Although we do not have information about anything before the start of this universe, that has not stopped scientists to speculate. One of the speculations is the multiverse hypothesis, stating that very many universes started somehow and we happen to live in one that had just the right parameters that life as we know it became possible. I have always wondered the apparent weaknesses of the multiverse hypothesis. Maybe you can clarify whether the hypothesis is a lame duck or whether my thinking goes wrong at some point.
One apparent weakness is that we need to have something where the multiple universes started. Even a vacuum (void) is far from being ânothingâ because it is situated somewhere, the area is potentially within the influence of some force fields etc., particles may rush through it, and things happen within the void according to the laws of this universe. Multiple universes cannot start in ânothingâ, there needs to be something.
Another apparent weakness is that the birth of universes needs to follow some rules. If we have laws of physics operating, there need to be something that operates according to the laws. If there are laws of physics, what kind of laws are they? If we just copy laws of physics that operate in our universe, we assume that the âsomethingâ was somehow similar to our universe.
A third apparent weakness is the simple assumption that an universe is practically nothing (zero energy) because negative and positive energies cancel each other. An universe can therefore start without any energy or matter because it is essentially nothing, at least from the viewpoint of energy. This may work in theoretical calculations but from a practical viewpoint, it is blindness. Negative energy somewhere else in the universe does not negate the fact that locally, the universe is very real, it exists. If you put your hand in fire, it hurts and the hand burns. Fire, your hand and life are all real.
These are three apparent weaknesses of the multiverse hypothesis.
I would have to say that the question is unavoidable. Once we understood how our universe got started the most natural question to ask is if something similar had ever happened elsewhere or at a different point in history.
As an analogy, the same situation exists for other processes in astronomy. We are but one planet in our solar system, and we now understand that the process that formed our solar system has happened countless times throughout the universe. The same for galaxy formation. It is pretty hard not to then ask if the same applies to our universe.
Several technical physics terms are being used loosely in this thread, leading to statements that are kind of true but that are too vague to have a clear meaning. Leaving General Relativity aside⌠energy, momentum, and rest mass are all conserved quantities, regardless of what changes a system undergoes. They do not change unless the system interacts with something outside itself. In the case of the system consisting of an electron and a positron that annihilate, the rest mass of the system (which has to be calculated including the photons or other particles produced) is identical before and after the annihilation. The sum of the rest masses of the particles involved (which is a different quantity) will generally be different afterwards â zero if they annihilate to photons, higher if the center-of-mass energy of the e+e- pair is high enough to produce massive particles. Likewise, the energy of the system never changes, although the form of the energy does.
Yes, I agree that the question is practically unavoidable. That does not chance the fact that the hypotheses need to be based on credible principles or facts, otherwise they are just useless speculation.
I have heard scientists say that the existence of our universe has now been explained by the multiverse hypothesis. This kind of claims appear to be wishful thinking without a credible basis, unless my reasoning goes wrong at some point. Although it is just wishful thinking, media and populace believe the claims of the scientists (âexpertsâ) and spread the message uncritically.
I fully agree. Any theory on how multiple universes can be produced needs to be based on good evidence.
I would also fully agree that they are overstating the facts. We simply donât know how many universes there are. There are some interesting ideas that need a lot of work, but thatâs a far cry from anything approaching certainty.
But I still doubt there was a flood there at that time that killed most people and animals even in that area and there was still probably no giant tower being built in a city there that was going to be so big God had to destroy it .
Sure there was floods. Maybe even someone died sometimes. But itâs such a myth. Real events are not even needed for myths. I listen to thousands of episodes a year of things like creepypastas and cryptids based around myths, urban legends and folklore that have essentially no basis in reality.
I agree. Myths are often based on exaggerations of things people already experience. At the same time, I do remember reading about geologic evidence for cataclysmic floods that would hit Mesopotamia once every few hundred years. Cultural memory of these really bad floods could have served as the kernel for subsequent flood myths.
The tower of Babel is also quite transparent, at least in my opinion. The author is trying to make the priest class in Mesopotamia look foolish, casting them as foolishly thinking they can build something that can reach heaven (i.e. a ziggurat). The myth then shows Godâs authority over the Mesopotamian priests. It serves the dual purpose of also explaining why people speak different languages.
Meteorologists talk of âthousand-year floodsâ, i.e. a flood so big thereâs only one every thousand years. If there are also âfive thousand year floodsâ, it stands to reason that there has been one in that region. All it would take is a set of survivors as I described earlier passing the tale down the generations, and then someone writing it down, and then someone mythologizing it incouding using hyperbole, and youâve got the flood story.
As for the big tower â it existed, the work force spoke multiple languages and had communications issues, the project was abandoned. This isnât speculation, there are written accounts. And given the purpose of a ziggurat, and a mythologizer to impart some meaning to the story, itâs actually a bit surprising there arenât other accounts â any city that competed with Eridu would have had priests who could have used the incomplete ziggurat against them . . . or maybe Eridu itself collapsed so soon after there was no point, so it only got written down when a priest of the âwandering tribesâ, the Ivri, decided, âI can make use of this storyâ, and re-told it.
You donât believe history? Thatâs an interesting position.
That there have been floods big enough to overflow both the Tigris and Euphrates and fill their entire flood plains and everything between them is history â itâs known to have happened. That the Mediterranean broke through to the Black Sea and turned a moderate-sized freshwater lake into a salty sea is history â itâs known to have happened. For that matter, itâs known that the Persian Gulf was once a fertile region and the shore was somewhere southeast of the Straits of Hormuz is history, and that rising sea levels inundated it, driving people to migrate steadily northwest is also history.
That there was an unfinished ziggurat in Eridu that didnât get finished is history â the remains are still there. That it had a workforce that spoke multiple languages and had difficulty communicating is history â archaeologists have found records describing that. That the multiple languages played a part in it not getting finished is history â archaeologists have found records of that, too.
If it isnât the above history that you donât believe, the only other option I can see is that you donât believe that humans are story-tellers, who donât just tell stories but put their own spin on them. Thatâs a pretty hard thing to disbelieve!
So do you not believe the history, or do you not believe that humans are story-tellers?
What I donât believe is that anything even remotely happened like we see with Babel and Noah.
Again this is the story of Noah.
A guy is warned by God that a flood was coming. This guy saves his family by building a giant ark. It lasted potentially a year. He also saved thousands of animals.
Nothing like that has ever happened. Not in history. Probably not even in the future.
Letâs go back to the most basic realistic potentials of a story similar to Noah that may have happened.
A guy is warned by god a storm is coming. A flash flood or big flood hits a region. Most likely just a village. Letâs say itâs a village in a valley bordering mountains. A flash flood happens. For whatever reason, only this dude or just a few have some small boats. He brings his domesticated animals with him. Or at least a pair of each. Flood lasted a few days. He survives. Most others in his small village died.
That is such a âwatered downâ version of the story that it seems way more likely in the same way we came up with Godzilla, Marâs attack and the ring, they came up with a flood story.
What I donât see is a historical reason or scientific reason to think Noah is a true story inspired by some flood.
Letâs try it this way. Which flood specifically do you believe inspired this? It will have to have been several thousands years ago. Happened after the invention of boats. We canât just say at some point some where a giant flood happened that scarred the memories of generations to come until they wrote it .
I donât have a candidate. I used to go with the Black Sea inundation, but newer evidence is showing that filling that basin from the Mediterranean took decades, not weeks, though as the water eroded the opening there could have been catastrophic surges more than once. In one way itâs still a good candidate because the region was certainly inhabited and a huge area was wiped out, but thereâs also the sticky point that once it was filled it didnât go back down.
But it would be a bigger flood than for just a villageâ something that small wouldnât be likely to be passed on and show up in nations all over the Tigris-Euphrates region!
Article was awesome, another piece that made me wish I had never left grad school â scholarly discovery is so much FUN!
As for the video, I loved the use of the curvature of the Earth diagram showing how no mountains are visible from the center of the Tigris-Euphrates valley!