Tag Archives: multiverse

Imagination, Desire, And Action Through Chemistry: My Theory Of Free Will

In terms of free will, I don’t think we have contra-causal free will (free will that actually interferes with and pushes around determinate matter). I think our brains are modular, governed by often contending impulses, and that sometimes–or even characteristically … Continue reading

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Hubble Zooms In On A Distant Island Universe

Some life perspective. In the below video released by NASA this month, the Hubble telescope does a gigapixel zoom-in on Andromeda, another island universe beyond our own. (It was Kant who first speculated that distant nubulae–tiny, blurry “clouds” visible in … Continue reading

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Lawrence Krauss on the Recent Direct Evidence for Cosmic Inflation–and What It Might Mean for God Belief

At The New Yorker, physicist Lawrence Krauss gives his take on the recent direct evidence that cosmic inflation is real. Money quote: At rare moments in scientific history, a new window on the universe opens up that changes everything. Today … Continue reading

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God or the Multiverse: Who or What Banged the Big Bang?

Physicists Andrei Linde and Alan Guth “distorted by gravitational waves.” (HuffPost image.) __________ Cosmic background radiation has long been considered by physicists to be the smoking gun evidence for the big bang, but what about the recent discovery of bent … Continue reading

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Cosmic Inflation? John Horgan Taps the Brakes

Science writer John Horgan (who is not a physicist) is intrigued by the recent evidence for the theory of cosmic inflation, but is also holding out for some additional confirmation, support, and explanation before he buys what some prominent physicists, … Continue reading

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Does the Recent Discovery of Cosmic Inflation Bolster the Multiverse Hypothesis?

Apparently it does, and that considerably. This comes via Space.com: The new research also lends credence to the idea of a multiverse. This theory posits that, when the universe grew exponentially in the first tiny fraction of a second after the … Continue reading

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Free Will: I Solved the Problem This Morning!

Or at least I think I have. And I solved it strictly within the bounds of naturalism (a material and closed system multiverse), without any resort to supernaturalism (ghosts entering machines). And I think I can explain it super concisely. … Continue reading

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Occam’s Razor: A Quick Tool for Assisting Thought

Occam’s razor gets its name from the medieval theologian William of Occam, who wrote in the 14th century that “No more things should be presumed to exist than are absolutely necessary.” Put another way, the simplest conclusion is usually best. … Continue reading

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Is Our Universe A Computer Simulation?

In the above image snapped at the Getty Villa in Malibu, poor crocodile is no crocodile at all, but the representation of a crocodile; the simulacrum of a crocodile. Might you be a simulacrum as well?  This post is about … Continue reading

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Atheism, Theism, and Improbable Videos

___________ There seems to be a whole genre of YouTube videos devoted to “just-so” events (as with the one above), and they’re rather nice metaphors of the theist vs. atheist divide. Theists, of course, posit that the universe’s improbable properties … Continue reading

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Atheism Made Visual: Worlds Become “Flash” (Tesla Coils Playing Sweet Home Alabama)

_____ Let me tell you why I think the above YouTube video is profound: it graphically displays the world that atheists posit we actually live in. Somewhere—if not in this big bang universe, then in another—there is a planet where … Continue reading

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“Multiverse of the Gaps” vs. “God of the Gaps”

Have you noticed? Contemporary theists and atheists, in their debates with one another, tend to invoke gap arguments that mirror each other. For the theist, God-of-the-gaps arguments are designed to introduce mind into an explanation; for the atheist, multiverse-of-the-gaps arguments … Continue reading

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Schrodinger’s Cat in 60 Seconds

An exceptionally clear explanation of the famous “Schrodinger’s Cat” thought experiment:

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Two Contending Leaps of Faith Concerning Our Universe’s Origin: God Did It; the Multiverse Did It

My own best-guess of what we’re embedded in is by way of an analogy that Alan Watts once proffered: the universe is akin to an apple or cherry tree. Just as a cherry tree “branches” and “leaves” and “cherry blossoms” and “cherries” … Continue reading

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Dead Parrot Watch: The Multiverse Appears To Be in Trouble. Does That Mean Atheism Is in Trouble Too?

In 2008, cosmologist Bernard Carr of Queen Mary University of London, told a science journalist for Discover the following: If there is only one universe, you might have to have a fine-tuner. If you don’t want God, you’d better have a … Continue reading

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Does Jorge Luis Borges’s “The Total Library” Spell the Death of God?

Of the notion of “the Total Library” (a library containing all possible combinations of letters, punctuation, and spacing), Jorge Luis Borges (in the first paragraph of his 1939 essay “The Total Library”) writes the following: It’s a wonder how long … Continue reading

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Blogging Brian Greene’s New Book, “The Hidden Reality”

Physicist Brian Greene’s new book just came out, and it’s exceptional. If you want the skinny on what hidden realities there might be behind and beyond our own, you can safely set aside the Bible and just read Brian Greene. And damn he … Continue reading

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Paul Davies Intellectually Jacob-Wrestles with the Ontological Mystery (the Mystery of Being)

Physicist Paul Davies, from the conclusion of his book, The Goldilock’s Enigma: So, how come existence? At the end of the day, all the approaches I have discussed are likely to prove unsatisfactory. In fact, in reviewing them they all seem … Continue reading

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Cosmological Natural Selection and the Timeless Block Universe? Maybe All Bullshit, Says Physicist Lee Smolin

Famed multiverse theorist, physicist Lee Smolin, in a recent essay, says he isn’t sure whether he even believes in his own multiverse hypothesis anymore, but he does give it credit for having some predictive power and experimental support: An alternative … Continue reading

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You Are Here

NASA produced “universe extension timeline”: This is the universe we live in. And there might be others. See here and here.

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