The Top 6 Problems With Using a Multiverse To Explain Cosmic Fitness

For several decades scientists have discovered more and more examples suggesting our universe is seemingly tailor-made for life. A list of many examples is discussed here. One dramatic example is the fact that even though each proton in our universe has a mass 1836 times greater than the mass of each electron, the electric charge of each proton matches the electric charge of each electron exactly, to twenty decimal places (the only difference being that one is positive, the other negative). Were it not for this amazing coincidence, our very planet would not hold together. But scientists have no explanation for this coincidence which seems to require luck with a probability of 1 in 100,000,000,000,000,000,000. As wikipedia states, “The fact that the electric charges of electrons and protons seem to cancel each other exactly to extreme precision is essential for the existence of the macroscopic world as we know it, but this important property of elementary particles is not explained in the Standard Model of particle physics.”

Wishing to cleanse their minds of any suspicions that our universe may not be the purely accidental thing they imagine it to be, quite a few materialists have adopted the theory of a multiverse. This is the idea that there are a vast collection of universes, each very different from the other. The reasoning is that if there were to be, say, an infinite number of universes, each with different laws and properties, then we would expect that at least one of them would have the properties necessary for intelligent life, no matter how improbable it may be that such properties would exist.

But there are many problems with trying to use a multiverse to explain cosmic fitness, or to explain anything at all. Let me list some of them.

1. A multiverse explanation is the worst imaginable violation of Occam's Razor

The first reason is that a multiverse violates to the most extreme degree imaginable the long-standing principle of Occam's Razor, which has been evoked by many a scientist over the centuries. Occam's Razor is the principle that “entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity” when explaining things, or that we should prefer to explain things as simply as possible. A multiverse is the greatest imaginable violation of the principle of Occam's Razor. A multiverse is what you might propose if you were following the exact opposite principle, a principle of “entities should be multiplied to the greatest number possible” when trying to explain something (a demented principle we might call “Anti-Occam's Razor”).

2. A theory of a multiverse is unverifiable metaphysics that can never be confirmed by observations

Although often made within scientific discussions, the theory of a multiverse is a metaphysical theory which can never be confirmed through scientific observations (despite insinuations to the contrary by multiverse proponents). Contrary to what some have claimed, looking for evidence of some unusual “flow” in some part of our universe could never confirm a theory of a multiverse, nor could any observations of early universe conditions. Such observations would at best imply that there was something that we did not understand about our universe, or that perhaps there was some “sister universe'' next to our universe (although such an area should more properly just be considered an unobserved part of our universe). We could never make any observations from our universe that would confirm that there are a vast number of other universes with different characteristics.

3. A theory of a multiverse makes one believe in the exact opposite of what our observations tell us --- that the laws and properties of nature are the same everywhere

An additional problem with the multiverse is that it leads one to believe in something that is 100% contrary to what our observations tell us. All observations made by physicists and astronomers support the idea that the universe is incredibly uniform. By comparing observations made by pointing telescopes in opposite directions of the sky, astronomers can compare one section of the universe with other sections on the opposite side of the observable universe. When they do this, they find a picture of incredible uniformity. The cosmic background radiation, for example, is uniform to within 1 part in 100,000. The laws of nature seem to be the same everywhere. The universe looks the same in all different directions. We have no good evidence that the laws of nature and the universe's fundamental constants have varied across the observable universe during the past ten billion years. If they had, the universe would not look as it does to astronomers.

So nature is screaming at us: uniformity, uniformity, uniformity. But the multiverse theory paints the exact opposite picture, a picture in which there is nothing like uniformity (with each universe having different characteristics). To believe such a theory, we must ignore the message that nature is shouting at us, and believe in some other imagined reality that is the exact opposite of what we observe. In a very real sense, therefore, the theory of a multiverse is counter-observational. Believing in an infinite variety of universes each with very different properties is rather like believing that the sun cycles through an infinite variety of different shapes – an interesting idea, and perhaps possible, but one that is completely at odds with what our observations tell us.

4. A multiverse explanation “proves” the wrong thing – that some universe would be habitable (without increasing the chance that our universe would be habitable)

Another problem with the multiverse reasoning is that it “proves” the wrong thing. An effective theory of multiple universes would be one that showed a likelihood that our universe would have the characteristics necessary for life purely by chance. The multiverse theory does not claim to show that. Instead it claims to show that “some universe” would by chance have the properties necessary for life. Now you may say: “some universe” and “our universe” – so what, no big difference. But there actually is a gigantic difference between the two. Confusing “some universe” and “our universe” (thinking as if they were the same) is an error in logic, an example of careless, sloppy thinking.

I can best illustrate the point by mentioning the case of a lottery. The Powerball lottery is a lottery with an incredibly low chance of winning, and a gigantic jackpot. Each year they sell enough Powerball lottery tickets to make sure that at least one person will win, but the chance of any lottery ticket buyer winning is less than 1 in a million. So consider these odds (which might be pondered by a couple that purchased a ticket):

Chance of some ticket winning: 100%

Chance of our ticket winning: less than 1 in 1,000,000

So as we can see, there is a gigantic world of difference in this case between “some ticket” and “our ticket.” There is an equally gigantic world of difference between “some universe” and “our universe” when we consider universes. Showing that some universe (under a multiverse theory) would be successful does not show that our universe would be successful.

In fact, the multiverse scenario does absolutely nothing to make it more likely that our particular universe would by chance have the characteristics necessary for intelligent life. If the chance of our universe being successful were 1 in a billion trillion quadrillion before we assume the multiverse, that chance is exactly the same even after we assume a multiverse.

When mathematicians talk about probability, they speak of a trial as being something that might produce a favorable outcome (examples are a roll of a dice, a dealing of 5 cards from a deck, or a purchase of a lottery ticket). But it is a general rule of probability that increasing the number of trials does not increase the chance of success of any one trial.

From a purely explanatory standpoint, a multiverse is therefore the ultimate absurdity: a theory that introduces infinite baggage that serves no explanatory purpose, because it does not increase the odds of our universe being successful. The thing that a multiverse “explains” (some universe being successful) is not what we need to have an explanation for (the fact that our universe was successful despite such enormous odds).

I can illustrate the futility of a multiverse explanation with the following lines of dialog:

John: It required so many improbable coincidences for our universe to have intelligent life – what could be the explanation?

James: A lucky “1 in a zillion” accident – pure blind luck.

John: That's too farfetched, because it would have required something like a 1 in a 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 shot.

James: Well, there could be a multiverse. Maybe there's an infinite number of universes. Some of them might have got lucky.

John: An interesting thought. But still, why was our particular universe so lucky?

James: A lucky “1 in a zillion” accident – pure blind luck.

Here James has introduced an extravagant theory that accomplishes nothing. Before introducing his multiverse theory, his explanation for the universe's habitability was a lucky 1 in a “zillion” accident, and he is still stuck with that explanation even after introducing the multiverse scenario. The multiverse theory accomplishes nothing for him.

5. There is no verified case of anything ever being successfully explained by a type of explanation like a multiverse explanation, nor can we plausibly imagine any such case ever being verified

The typical process of rational explanation can be described as follows: (a) examine some thing that needs to be explained; (b) select some type of explanation that has been proven successful for other cases; (c) apply such an explanation to explain the thing that needs to be explained.

For example, if we see something strange in the sky that is unexplained, we can try to explain it by selecting “weather phenomenon” as our type of explanation, because we know that numerous previous items have been successfully explained by postulating weather as the explanation (for example, the morning dew on the grass of your lawn). More adventurously, we can explain the strange thing in the sky as an alien spacecraft. While we do not have a verified case of anything being successfully explained by exactly postulating an extraterrestrial spacecraft, we do have numerous observations that we know have been successfully explained by advancing this type of explanation – numerous strange lights in the sky have been explained successfully by mentioning some type of spacecraft (earthly spacecraft).

But in the case of a multiverse, it is an entirely different story. We have not one single verified case of anything that has ever been successfully explained by advancing any theory like the theory of a multiverse. A multiverse explanation therefore has a singularly low credibility. One can compare it to a totally new type of machine that has never been proven to work before.

For the multiverse enthusiast, this is an insolvable dilemma. We can have no confidence in multiverse explanations until we can have a verified case of this type of explanation explaining something, but it is impossible to reasonably imagine anything ever getting a verified explanation through this type of explanation (whether it be our universe's fitness for life, or anything else).

6. A multiverse theory can “explain” any claim, no matter how absurd; as it can “explain” anything, it explains nothing

A multiverse theory is in fact a kind of inane all-purpose explanation engine. It can be used to “explain” almost any absurdity or any theory no matter how improbable.

Let's randomly imagine an absurd theory which I may call the alien deception theory. The theory is that evolution is false, and that all of the fossils we have found suggesting evolution were planted on our planet by aliens trying to fool us into believing that evolution occurred. A multiverse theory “proves” this alien deception theory to the exact same degree that it “proves” that our universe's favorable characteristics are due to an accident. Exactly the same reasoning may be given for both: even though it may seem very improbable that such a thing would occur, we would expect it to occur some times given a vast number of universes.

I could go on and on with similar examples. Basically whatever crazy theory you wish to believe in, you can justify with multiverse reasoning. Do you want to believe that underground is a vast kingdom of leprechauns, cute little people like those in Irish mythology? Do you want to believe that these little leprechauns are all riding along underground on little unicorns? You can get there with a multiverse. You simply reason that no matter how improbable such a thing may be, we would expect it to have occurred at least once if there are an infinite number of universes.

Similarly, whenever your eyes seem to tell you of some fact with great certainty, you can use multiverse reasoning to support the idea that what you are seeing is not really happening. If you are unlucky enough to walk up to your house and see it burning on fire, you can convince yourself that this is a hallucination. If you then think a normal person like yourself would never have such a hallucination, you can use multiverse reasoning to squash that objection. You simply reason that no matter how improbable it may be that a normal person would have such a hallucination, we would expect such a thing to occur many times if there are a vast collection of universes.

The graphic below visualizes my point that a multiverse can be used to “explain” any absurdity. A multiverse can be basically used to explain anything. That which explains anything explains nothing. 

Postscript: See this paper by physicist V. Palonen.  He makes the same point I made that the relevant consideration is the likelihood of this universe being habitable, not "some universe." Palonen writes:

"It follows that because multiverse hypotheses do not predict fine-tuning for this particular universe any better than a single universe hypothesis, multiverse hypotheses are not adequate explanations for fine-tuning. Conversely, our data on cosmic fine-tuning does not lend support to the multiverse hypotheses. For physics in general, irrespective of whether there really is a multiverse or not, the common-sense result of the above discussion is that we

should prefer those theories which best predict (for this or any universe) the phenomena we observe in our universe."

50 Things Science Cannot Explain, Part 4

In part1, part 2, and part 3 of this 4-part series of blog posts, I listed 36 things that science can't explain. In this post I'll finish up the 4-part series by listing 14 more things that science cannot explain.

37. Savants

Savants are individuals who have some mental disability but also have some extraordinary mental talents. Many people are familiar with savants from the film Rain Man starring Dustin Hoffman, based on an actual savant. An example of a savant is Daniel Tammer, who has been diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome. He holds the European record for reciting Pi from memory, to 22,514 digits. Supposedly he learned the Icelandic language in only ten days.

Another example of a savant is the late Kim Peek, who supposedly could accurately recall the details of 12,000 books he had read, despite having an IQ of only 87. Like several savants, he had the ability to instantly calculate the day of the week on which any person he met was born. Still another savant is Derek Paravicini, who can play a piece of music accurately after hearing it just once. He was born very prematurely, at only 25 weeks.

While science can explain while people deprived of some sense (such as sight) may have increased abilities relating to some other sense, science suggests no explanation for why a severe deficit in one mental area might lead to a radically improved ability in some other area, an ability we would not expect any human to have.

38. The placebo effect

A placebo is typically a sugar pill that a doctor gives to a patient, merely in the hopes that the patient's belief that he is getting an effective treatment will actually do some good. The placebo effect is the astonishing degree to which placebos are actually effective in reducing symptoms. One study indicates that half of a drug's effectiveness may be due to the placebo effect. Another study indicates that when patients are given a placebo pill labeled as a drug, it does just as well in alleviating migraine headaches as when patients are given an actual drug labeled as a placebo.

Why should people so often get better or have their pain eased simply because they believe they are taking some medicine that is effective? The placebo effect suggests a “mind over body” effect which modern science is quite unable to account for.

39. The “law of the five allowed stable particles”

Most of the laws of nature have been given names by scientists. But there is one very important law that hasn't been give a name, so I sometimes give it a name by calling it “the law of the five allowed stable particles.” This is simply the law that when high-energy particles are colliding, resulting in a shower of “daughter particles,” nature always makes sure that the resulting stable particles are one of only five types: protons (with a rest mass of 1.672 X 10^-27 kilogram), neutrons (with a rest mass of 1.674 X 10^-27 kilogram), electrons (with a rest mass of 9.109 X 10^-31 kilogram), photons (with no rest mass), or neutrinos (with almost no rest mass). 

Stable particles between these masses are never created from these high-energy collisions of particles. For example, in subatomic particle colliders such as the Large Hadron Collider, we only see the creation of stable particles that are the electron mass or about 1836 times the electron mass, and never see the creation of stable particles that are between 100 and 1000 times the electron mass. Why does nature follow this rule? We know the rule is beneficial to life, as it allows for the kind of “standardization” that facilitates life's existence. But science has no idea why nature should follow this law in such an invariable way, as if it had been programmed into nature by some cosmic programmer.

40. Verified premonitions

Verified premonitions can be defined as cases in which someone has a feeling or dream about something that is going to happen in the future, only to later find just such a thing did happen. Many fascinating cases have occurred in human history.

On May 3, 1812, John Williams had the same dream three times in a single night: a very specific dream about someone assassinating Spencer Perceval, the British Prime Minister. Eight days later Perceval was assassinated, and several of the details matched William's dream.

Two weeks before he was assassinated, Abraham Lincoln had a dream that he would be assassinated. The famous writer Mark Twain had a dream about the death of his brother that turned out to closely match what happened a few days later. Several people had premonitions that something would go wrong on the Titanic before it sunk. One person who had a ticket on the ill-fated ship had two dreams that the ship would overturn, with passengers in the water.

In 1950 a church blew up in Beatrice, Nebraska, at a time when the church normally would have had a choir practice. Amazingly, no one was hurt, because the church was empty. We can only guess at how many of these people felt a premonition of doom, and avoided their regular choir practice.

According to research published in the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, dozens of people had premonitions of disaster before the Aberfan avalanche that killed 144 people. Some had dreams about such a disaster before it happened. During World War II Winston Churchill had two premonitions that may have saved his life or those of others. One premonition led him to switch sides on his staff car. A bomb then went off on the side he moved away from. Another premonition led him to tell his kitchen staff to leave the kitchen and go underground. A bomb then destroyed the kitchen.

A number of people also had premonitions of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center. In early September, Lawrence Francis Boisseau had a dream that the World Trade Center was collapsing around him. Boisseau was killed in the attack.

Science offers no explanation for such cases, other than the unconvincing explanation of mere coincidence.

41. Spiral galaxy spin non-randomness

Physicist Michael Longo and his helpers studied more than 15,000 galaxies to determine which direction they were spinning (something that seems like the most tedious assignment imaginable). The end result was very surprising. Instead of finding that spiral galaxies always spin in one direction 50% of the time and the other direction 50% of the time, Longo found that in some parts of the sky galaxies prefer to spin one way or the other significantly more frequently.

According to his research, in some directions of the sky there is an almost exact balance between galaxies that are spinning in a “left-handed” way and galaxies spinning in the opposite, “right-handed” way. But in other directions of the sky, “left-handedness” can be preferred by as much as 7% over “right-handedness.” For more information, read this blog post.

42. Crop circles

When Doug Bower and Dave Chorley in 1991 claimed to have made some 200 crop circles since the 1970's, their story was taken as fact by skeptics, despite the lack of any explanation as to why the two would have done this incredibly laborious task for more than a decade without profiting from it. This incident kind of illustrates that when a skeptic is presented with testimony that he doesn't want to believe, he will invent endless excuses for not accepting the testimony. But when testimony is presented that a skeptic wants to believe, he may accept it without proof, no matter how farfetched it may be. There is, in reality, little basis for accepting Bower and Chorley's farfetched tale, and since it was made in 1991 by men in their sixties, it cannot be used as an explanation for crop circles that have continued to appear around the world since then, often with incredibly intricate patterns that seem impossible for any small team of humans to have created overnight.

43. Kepler 78b

Kepler 78b is a planet so strange that it will be one of the topics discussed next month on an episode of NASA's Unexplained Files. For a discussion of why science is currently unable to explain this planet, see this blog post.

44. Fast moving orbs

You can do a Google image search for “moving orbs” to see an astonishing set of photos from many different web sites, sites showing unidentified circular objects or spherical objects moving at very fast speeds. Since such photos show strong motion blur and the photographic effect known as ghosting, they are indications of objects moving very rapidly, much faster than 100 miles an hours. Skeptics and scientists have no plausible explanation for these anomalies. One utterly lame explanation is to suggest that such photos are produced when someone photographs moving insects. That doesn't work, because the average speed of an insect such as a house fly is only about 3 miles an hour, and the photos of fast moving orbs show objects that seem to be moving more than 30 times faster than that. Moreover, photos of fast moving orbs (in particular, this series of 18 photos) often show the objects making sharp right-angle turns, sharp u-turns, and sharp undulations, which are types of motion that we never observe from dust, birds, or insects.

45. “Peak in Darien” experiences

See this post for a discussion of these experiences, in which people seemed to know about the deaths of people that should have been unknown to them.

46. Mars anomalies

See this set of four blog posts for a discussion of recent anomalies on Mars that scientists and skeptics are unable to account for.

47. Fermi's Paradox

Science currently has no good explanation for this long-standing mystery of why extraterrestrial life hasn't been discovered yet.

48. Fermi Bubbles

While mentioning Fermi, I should also mention Fermi bubbles. These are two gigantic bubbles of energy above and below the plane of our galaxy. Scientists have no good explanation for them.

Fermi bubbles (credit: NASA)

49. LEDA 074886

LEDA 074886 is a galaxy with a rectangular shape. Scientists have no good explanation for how this could have come about.

50. The “duality” of electrons

When certain experiments are performed, electrons seem to behave exactly as if they were particles. When certain other experiments are performed, electrons seem to behave exactly as if they were waves. Scientists have not been able to explain why this strange duality exists. It seems as strange as some animal that looks like a giraffe when you photograph it with an Olympus camera, but looks like a lion when you photograph it with a Sony camera.