What is the evidence against it? At the end of the day, the claim is always that we haven’t seen it. But the discussion is unnecessary, because either way it is an unreasonable argument.
.Here is a quote from Alvin Plantinga
Clearly we have a great deal of evidence against teapotism. For example, as far as we know, the only way a teapot could have gotten into orbit around the sun would be if some country with sufficiently developed space-shot capabilities had shot this pot into orbit. No country with such capabilities is sufficiently frivolous to waste its resources by trying to send a teapot into orbit. Furthermore, if some country had done so, it would have been all over the news; we would certainly have heard about it. But we haven't. And so on. There is plenty of evidence against teapotism.
I asked you what the evidence is against the multiverse or against infinite attempts, not against the teapot.
By the way, even against the teapot there is no evidence. If someone claims there is another source for teapots not from Earth, or from an unknown earthly civilization, it is the same thing.
But as I said, the discussion is unnecessary.
I wrote that there is no evidence against the multiverse. And that is exactly my point: that it is not similar to the teapot.
This is the sentence you wrote:
“And I want to argue that the reason we do not assume there were countless attempts is not necessarily because we didn’t see them, but because we have evidence against it.”
I’m sorry I wasn’t clear enough. I was referring to the quotation from the notebooks: “Someone who sees the shards of our shattered flowerpot returning and assembling themselves into a whole flowerpot, or the miraculous rescue of a man sentenced to death, or Fred Hoyle’s tornado assembling an airplane from its wreckage, could always say that apparently there were countless failed attempts.”
And about that I wrote (or meant) that in all these events we know there were not countless attempts, because if there had been, we would know about it.
I am referring to what you wrote in Notebook 3.
I am referring to what you wrote in Notebook 3:
"The assumption that there were countless previous attempts of universes with different laws of physics is a very problematic assumption……..
This is really a case of Russell’s celestial teapot (see above at the end of Chapter 4), but this time it revolves around the atheist’s star. He invents teapots that no one has seen, just to evade the need to look for a cause of the universe.
In fact, in this way one can dismiss any argument about an improbable event. For example, someone who sees the shards of our shattered flowerpot returning and assembling themselves into a whole flowerpot, or the miraculous rescue of a man sentenced to death, or Fred Hoyle’s tornado assembling an airplane from its wreckage, could always say that apparently there were countless failed attempts (even though we know of none), and we are simply observing the one among them that succeeded. We have no reason to be amazed by such events."
And I want to argue that the reason we do not assume there were countless attempts is not necessarily because we didn’t see them, but because we have evidence against it. And that is not similar to the multiverse theory, where the atheist can claim that we have no evidence against it. And as I wrote above, someone argued against Russell’s Teapot that everything we know about nature and about teapots does not allow such a thing, and it is not comparable to the claim that there is a God.