January 20, 2008

• If there is a chance for quantum immortality, then why not a quantum God? With an infinite number of parallel universes God would have to exist in some universe or other, assuming that existence is an attribute of greatness (whether of waves or particles). In modal logic one could then truly state that there is a possible world in which for all x's, if x is the 'greatest', then x is actual. “Existence is mine,” sayeth the Lord God. And for us as 'monkeys' it is to be hoped that it is the monkey god, Hannuman who exists in a multiplicity of universes...
• Soooooo.... If I'm not very good at math am I going to hell?
• For some, math IS hell.
• I don't think so, Dan. Not all universes are possible, for one thing. The premise that there are an infinite number of parallel universes, moreover, does not mean that all possibilities are realised. There may be an infinite number of universes, in none of which God exists. I thought, in any case, that the 'multiple worlds' interpretation of quantum physics was a long way from being considered orthodox.
• That is not so, the multiworld theory says that the world lines contain every possible event. As it happens the multiworld theory is considered a viable interpretation, it's by no means a wild 'out there' interpretation, it is one side of the dueling interpretations of the QM data. On one side you have the deterministic interpretation, on another the multiworld interpretation. The issue is with interpreting the nature of 'probability'. There were some recent results put forward by Dr David Deutsch of Oxford University, highly respected quantum theorist of the 'Oxford project', that apparently iron out the problems with this. Deutsch showed that the tree-like branching structure created by the universe splitting into parallel versions of itself can explain the probabilistic nature of quantum outcomes. This work has now had confirmation by David Wallace and Simon Saunders, also at Oxford. 'Dr Saunders, who presented the work with Wallace at the Many Worlds at 50 conference at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Canada, told New Scientist: "We've cleared up the obscurities and come up with a pretty clear verdict that Everett works. It's a dramatic turnaround and it means that people now have to discuss Everett seriously."' The issue with the Everett model is that because each possible outcome to an event occurs on some branch of the multiverse, there is no obvious way to make sense of ascribing probabilities to outcomes of experiments. Most commonly put that it 'cannot make sense of probability'. So the Everett model can be seen to undermine much of the evidence that exists for quantum mechanics, according to the anti-Everett camp. Deutsch, Wallace, Saunders seek to deal with this by showing that the Everett model allows some suitable analogue of decision under uncertainty, and that probability can be understood on that basis.
• It gets very Hegelian.
• Good, technically enlightening thoughts, Hank. And this would even be true in a less rigorous, romantic ‘Nietzschian Universe’, with the‘eternal return’ of everything given merely infinite time. Now, given the infinitely variable alternate universes that we face today in quantum theory, it would be a stretch, certainly beyond empiricism, to say that God doesn’t exist in any of them. Or we would have to merely assume otherwise, as I would do for Plegmund, or even for the sake of my own sanity anymore. However, I think that this ‘begs the question’.
• .. .Uh, I mean 'infinitely variable POSSIBLE universes' to be fair...
• Oh, wait... Nietzshe was the guy who said, "don't they know that God is dead?" Not that there wouldn't ever be a time and a place for all of that (I'm hanging by a 'thread' here. Think I'll crash now)...
• Personally I don't pay much attention to Nietzsche because he was riddled with syphilis and was stark raving bonkers, it's difficult to tell when he was sane or if ever. I like my philosophers not to be crazy. Also black, with 2 sugars. The idea that in some of the worldlines there is a god is a highly interesting one, Dan, & not one that I'd come across before. Previously I had toyed with the concept that, because something exists only because it is observed, that we only exist because we are observed.
• Deja Vu is from when your controller reboots from an earlier save state of you.
• On the many-worlds interpretation, each universe remains bound by a set of physical - it's not like gravity can be cancelled in mutltiverses 107099862739486 through 119111645823726. If it's possible that there's a divine mover and shaker in one instance, it must be possible in all. A creator entity (agent) in this context is an all or nothing proposition, I think.
• "each universe remains bound by a set of physical laws..." damn flu medicine
• "If it's possible that there's a divine mover and shaker in one instance, it must be possible in all." It may be possible in all, but that depends on your definition of God, doesn't it? Is it an energy being, a computer brain, the all-that-is, consciousness or what? Anthropomorphic Alpha Male? Prime Mover, First Cause, or just a very advanced, old alien that builds planets? That, as I always opine, is the problem with discussing God, because nobody has defined exactly what "God" is, as most people have a different picture of the concept, depending on how they grok the scriptures they happen to adhere to, or what their peers told them, etc. John Huston? And even if it were possible in all, doesn't mean it is actual in all. As for an all or nothing proposition, that appears to be a personal opinion, as I see no reason that that must be so. For the multiverse to contain all possibilities it must include non-existence, since that itself is a possibility. Yes there are universes in which the physical laws are completely different. Some of them are short lived, and the rest obviously don't contain versions of us, or anything familiar in terms of cosmos. There will be universes in which the galactic gas cloud didn't coalesce after the Big Bang (or other possible initiating process) due to some valency variation in the atom or something. I mean, we have yet to establish that physical laws are constant in our own universe. They are in the observable part of it, but there's still room for doubt.
• I don't think the definition of god is relevant. Whether an energy being, a computer brain, or what have you, the proposition is that "if an extrinsic creative force" is possible in one, said force must be possible in all. The point here is not to do with god per se, but with possible outcomes (or possible precursors). I'm not saying that god is an impossibility, just that it must be possible in each universe, not a select few.
• Mabuse could be right, you are talking about multiple different entities. A hyper-advanced alien intelligence that has the ability to create worlds is theoretically different from an omnipresent spiritual being that created everything. You have to define what God is for the argument to mean anything. In terms of QM, you may define God as a lifeform that processes information at all space-time coordinates along its word-line all the way across the universe to the relativistic c-point boundary. But QM multi-world theory covers any and all possible variations. In some universes these various Gods exist, in others they do not: the theory requires that in some world-lines there is no God. Multi-world theory also requires that these entities are separate and can not cross the world-line boundaries.
• Although Frank J. Tipler theorizes that there could be a full, unifying universal God of all world-lines, as long as this God exists at the end of time, because General relativity predicts that the world lines of all events will eventually converge to the same point. If this point is the result of a nonuniform collapse, it is a singularity in space-time that marks the end of the multiverse. Tipler calls this the Omega Point and theorizes that it contains all of the information and all of the algorithms of all of the events of all time. The Omega Point is thus, he says, a person, eternal, omniscient, and due to the reversibility of the Einstein field equations, omnipresent, and if one accepts that this 'person' contains all of the algorithms of all natural processes, omnipotent. Tippler does not identify the Omega Point as the Judeo-Christian God, but does refer to it with a gender in a specific personal pronoun. Consciousness is implicit in this theory, as it is in many interpretations of QM.
• I should say that to accomplish this induced nonuniform collapse requires that a "human-like" intelligence must exist in all parts of the universe and that this "being" must have a working knowledge of the requirements of the Omega Point collapse. Naturally, according to multi-world theory, in some world-lines this human-like intelligence does not exist in all parts of the universe. It seems to be impossible for it or they to exist in ours.
• From what I understand, multi-world theory considers possible outcomes, without addressing inputs. A "creative force" of any form in this context is an input, not an outcome.