Science Writer Takes Aim at Many Universes Theory
Phillips sees it as a materialist dodge. But a proposed alternative is definitely not your everyday theory eitherAt John Templeton Foundation, science writer Graham Phillips takes aim at many universes theory, the lazy materialist’s dodge for getting away from the reality of the fine-tuning of the universe for life: There are countless universes out there with different variables and ours just happens to be one that enables life.
Theoretical physicist Leonard Susskind, for example, estimates that there are maybe 10500 possible parallel universes.
Image Credit: Kreingkrai - In “The Mind at the End of the Universe,” Phillips responds,
If you restrict yourself to materialist theories, well, maybe. But is it taking materialism too far if it forces you to invent hordes of other unobservable universes to solve a problem in ours? I wonder if, like solipsism, the multiverse theory is a tad distasteful for the same reason—it can’t be empirically verified or falsified.
Alternatively, could dropping the unassailable fidelity to materialism—the belief that the universe consists of nothing other than physical fields, energy, and particles—lead to a more intellectually satisfying solution to the finetuning problem?(2026)
He contrasts Susskind’s approach with that of Princeton’s John Archibald Wheeler (1911–2008). Wheeler saw that quantum mechanics (QM), the science of the behavior of subatomic particles, challenged the materialist universe:
Wheeler came to this conclusion after wrestling with the discoveries of quantum physics. In particular, it was one of the theory’s most brain-bending revelations that forced his hand: that the world out there doesn’t seem to fully exist until it’s observed. Or until it’s measured, to use the term physicists prefer. For instance, particles, which are the building blocks of everything, don’t have a position until they’re pinned down by observation. They are neither here nor there.
The before-measurement world is only kind of there, partially existing, as a vast array of possibilities, but not an actuality. As after it’s observed, the potentialities crystallize into the reality we know. (2026)
Sydney University philosopher of physics Dean Rickles, interpreting Wheeler, tells Phillips,
There is no way the world is until you’ve asked a question of the universe, so it knows how to present itself to you… Neither mind nor matter is fundamental. There is another thing underneath that is responsible for generating both. (2026)
Incorporating quantum mechanics into our view of the universe
This understanding is called dual aspect monism: “According to double-aspect theory, the mental and the material are different aspects or attributes of a unitary reality, which itself is neither mental nor material.” (Britannica) It appears to be an effort to incorporate the strangeness of quantum mechanics into a science framework while moving beyond claims that the mind is simply an illusion.
As Rickles points out, whatever this fundamental level of reality that combines mind and matter is, it is by — definition — deeper than human thought can reach. Not that that has stopped speculation. Arizona State University cosmologist Paul Davies envisions the possibility that in this unitary reality, humans reached back and created the universe:
… Paul Davies imagines the far, far future, when intelligence in some form has left Earth and spread through the Milky Way and out into the other galaxies. This now cosmos-wide mega-mind-at-the-end-of-the-universe could act as an observer. It would be able to reach all the way back to the Big Bang itself and select the very laws and numbers of nature that allow the existence of life and mind. (2026)
If we can entertain so bold a speculation as that, why do we even need countless universes?
Instead of “consciousness is an illusion,”
we have “everything is conscious.”
Phillips concludes,
Of course, all philosophies are speculative, and assumptions must be made, and they each have their pros and cons. But, as reluctant as most scientists seem to be, opening up possibilities beyond materialism would expand the fertile ground of exploration when it comes to deciphering the mysteries of the universe.
And if relaxing materialism presents us with answers to the finetuning question that are confined to our single, observable universe, that feels much more fulfilling to me. (2026)
Perhaps. But to some of us, Davies’ approach, as described, seems like swapping one speculative leap for another. Most non-materialist approaches to reality do not require us to become gods and create our own past universe.
Trying to make QM behave
Susskind, meanwhile, wants to make quantum mechanics behave by bringing in the multiverse: “We argue that the many-worlds of quantum mechanics and the many worlds of the multiverse are the same thing, and that the multiverse is necessary to give exact operational meaning to probabilistic predictions from quantum mechanics.” It seems as if he wants to add speculation to QM — a theory whose real-world predictions hold up very well — in hopes of improving it…
What all this points to is the way quantum mechanics has destroyed classical materialism. It has left thinkers, who could once celebrate the certainty of science, searching in many new directions for ways to unite our various understandings of the universe. Materialism isn’t so much dying out these days as breaking up.
