In the context of religious arguments, some say that the constants of the universe are improbably finely tuned for the existence of life and order. The constants refer to things like the gravitational constant, the strength of the atomic weak force, etcetera.
It is my understanding that the order part is key; most other possible constants wouldn’t allow for an alternate form of life, for example, because everything would be so far apart as to never interact, or so close together as to never vary in its state.
Some will respond that there may be a multiverse of universes, with random universal constants, so that some improbable universes are bound to crop up.
To this, it is responded that inventing a multiverse to explain away apparently purposeful tuning of universal constants doesn’t really work. It’s an excuse.
Now, I know that MWI was NOT invented to explain away anything, that it was presented as a possible explanation for certain observations well in advance of this kind of argument.
But, here is my question. Does MWI limit itself to alternate universes with the same universal constants, or does it predict also the existence of universes with different universal constants?
MWI doesn’t say anything about other constants- the other parts of our wavefunction should have the same constants. However, other multiverse hypotheses do suggest that physical constants could eb different.
To this, it is responded that inventing a multiverse to explain away apparently purposeful tuning of universal constants doesn’t really work. It’s an excuse.
How would you explain why Earth is at the correct distance from the Sun so that the life can exist here? I would say there are many planets, most of them are in wrong distances, and Earth happens to be one in the right distance, which is why we have this debate here instead of on Pluto. But this is a similar kind of excuse.
It would be even more suspicious excuse if Earth would have a more cloudy atmosphere, so that no one would actually see the sky. And when we can see the sky, it is also suspicious to assume that those tiny dots are actually also Suns, and there is actually a few order of magnitudes more of them than we can see, and they have their own planets that we can’t see at all, etc.
Just saying that there is a precedent that something suspicious things happen to be true.
On the other hand, we do see the stars, we can see other planets through telescope, in other words, these suspicious truths have left some observable footprints. We can even experiment with Everett branches on the microscopic scale. But we have no observable footprint of the Tegmark multiverse. And I am not sure if we ever can have such thing.
However, the whole religious argument is “if you cannot explain to me all the details of the universe right now, you must accept the existence of my invisible friend”, which is nonsense. Not knowing some laws of physics (yet?) is perfectly normal even in universes without invisible friends, so it cannot be used as an evidence for one.
But, here is my question. Does MWI limit itself to alternate universes with the same universal constants, or does it predict also the existence of universes with different universal constants?
As far as I know, we don’t know why we have the physics constants we have now. There are hints that the constants may be a product of the structure of the universe (and that the constants have changed over time as the structure of the universe has developed), in which case MWI would predict universes with different constants. But there are a lot of unknown unknowns in all of this.
Insofar as MWI might predict universes with completely different physical laws—I’m unaware of any evidence for this proposition.
In the context of religious arguments, some say that the constants of the universe are improbably finely tuned for the existence of life and order. The constants refer to things like the gravitational constant, the strength of the atomic weak force, etcetera.
It is my understanding that the order part is key; most other possible constants wouldn’t allow for an alternate form of life, for example, because everything would be so far apart as to never interact, or so close together as to never vary in its state.
Some will respond that there may be a multiverse of universes, with random universal constants, so that some improbable universes are bound to crop up.
To this, it is responded that inventing a multiverse to explain away apparently purposeful tuning of universal constants doesn’t really work. It’s an excuse.
Now, I know that MWI was NOT invented to explain away anything, that it was presented as a possible explanation for certain observations well in advance of this kind of argument.
But, here is my question. Does MWI limit itself to alternate universes with the same universal constants, or does it predict also the existence of universes with different universal constants?
MWI doesn’t say anything about other constants- the other parts of our wavefunction should have the same constants. However, other multiverse hypotheses do suggest that physical constants could eb different.
How would you explain why Earth is at the correct distance from the Sun so that the life can exist here? I would say there are many planets, most of them are in wrong distances, and Earth happens to be one in the right distance, which is why we have this debate here instead of on Pluto. But this is a similar kind of excuse.
It would be even more suspicious excuse if Earth would have a more cloudy atmosphere, so that no one would actually see the sky. And when we can see the sky, it is also suspicious to assume that those tiny dots are actually also Suns, and there is actually a few order of magnitudes more of them than we can see, and they have their own planets that we can’t see at all, etc.
Just saying that there is a precedent that something suspicious things happen to be true.
On the other hand, we do see the stars, we can see other planets through telescope, in other words, these suspicious truths have left some observable footprints. We can even experiment with Everett branches on the microscopic scale. But we have no observable footprint of the Tegmark multiverse. And I am not sure if we ever can have such thing.
However, the whole religious argument is “if you cannot explain to me all the details of the universe right now, you must accept the existence of my invisible friend”, which is nonsense. Not knowing some laws of physics (yet?) is perfectly normal even in universes without invisible friends, so it cannot be used as an evidence for one.
As far as I know, we don’t know why we have the physics constants we have now. There are hints that the constants may be a product of the structure of the universe (and that the constants have changed over time as the structure of the universe has developed), in which case MWI would predict universes with different constants. But there are a lot of unknown unknowns in all of this.
Insofar as MWI might predict universes with completely different physical laws—I’m unaware of any evidence for this proposition.