How to Create a Multiverse

The world is given to me only once, not one existing and one perceived. Subject and object are only one.

Erwin Schrodinger, founder of the wave equation

The current rage in cosmology is the multiverse, the supposition that our universe is just one of an endless number of other universes, all of which happen to be hidden from view. The multiverse concept, which blurs the distinction between science fiction and science fact, is the subject of books written by many leading scientists, including Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow's The Grand Design, John Gribbin's In Search of the Multiverse, and Brian Greene's The Hidden Reality. So although the multiverse is indeed other-worldly, it is starting to enter the scientific mainstream.

This would be a mistake because the multiverse not only defies common sense, it also turns quantum theory - upon which it is based - on its head.

Quantum Theory

A key experimental outcome of quantum theory is that the world we see is not made of indestructible tiny particles, or little billiard balls existing independently of consciousness. Rather, in the place of hard particles we instead find a mathematical equation. As Nobel prize-winning scientist, Robert Laughlin, writes in this book, A Different Universe, "Quantum-mechanical matter consists of waves of nothing.... The entire Newtonian idea of a position and velocity characterizing an object is incorrect and must be supplanted by something we call a wave function, an abstraction modeled on the slight pressure variations it the air that occur when sound passes." Bruce Rosenbloom and Fred Kuttner write in Quantum Enigma, that "[i]In some real sense, the wave function of an object is the object. In quantum theory no atoms exists in addition to the wave function." Werner Heisenberg, the founder of the uncertainty principle and one of the architects of quantum theory, put it this way, "[T]he smallest units of mater are, in fact, not physical objects in the ordinary sense of the word; they are forms, structure or -in Plato's sense -Ideas, which can be unambiguously spoken of only in the language of mathematics."

These excerpts illustrate the problem at hand. Quantum theory is based upon a mathematical equation that works exceptionally well in explaining the motion of particles in the physical world. But no one knows why the equations work, or what lies behind the wave equation.

In formulating the uncertainty principle, Heisenberg imagined a thought experiment where one tries to locate the exact velocity and position of an elementary particle, such as an electron. It will take at least one photon of light to "see" this particle. But this photon, in the quantum world, will interfere with the electron, leading to uncertainty in knowing both the exact velocity and momentum of the electron. It turns out that Heisenberg's uncertainty principle and the wave equation draw the same picture of the inner world of matter. At the bottom of reality we find not particles but only wave functions and probabilities. But it is with this quantum uncertainty that scientists find a way to make the multiverse.

Two Circles

One way to illustrate how quantum uncertainty leads to the multiverse is to draw two circles next to each other on a piece of paper, separated by a vertical line. Let's call the circle on your left, the mind, and the circle on the right, the objective world. Or, even more basically, we can call the left circle the "inner" and the right circle, the "outer." The vertical line represents a barrier between mind and world, or the inner and the outer. Modern science is based upon the assumption that a real, objective world exists independently of mind, like the two separate circles. Modern science also assumes that an impenetrable barrier exists between the mind and the objective world. For a source here we can quote from a paper Albert Einstein wrote with Boris Podolsky and Nathan Rosen, Can Quantum Mechanical Description of Physical Reality be Considered Complete?, where the authors state, "Any serious consideration of a physical theory must take into account the distinction between the objective reality, which is independent of any theory, and the physical concepts with which the theory operates." The task of science, in Einstein's model, is to align a mental theory with events in the outside, objective world.

But here's the big question: is the quantum uncertainty or the wave function in the left circle, the right circle, or somewhere in between? Does the objective world consist of bundles of wave equations waiting to be collapsed into discrete particles when observed? Is quantum uncertainty a feature of the objective world or an indication of our lack of knowledge - or our mistaken impressions - about that world?

Even Hawking and Mlodinow are starting to doubt whether the two circles are really separated. In The Grand Design, they comment that in light of quantum theory, "do we really have reason to believe that an objective reality exists?" In different words, is there a free-standing material world of Einstein's dreams, sitting out there detached from the mind, or is there a connection between theory and the world?

Interestingly, however, at the same time these and other leading scientists are starting to question the assumption of an objective world, many of them are using quantum theory to build an endless number of new universes in the objective world.

Quantum Jitters

Let's have Hawking and Mlodinow explain how this all works:

It is not obvious, but it turns out that with regard to [Heisenberg's uncertainty principle], the value of a field and its rate of change play the same role as the position and velocity of a particle. That is, the more accurately one is determined, the less accurately the other can be. An important consequence of that is that there is no such thing as empty space meaning that both the value of a field and its rate of change are exactly zero.... Since the uncertainty principle does not allow for values of both the field and the rate of change to be exact, space is never empty, called the vacuum, but the state is subject to what are call quantum jitters, or vacuum fluctuations-particles and fields quivering in and out of existence.

Out of these quantum jitters, the authors say, the universe emerged. Because the uncertainty principle holds that we can never have exact knowledge of either a particle's location or energy state, we can never "know" an energy state is zero, nothing. Therefore, instead of nothing, there is a chance there is something there. Somehow, through a device the advocates of this viewpoint do not elaborate upon, this something turned into a universe.

What's going on here may not be readily apparent, but Hawking and Mlodinow are shifting back and forth between the circles, or between theory and the objective world. Heisenberg derived his uncertainty principle from a thought experiment. He imagined what would occur if one tried to see one electron with one photon. From this thought experiment, physicists conclude that even if electrons did really exist we would never be able to locate one with certainty. When scientists run the experiments they find that what they imagined were particles do not act like particles but follow the probabilistic rules of the wave function.

But the uncertainty is a mental state, in the left circle. For Hawking and others to suggest that this mental (or left circle) uncertainty causes there to be a "quantum fluctuation" in the right circle contradicts science's objective world model. To begin with, it breaches the very barrier that modern science has erected between the mind and the objective world. Modern science is based upon the notion that the physical world -for example, a tree - sits there by itself like a model posing for a painting. Thoughts and theories are not supposed to physically affect the physical world, which is why science ridicules paranormal events such as psychokinesis. If thoughts cannot affect the physical world and if "reality" is independent of theory, then how can Heisenberg's uncertainty principle create an objective world?

From Quantum Fluctuations to the Multiverse

Making matters much worse, however, modern scientists are now using these quantum fluctuations to create an infinity of new universes. This is the main theme of Hawking's and Mlodinow's The Grand Design. The authors apply Heisenberg's uncertainty principle to the creation of the universe and conclude that there was not one quantum fluctuation in the beginning of it all, but an endless number in a sea of quantum bubbles. They write, "Quantum fluctuations lead to the creation of tiny universes out of nothing. A few of these reach a critical size, then expand in an inflationary manner, forming galaxies, stars, and in at least one case, beings like us."

Hawking and Mlodinow have thus taken a theoretical uncertainty in the mind of a physicist and then used this uncertainty to conclude that because empty space cannot really be empty as a matter of theory (left circle) there must in fact be an infinity of real universes out there in the objective world (the right circle).

In today's science magazines this is called scientific reasoning, but it may also be described as the height of hubris. Instead of using the uncertainty principle as a limit on what we can know about the nature of the objective world these scientists use the principle to create a near-infinity of new, objective worlds. They assume that the objective world, the right circle, is obeying the laws of quantum theory before an observer stepped into the picture to formulate the theory

If scientists are bold enough to demand that trillions of universes arise from a scientific theory, then they'd might as well just say that the Mind itself created the world. Then they'd be on to something.

There is only one circle.

Philip Mereton is a practicing lawyer with a philosophy degree whose mission is to expose the fallacies in our current materialistic worldview and to advance a more rational -- and promising -- outlook. His first book, The Heaven at the End of Science - An Argument for a New Worldview of Hope, began as a college essay in 1974. The theme is the same: idealism (the world is really a dream) better explains the world than materialism (the world is a decaying machine). His website and blog appear at http://www.heavenattheendofscience.com/

Mr. Mereton asks all viewers who have doubts over the truth of the Big Bang, the origin of life from a primordial swamp, humankind's descent from bacteria, or the death of God (among many other doubtful findings of modern science), to join the revolution against scientific materialism. The revolution begins with a question: is materialism correct? Is there a better way to explain the world we live in? After all, if the world is really a dream, it'd be to our advantage to learn and understand that fact now so that we can learn how to master the dream, and thus our own lives, rather than manipulate particles in materialism's grand machine. So what can you do? Visit the website; read books that question materialism; raise your hand in class and question science teachers; be kind. Under the tenets of science, the truth will remain standing after all the questioning and experimentation ends. But we must start first start the debate. Join in.

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