Le 13-févr.-06, à 09:44, Hal Finney wrote (in part):
> In many of our discussions of multiverse models, we have explicitly or
> implicitly included the notion of measure, that some universes would be
> more "common" or more "prominent" than others. This is often linked to
> extensions of Occam's Razor, so that universes with relatively simple
> models would have higher measure than those that are more complex.
The necessity of "simplicity" could perhaps be a consequence of comp,
but this remains to be shown. But even if that is the case, I don't see
how "simplicity" would make the model having a higher measure, unless
you attach consciousness to particular individuals in particular
universe, but this can be done only by identifying the first person and
some arbitrary particular third person description. And the UDA shows
this cannot be done (with comp).
> Physics is a science, and that means it needs to work with theories
> that
> can be tested and disproven. We are a long way from being able to come
> up with any experiment that a working physicist in his lab could run
> to see whether multiverse models are correct. (And no, quantum suicide
> doesn't count!)
The day physicists will understand the logician's sense of model and
theories, things will be pretty much clear. If we agree that physicists
obey the same laws as the particles they describe, then, even just the
two slits experiment entails mutiverses, and confirms QM which is
literally a mutiverse theory (even with the collapse, which is just an
invention for cutting on the typical quantum contagion of the
superpositions).
Also, note that the 0-universe, 1-universe, infinity-of-universes are
all on the same par. Nobody has ever tested the existence of a
primitive physical universe nor of the existence of Aristotelian Prime
Matter, and other common sense idea on which those physicalist ideas
derive.
Note also that the theory of Matter given by the loebian
(introspective) machine is 100% testable.
>
> I also get the impression that Susskind's attempts to bring
> "disreputable"
> multiverse models into "holy" string theory is more likely to kill
> string theory than to rehabilitate multiverses.
String theory relies entirely on QM and so inherits all its
interpretation problems.
Except that in String Theory, like Quantum Cosmology, the "wave
collapse" is still more unintelligible. Witten makes the points in a
conference some years ago. According to him String Theory is still very
fuzzy on the whole wave aspect of strings, above its traditional role
as computation tool.
> Perhaps I am getting a
> biased view by only reading this one blog, which opposes string theory,
> but it seems that more and more people are saying that the emperor has
> no clothes. If string theory needs a multiverse then it is even less
> likely to ever be able to make physical predictions, and its prospects
> are even worse than had been thought. A lot of people seem to be
> piling
> on and saying that it is time for physics to explore alternative ideas.
> The hostile NY Times book review is just one example.
To be sure I disagree that string theory is not testable, and I think
the multiverse idea is testable and already indirectly tested and that
it is the most certain consequence of QM.
Now, as a theory of everything, string theories, like QM and actually
the whole physics enterprise, are flawed at the start, because those
approach relies (consciously or not) on a hardly clear or coherent
theology inherited mainly from Aristotle, and which tends to put the
mind-body problem under the rug.
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
Received on Mon Feb 13 2006 - 09:24:34 PST