The Universe
The Universe is all that physically exists, its the totality of all things: matter (energy), spacetime; all entities that can be realized, observed, sensed, deduced, measured. All within and outside horizons.
It is the whole, and hence only one by definition.
It is the ultimate reality, and hence only one by definition.
The mathematical — or, for what is worth, even mental — picture of many universes (the multiverse) can only be conceived into a larger “universe” in which the set of multiple universes belong, and hence the multiverse concept inexorably has the limit of an ultimate, “whole universe” or “meta universe”, or “final universe”.
There is only one universe.
The hypothesis of the multiverse has an intrinsic imperfection from its very conception. It is a fragile concept since from simple logic reasoning it always necessarily reduces to an ultimate, “one universe”.
It is an unnecessary hypothesis that I abhor and reject.
September 30, 2007 at 2:41 pm
Hi, I don’t like the many worlds interpretation of QM which is why I do like this paper which argues against such an interpretation via quantum computation:
http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0005069
September 30, 2007 at 9:06 pm
The ‘universe’ is a word. We tend to think objectively, especially when being scientific, and out of deep habit presume that having a word implies that there is a discrete thing which it represents. In the psychology of Immanuel Kant, what we know are actually mental models within our own psyche, constructed from a widely varying combination of the interpretation of sense data & of our own imagination. Some words, like ‘universe’ and ‘God’ (you entice one to stroll through your posts) are particularly unfinished concepts, involving a great deal more imagination than concrete data. Still, our inclination is to work with these models as though they represent well-known, verified things because we are profoundly habituated to think in terms of objects, and we have words to encapsulate these broad concepts.
Kant was very insistent that our minds are, like our bodies & senses, quite finite, and so can’t contain an infinite concept like God, or even something so large as to be effectively infinite, like the universe. We imagine that we do know them, but the concept we are working with is a mental model, a representation. When the ‘thing’ is impossibly large, and yet we have a word for it, we too easily err in regarding the concept just as we do a more manageable object, like a dog, or house. While I don’t fully embrace Kant’s conviction that our minds are finite, his argument that we can mistake our concept for the thing itself is convincing.
Is the universe a thing? There would have to be an identifiable interrelationship of its parts in order to say it is a thing – otherwise the word is an abstraction, a generalization. There’s not a material connection between stellar bodies, and there may or may not be a web of energies linking all stuff into a single entity. The universe could, however, be a single ‘thing’ if it’s bound together to express or satisfy the purposes of a single intelligence. This proposition is no proof of the existence of deity – it only suggests another type of thing, intention, which if actual would bind all our stuff & energies into a single thing.
Intention is something a conscious being expresses, but the word is inadequate, a bit sterile. One wants the quality of passion to make it alive, personal. You have a trained voice – are you a master singer? Yes, there’s sure to be an intellectual joy in understanding the mathematics of music, but is there not something more – a passion for which the notes provide a skeleton and the words a specific face and figure, but is more than both? Your song makes the space it fills meaningful, simultaneously universal and individual, and expresses something that’s true for all people in all times yet is uniquely present right now in you on that stage, in your chest, your throat, your mouth.
This is what is meant by the ‘music of the spheres,’ that what to the senses (and our rational/scientific extensions of them) is chaos becomes cosmos when we hear a voice passionately expressing its intention. For most, it is beyond our capabilities to recognize the voice of deity singing from outside the universe. But it becomes real and immediate when it emerges from your heart. The universe and God are abstractions – physically and intellectually – until you sing. In that moment, the Kantian isolation between your mind and those of your audience is gone, and together we are one ‘thing.’
Oh, I forgot to help you dismiss the multiverse. Let’s be generous, and translate the word into Spinoza’s concept of concentric orbs, thus discovering a connection between seemingly disparate worlds and the perspective & intentions of the observer.
September 30, 2007 at 11:34 pm
I agree with your analysis. I, too, as forcefully, abhor and reject definition of multiple wholes. But how can physicists get away with basically a grammatical error? My answer is that their universe is really a cosmos in the original sense of the word. A cosmos is an anthropocentric truncation of the whole. It is the part that can be understood by the current tools of investigations of physicists. They then define this cosmos to be the whole. Depending on the context, universe may refer to this cosmos or the whole. I think this is polemics. Thanks for writing about this issue.
October 1, 2007 at 9:43 am
Dear barelysage,
Thank you for your comment.
Just to make things a little more clear. When I write about ‘the universe’, you are right that I am dealing with a notion, a model that I make of it. This model is actually a combined set of notions which are completely dependent on my personal history, on how my brain works, and on what I have learned (mathematical models of cosmology that aim to describe from physics fundamentals and based on principles of the scientific method what can be partilly observed at large scales). I do not know what the universe *is*, or even whether it is a ‘single thing’ that could eventually be understood by a single intellect.
Although I do not know what the universe is (and never will), nor even whether it is a ‘thing’, I do claim here that the current hypothesis on the existence of a ‘multiverse’ or a set of ‘universes’ (all these being *models*) is a weak and unnecessary one. Physicists aim to understand what can be observed, and what can be observed is, in my opinion, a reflection of an ‘ultimate reality’, which can only be one. This is my belief and not part of any kind of scientific proof (and never will be). That makes me an incorrigible platonic idealist. Now someone could claim that there are ‘many ultimate realities’. This will be her/his belief, and I respect it. But reject it.
Thanks,
Christine
October 1, 2007 at 9:46 am
Dear Charlie Stromeyer Jr,
Thank you for that paper, it sounds interesting and I’ll read it.
Best,
Christine
October 1, 2007 at 8:28 pm
If there is only one universe, then why is it that the mathematics we use to describe it is not unique? Relativity says that there is no preferred reference frame. Maxwell couldn’t choose a unique set of potentials for electricity and magnetism. And modern QM is about gauge transforms which amount to alternative but equivalent ways of describing a quantum state.
October 2, 2007 at 2:27 pm
Hi Carl,
Multiple ways of describing one thing does not necessarily mean that the thing is itself multiple. Redundancy implied in gauge theories has to do with internal symmetries which are themselves an important clue about the nature of the physical laws, but I do not see how they would imply the need of a multiverse to understand them.
Best,
Christine
October 2, 2007 at 7:32 pm
Christine, I don’t mean to imply that gauge theories imply a multiverse. Quite the opposite. I think that the universe exists as only one thing, and this implies that there is a preferred gauge choice. Well, I guess I should add that I think that putting translational and rotational symmetry in 3 dimensions is something I can’t argue with. It’s the internal gauge symmetries that bother me most.
October 2, 2007 at 11:41 pm
I don’t think math is capable of distinguishing number of universes. Math can describe anything and everything. For instance, math can be commutative or non-commutative. This does not mean that there are two universes one commutative and the other non-commutative.
November 12, 2007 at 1:25 am
Beautiful Blog in terms of content & presentations..
“A paradox is not a conflict within reality. It is a conflict between reality and your feeling of what reality should be like.
-Richard Feynman
June 17, 2008 at 7:11 am
Hi Christine,
“The hypothesis of the multiverse has an intrinsic imperfection from its very conception. It is a fragile concept since from simple logic reasoning it always necessarily reduces to an ultimate, “one universe”.”
“I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member.”
-Groucho Marx
Best,
Phil
June 3, 2009 at 10:05 am
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