Time for some really controversial science:

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

http://www.sciencealert.com/a-cosmologist-says-he-s-found-possible-signs-of-a-parallel-universe

^So, evidently, there actually is some measurable means to prove alternate universes to our own actually exist. Depending on which interpretation of the many-worlds theory holds correct, this could be a discovery that'd not only scientifically invalidate the need for any deities at all (in one sense), but it would obliterate free will as we know it. If this holds true and the quantum theory of the multiverse is correct, any individual action spawns a chain of associated parallel universes. And these universes in turn are infinite, with potentially infinite little 'switches' of the laws of physics, which in turn due to the definition of infinite means in some parts of the multiverse there actually are sufficiently advanced aliens that for all practical purposes really would be Gods.

If such contact would be fully proven, there might presumably be means found to explore other dimensions, which would leave superpowers and visible tangible aliens as the only science fiction concepts yet to fully turn to science fact (and there goes yet another fiction genre killed by exposure to mundane boring reality).

So if these other dimensions really can be proven to exist and can be contacted, what would the ramifications of such a discovery actually be? I've given my POV above (Kills free will and God, in the strict senses of both, kills more Sci-fi stories, potential real life invoking Eldritch abominations that flay and eat souls by not being careful enough). Politically, if means to discover and contact other universes existed, I'd expect that the ramifications would be, well, explosive. You'd see a whole new kind of arms race and you'd also see riots by religious believers refusing to accept such technology and denouncing all such contacts as the work of demons.

I'd also expect the technology to be highly expensive and if the fate of the Space Shuttle is any guide the potentially disastrous consequences of failures might lead people to shelve such things if they existed. 

Comments

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

I know what some religious folks would say. If a God is capable of creating one Universe, they (it?) should also be capable of creating a Multiverse. And there we go on and on into circles.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

That would depend on the infinite nature, and the nature of infinite aspects like that equals that somewhere, out there, Zeus actually exists. So does Odin, Huitzilopotchli, and Slaanesh, Tzeentch, Nurgle, and Khorne. Which would hardly make devout Christians or Muslims very happy to accept.

And if it doesn't work that way but they still exist, well, free will is still dead either way because the multiverse means that the anthropic principle is just statistics, no more and no less.

[abomvubuso.livejournal.com]

Not necessarily infinite. Susskind's Cosmic Landscape concept includes 10^500 parallel universes. Which is a huge number really, but still finite.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

^That is also true. If that held true, then there'd be no real room for Gods or anything of the above though free will and the nature of life itself are also rendered null and void as 'proof' for said overpowered logic bombs.

[abomvubuso.livejournal.com]

Why would free will be rendered null and void? You're still free to make whatever decisions you like. You're just creating different realities, each of them branching off in accordance with your particular choice.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Because at one remove, if 'your' decision creates all these realities, what 'you' really do is live in a world where those choices are predetermined, and so on for all the parallel universes. Because the choices create all potential possible outcomes, rendering any meaning to the choice in an independent sense.....well, worthless.

[abomvubuso.livejournal.com]

Or it could be that you just freely choose which of these multiple universes you're going to populate from now on, have you thought of it that way? ;)

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

That's a fair point.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

If there's a network of streets in your city, and you decide to take a certain route to reach a certain address of your choosing, is that free will, or is it a predetermined pattern? Does the following of certain rules of movement (like: follow the streets, do not drive across parks and sidewalks) constitute predermination, or is it just a set of rules (like the rules of physics) that you're employing as you go?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Hm....that does depend on how much you separate consciousness from matter. If it's strictly materialistic, everything is determinist.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

*snorts* That gif is actually pretty funny.

[dexeron.livejournal.com]

"At this stage, it's just a hypothesis."

At this stage, it isn't even that. There's nothing to test, nothing to falsify. It's a guess that something that looks weird might be something else for which there has been, up until this point, absolutely no evidence.

That said, perhaps there are alternate universes. Keep in mind that the existence of alternate universes does not necessarily imply a "Many-Worlds Hypothesis" model (with all of the "every choice happens in every possible way in a different universe" branching implied.) There are other possible reasons that a so-called multiverse might exist beyond the "branching" model.

And even if "branching" does exist, it doesn't mean everything imaginable must exist (or that there are infinite universes.) There are an ever increasing amount of them, yes, and we can treat that as infinite for numerical purposes, but it's just a very large, every increasing number. ;) And what is possible there is merely variations on what is possible here in the quantum realm. Remember, Schrodinger's Cat was meant as an example to debunk multiverse theory, not as an example of it. Multiverse theory says nothing about results at the macro level, only that at the quantum level each change is reflected in another universe by its opposite. What effect this may, or may not have, on the macro world is impossible to imagine.

So while planets made of ice cream might be wonderful to imagine, they are not very likely to exist in some alternate universe. ;)

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

There are planets made of diamond, so..... :p

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's what too many people fail to understand: a hypothesis is not considered scientific until it can come up with falsifiable, testable forecasts. That's been the problem with string theory for decades (string theory itself having a lot to do with these extra dimensions): its maths seems elegant and it beautifully and somehow too conveniently explains a number of phenomena - but it still can't come up with ways to be tested. There isn't one forecast that it has come up with for all those years, and still hundreds of scientists build a career upon it. That failure could be due to the problem of scales and the ineptitude of our current level of technology which hasn't reached a level sufficiently advanced to test phenomena at such scales... Or it could be that the entire premise, while being mathematically elegant, is a big stinking pile of dung after all... No one can say at this point, and probably never will.

Which doesn't mean we should stop digging, though.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

To be sure, and that's why I'm always wary of this 'proof.' Unless it can be tested and empirically validated by independent testing, whatever else it is, it's not scientific.

[luzribeiro.livejournal.com]

This is philosophy. Not politics*. I'd recommend philosophy, ask_me_anything or thequestionclub if you want a concise and topical answer.

(Unless you could somehow make it at least tangentially related to politics, that is. Then maybe we could talk).

[ * not even science per se, by the way - since science usually works with tangible, testable predictions]

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

I thought I'd included a bit about how politically it might work in practice if there was actual proof of other dimensions and contact with them.

I edited that in, if it needs more change to fit into the topic, I'd be glad to do that.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

While the assertions of "found proof" of possible neighboring universes have always been fascinating whenever they've popped up (and believe me, of those there've been plenty), it's one thing to make a supposition like, "This could be proof for my theory", and it's quite another to make actual specific models that are able to formulate a set of predictions that could then be put to the test. You know, like Einstein did. He was pretty specific.

The problem with the multiverse thing is that by definition it's impossible for two separate universes to get into contact with each other and communicate (i.e. transfer information). If they could, they wouldn't be two separate universes, just two very remote regions of the same universe.

Not sure how any of this is political either, but at least it's good mind gymnastics.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

I thought I'd included my bit about speculating about an arms race or Stargate-style posturing among Great Powers if there was some means to contact these supposed other universes. If such portals could be opened, it'd be a highly expensive project prone to all manner of shenanigans up to and including being direct lines for assaults by religious believers of all kinds.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

Methinks ye doth watch too much teevee, lad.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Well, the whole concept of discovering other universes and actually proving them *is* rather science fiction-esque in itself. As much as drones and going to the Moon and the like used to be. Frankly I'd see it as happening even if the reality was more prosaic because by God, NASA would finally get some real funding if that happened.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

Not sure how this is controversial science, either. (Now that we've established that it isn't necessarily even science).

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Precisely because it's a section of physics like string theory prone to sensationalistic claims that if true would have both scientific and philosophical ramifications of the explosive kind.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

If you've read, watched or listened to anything about string theory, by string theorists, etc, you'd have learned by now that those guys are anything BUT sensationalistic. Most of them are just boring nerds. 'Cept for Brian Greene maybe.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

I did say sensationalistic claims. Judging by the physics teachers and professors I've met, most physicists have the charisma of paint drying. ;) Which is good, physics doesn't need a Neil DeGrasse Tyson to be valid, or even to be interesting.

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

assertions of "found proof"

The Great Attractor / Dark Flow is a case in point that comes to mind.

Well, technically it was called "a candidate for an explanation", not "proof" outright, but still. It seems cosmologists and astrophysicists have developed a proneness to attribute every large-scale weird phenomenon that they've observed lately with "possible candidates for Multiverse evidence". Come on guys, that's getting a bit lazy at this point.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Or the claims to have found that Higgs Boson?

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

Here we go again, the umpteenth case of someone failing to make a distinction between unsupported claim and a high degree of confidence (http://www.physics.org/article-questions.asp?id=103), thus completely missing the whole point of the scientific method.

I don't even...

Whatever.

[luzribeiro.livejournal.com]

I'm guessing you've had to hit your head against a brick wall like this over a hundred times already. It does get tiring at some point, doesn't it?

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

It's past the point of being tiring. Pitiable is the term you might be looking for.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry that I suck at communicating sometimes. A lot of the time, actually. O.X

I know full well the difference between something that can be empirically tested and proven or disproven with high probability (like the Higgs Boson) and something that is so theoretical it's not even possible to design a means to prove it yet if there is one (like proof that a parallel universe or more than one actually exists).

I am read up enough on the scientific method to know that difference. I've tried to write posts with emojis hoping people wouldn't take them seriously and the emojis would indicate it and that doesn't work either so I don't know what to do short of adding a "This is a joke" GIF to a post.

Point of fact I may start doing that just to avoid one kind of problem.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

I was making a joke and left off the wink emoticon at the end to indicate that. I am aware that the Highs Boson can be tested for and multiverse theories lack even the theory of how to do so. Sorry for poor communication.

[abomvubuso.livejournal.com]

You're not being serious, right? Please say you aren't.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

I was joking and thought I had included n emoji at the end to say so. O. X Stupid phone doesn't post that then I want it to.

My smartphone garbles posts like this sometimes. My apologies for not checking to see that it hadn't. I hate trying to be humorous and coming across as intentionally offensive and stupid.

[abomvubuso.livejournal.com]

I guessed so. ;)

Stupid is the most entertaining, by the way. Especially when it's skillfully played.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

What.

Oh...

LOL, a nice one!

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

No, if it was nice I would be able to write a joke properly instead of failing to do that. O.X

*sighs* I really, really hate text-only mediums for trying to convey a point that works better face to face sometimes. O.X

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

We all have our bad moments (some more often than others).