Much food for thought there, dearest sister in Christ. But first, let me congratulate you on your 17th FReeper Anniversary (Mar 14, 1998)! I've recently had my own 17th (Mar 9, 1998). We've seen a whole lot of change over these 17 years....
Most memorable to me was the Great Exodus of 2007, in which it seems almost every professional scientist FReeper left Free Republic in high dudgeon, evidently owing to the fact that, in their perception, they could no longer have a "meaningful dialogue" about Darwin's theory with the majority of FReepers, who in their view were mainly knuckle-dragging morons (because they had issues with Darwin), and were Bible-thumping Christians to boot.
Thus we have here the creation of the category of the "Crevos" vs. the "Evolutionists" — the "Evos."
Funny thing is, I have no objection to the idea of an "evolving universe." I just think Darwin's Theory comes up seriously short of describing what this "evolution" consists of.
Whatever. Free Republic lost a few great contributors right there — though I was glad to see some others of these people go away.... But then this crowd established a new website, Darwin Central, supposedly devoted to "pure science," in order to counter the FR "creationist propaganda."But then all they did was to engage in personal gossip, personal vitruperation, ad hominum attacks against dissenters to the received doctrine....
Also, early on in this period, you dearest sister compiled "The Downside Legacy Archive," which is the most exhaustive collection of public record documents on the Clinton Administration I have ever come across. Much of this material strikes me as timely background information, given the current controversies swirling around Hitlery's self-designated "privileged" e-mails....
(The Downside Legacy Archive is still readily accessible through FR's home page.)
Anyhoot, during this period you and I met, and exchanged views. To the end that we collaborated on a couple of book projects. The first was Timothy (2006). We co-authored that one. The second was your splendid There Is Only One Great Commandment. (My contribution to the latter was limited to technical pre-press helps).
Timothy seems to have been very much in the mind of the folks who established Darwin Central. One of the first book reviews came from there, from a former FReeper by the name CeltJew. His review of the work was very brief, consisting of just four words: "This book is unreadable."
Needless to say, this was a signal to the denizens of DC to spare themselves from having to actually read the actual work. At no time did I see any effort over there to criticize any aspect of the work itself. Rather, a great deal of time and energy was expended in those precincts to engage in ad hominum attacks on the book's authors. [Some of which were pretty blood curdling....]
Which is to say I definitely know from first-hand experience what it means to be smeared and slimed by people who refuse to engage in rational discourse, preferring instead to rely on the tactic of "killing the messenger," whereupon the very message is supposedly disgraced, and thereby not worthy of anyone's attention.
Whatever; this is the world in which we all live nowadays.
* * * * * * *
Getting back to the italics at the top: I have been ruminating over Everett's Multiworld Theory in recent times. I figure it simply doesn't "hold water." For the same reason that scientific cosmologies in general do not "hold water." That is to say, do not correspond to actual Reality, but are rather attempts to obviate First Reality by invoking Second Realities....
In Timothy, you, dearest sister in Christ, contributed a wonderful article about scientific cosmologies, which shows that the common ground of attempts in scientific cosmology is the necessity of de-divinizing Reality in all its aspects. Scientific cosmologies insist that the evolution of natural things is conducted by an entirely material, random process. This approach to Reality is entirely grounded in an a-theist posture towards Reality: If you can't directly count or measure something, then it does't exist.
IIRC, you adduced something like 200+ scientific cosmologies for your article in Timothy, attributing each to its particular author or authors. [See the Appendix below].
RE: Everett's Multiword Theory: I'd like to refer the reader to David Bohm's concept of what a scientific theory is:
The word "theory" derives from the Greek theoria, which has the same root as "theatre", in a word meaning "to view" or "to make a spectacle." Thus it might be said that a theory is primarily a form of insight, i.e., a way of looking at the world, and not a form of knowledge of how the world is....Compare this with the meaning of hypothesis — some thing a tad shakier than a bona-fide theory:
[A] hypothesis is a supposition, that is, an idea that is "put under" our reasoning, as a provisional base, which is to be tested experimentally for its truth or falsity. As is now well known, however, there can be no conclusive experimental proof of the truth or falsity of a general hypothesis which aims to cover the whole of reality.Everett's Multiworld Theory seems to be at odds with Bohm's insight. The most egregious problem with Everett's "theory" is there is nothing about it that can be placed in the position of being subject to trials of "proof" or "falsity" — for the reason that these "alternative universes" are absolutely incapable of direct human observation in the first place, and that by definition.
Which gets us back to the some 200+ scientific cosmologies that you cite in your wonderful article in Timothy. There is one thing that they all have in common: All of them seek to explain the universe — its inception, its development or "evolution" — in terms that do not involve the idea of a Creator God, of any sort of divine "plan," for the Reality of which all we humans — alone among creatures — are full parts and participants....
These folks declare: "Nature did it!!!" There is no God to do anything at all. Indeed, God is pure "fiction" of human imagination that has no bearing whatsoever on factual Reality — as experienced by human beings down the ages....
Must close. Just let me say in closing that there is a huge difference between Everett's Multiworld Theory and Tegmark's Level IV Multiverse.
The first seems to be an offshoot of the Formalist school of mathematics; the second, the offshoot of the Platonist school of mathematics.
Formalist mathematics takes the view that mathematics itself is so "pure," that it does not refer to anything outside of itself. That is to say, the universal language of mathematics is never engaged in reference to anything outside of itself; i.e., it does not refer to any "what" beyond its own functioning.
Platonist mathematics — with which I'm pretty sure Tegmark personally affiliates — is always engaged in the "whatness" of the things it describes.
To put it another way, the formalist school views the universal language of mathematics as bottoming out in pure syntax; it provides no carriage of meaning, otherwise known as semantics.... Which is to say this school of mathematics either thinks questions of meaning have no value, or are impossible to frame in the first place.
The formalist idea of mathematics has been tested, and has been shown to fail.... Repeatedly.
As to the paradox of Schrödinger's Cat: I really do wonder whether Schrödinger put this forward as a joke. One hears that he ran away from the Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum mechanics with his hair on fire. He was in a way the very opposite number of Werner Heisenberg, the "particle guy." Schrödinger was a "wave guy." Though the two men did not see eye to eye at the time, it is remarkable that in the two different mathematical approaches each used to describe his ultimate findings, both men's equations ended up describing the very same phenomenal Reality.
Go figure!!!
In closing, let me only say that I tot up the Paradox of Schrödinger's Cat right along with the ancient Paradox of Zeno....
Both problems have the same solution. They are not "paradoxes" at all. In both cases, it is just a question of "point of view"....
OR SO IT SEEMS TO ME.
Thank you ever so much, dearest sister in Christ, for sharing your insights, and your kind support, with me!
APPENDIX:
A Catalogue of Physical Cosmologies
Beginning and an end
classical big bang/big crunch Alexander Friedmann (1922); Stephen Hawking and Roger Penrose (1965)
quantum tunnel effect Alexander Vilenkin (1982)
no-boundary instanton Stephen Hawking and James Hartle (1983)
Beginning but no end
classical big bang/big whimper Alexander Friedmann (1924); Georges Lemaître (1927); Stephen Hawking and Roger Penrose (1965)
phoenix universe Georges Lemaître (1933); Richard C. Tolman (1934)
quantum tunnel effect/ Alexander Vilenkin (1982)
eternal inflation
cosmic Darwinism Lee Smolin (1992)
no-boundary instanton
Stephen Hawking and Neil Turok (1998)
No beginning and no end
static universe Albert Einstein (1917)
empty expanding universe Willem de Sitter (1917)
eternal expansion out of Arthur S. Eddington (1930)
a static universe
steady state Hermann Bondi, Thomas Gold and Fred Hoyle (1948)
quasi-steady state Fred Hoyle, Geoffrey Burbridge and Jayant V. Narlikar (1993)
chaotic inflation Andre Linde
Planckian cosmic egg Mark Israelit and Nathan Rosen (1989)
big bounce Hans-Joachim Blome and Wolfgang Priester (1991)
ekpyrotic and cyclic universe Paul Steinhardt and Neil Turok et al. (2001)
No beginning, but an end collapse out of a static universe Arthur S. Eddington (1930)
Cycle (recurrence)
oscillating universe Mark Israelit and Nathan Rosen (1989); Redouane Fakir (1998)
cyclic universe Paul Steinhardt and Neil Turok et al. (2002)
circular time in a rotating universe Kurt Gödel (1949) big brunch/time-reversal Claus Kiefer and H. Dieter Zeh (1995)
Time-loop with/without end
self-creating universe John Richard Gott III and Li-Xin Li (1998)
Pseudo-beginning with/without a local end, background dependent
soft bang/emergent universe Eckard Rebhan (2000); George F. R. Ellis & Roy Maartens et al. (2003)
quantum fluctuation, Edward Tryon (1973); Robert de Sitter instability, etc. Brout et al. (1978); Alexei A. Starobinsky (1979); David Atkatz and Heinz R. Pagels (1982); John Richard Gott III (1982); Mark Israelit (2002)
pre big bang Gabriele Veneziano and Maurizio Gasperini (1991)
Pseudo-beginning with/without a local end, background independent
pre-geometry John A. Wheeler (1975); Peter W. Atkins (1981); Stephen Wolfram (2002)
loop quantum cosmology Abhay Ashtekar and Martin Bojowald et al. (2002)
Dimension Space was first a point, and Dimension Time was first a moment, so the first expression of 'the Universe' was point-moment. When God commanded 'Light be' the continuous expressing of point-moment may have been running for some growing amount of 'zero point field' and the expression of electro-magnetic phenomena would have been rather profound since the 'collisions' would produce 'things' much larger than all the point-moments around before the expression of electro-magnetic 'things'. IOW, the 'BANG' is continuing because God The Creator has not yet halted the expressing of lots of 'point-moment'.
The volume of Space-Time is full of point-moment and continuing to grow. With the advent of many 'things' formed in this volume, many more complex expressions of Dimension Space have appeared, and many more expressions of Dimension Time have appeared, but we are Created in such a fashion as we cannot sense the 'more complex' expressions of Time but we can sense the more complex expressions of Space because we sense linear, planar, and volume (length, width, and height, for those in Rio Linda). For reference, a photon only senses length or libear Space.
There is planar time and volumetric time, but we only occasionally confront these, as in the Fifth Chapter of Daniel, or Jesus exiting the tomb or appearing and disappearing from the Upper Room, or passing through the throng who sought to take Him and stone Him, His appearances inthe Old Testament.
We have indeed seen many changes over the years. I do miss quite a few of those who ended up at Darwin Central, the ones who raised interesting points, kept us sharp and were respectful. A few of course were simply cheerleaders for their side, didn't have anything substantive to add to the debate. And some were just plain rude or difficult.
I suspect most of the reaction to Timothy from "over there" came from the latter group because I doubt many of the heavier thinkers would have anything to do in an echo chamber.
It has been an honor and privilege to exchange thoughts with you all these years and to work together on several book projects!!!
And thanks for the memories on the physical cosmologies research!
They seemed to flood the marketplace after the 1960's when it was confirmed that the universe was expanding (the CMB measurements) which meant it had a beginning of real space and real time.
A real beginning was a poison pill for methodological naturalism and the atheist worldview, indeed it has been called the most theological statement ever to come out of modern science. The presumed steady state universe cosmology was no threat to either the scientist wanting the theologians to stay away or to the avowed atheists who deplored the very idea of God.
So I suspect that was the primary motivation for a rash of new physical cosmology theories, hypotheses and even speculation.
Everett's multi-world theory might be relabeled as the latter, hypothesis or speculation, since, as you say, it cannot be falsified (Popper et al.)
So would Max Tegmark's Level IV Parallel Universe - which is the only closed physical cosmology known to me. He posits that 4D physical reality is a manifestation of mathematical structures which actually do exist outside of space and time.
None of the other physical cosmologies are closed since they all require a beginning of real space and real time (and physical causality I might add.)
It is humorous to me that the appeals to prior universes simply move the goal post while all the time assuming that a prior universe would have to abide with the physical laws of this one - when many, if not all, physicists would agree that physical laws break down in a singularity.
Everett's Multi-World theory is surely rooted in the Schrödinger's Cat paradox. And I confess that quantum field theory is more sensible to me than particle physics - indeed I think of particles as placemarkers in waves rather than "thingly." For instance, my dislike for tachyon particle theory (faster than light particles) may be akin to yours concerning Everett's Multi-World.
Thank you so much for all of your insights and encouragements, dearest sister in Christ!