Katisura's right.  It goes further.  If in fact you have two universes with some ability to move between them.. and therefore, two universes causally interconnected, since each can now be influenced by an event in the past in the other universe...

Mathwise you don't have two universes anymore.  You have one, with some sort of "domain boundary" dividing it into two sections.

So everthing is still conserved, moving from one section to another.

The really tricky thing is what happens if some difference in physics between the two universes allows exists that can be exploited to produce energy.

But that's for those Princeton and Oxford physicists to work out.

Besides which conservation of mass and energy is only a law pf physics in *our* universe, there could hypothetically be universes for which that limitation might not apply.

In terms of what you are striving here the question is not whether technology can advance inifinitely but whether technology can advance sufficiently to be considered godlike. Of course definitions of godlike technology will vary widely as well, but within the constraint of your conclusion (that in some universe people will be using technology to manipulate life etc. in other universes) any universe where technology can climb to a level suffieicnt to accomplish this end is sufficient to the conclusion.

Of course I would add teh additional constraint that these hypothetical persons could manipulate life etc in *some* universes, since with a variety of laws of physics approaching infinity for all practical purposes (and indeed still hypothetically) it approaches impossibility that the inhabitants of any given universe could affect the inhabitants of every other universe.

*disclaimer- the aforementioned issues do not in fact prove or disprove the existance of God, only certain models of godlike entities who achieved this status through technological development. If, hypothetically speaking there existed a universe which was in and of itself sentient and able to control it's collision state with other universes then it would inherantly fit the deist concept of God as it relates to our universe. The potential existance and interaction of multiple such universes simply hurts the brain to think about.

I had not considered that. That is a strong point.

Highly speculative, and untestable, but not able to be discounted off-the-cuff.  A bit question mark, in my view, but that doesn't necessarily harm the proof (it's okay to end up with "IF there are an infinite number of universes, THEN...").


That ones pretty solid.


For how long?  Or, are we talking about each 'instant?'  A non-zero chance of carrying on advancing forever, or just for a finite period of time?  The latter seems obvious, then former less so.


This seems like complete speculation (though, again, that's not necessarly a problem), and does raise the question of what a "universe" is, if one can move between them.


I'm not sure the Kardashev scale is particularly important for the task at hand.  Is what makes something "a god" the amount of energy it can harness?  What does "energy" mean in other universes?



It sort of boils down to:
1.  There's an infinite number of universes (so anything with a finite chance of occuring will happen an infinite number of times)
2.  There's a finite chance of any given universe giving rise to intelligent life (thus, with 1, there's an infinite number of universes with intelligent life)
3.  there's a finite chance than any example of intelligent life will progress to god-like levels (thus, with 2 and 1, there will be an infinite number of examples of intelligent life advancing to god-like levels).

Which is a fine argument if we accept the assumptions, though it doesn't say anything about whether there is a god-like super-intelligence involved in our universe, just that they exist somewhere in the multi-verse.

I always get a bit skeptical when dealing with infinities and probalities.  Things tend to get out of wack when we go down that route (especially when expected values get involved, though thankfully in this case that isn't a problem).  When you say "non-zero" in your assumptions, you really need to say "finite," as an infintesimal probability may not do the job.

I would agree that in general, if we accept the multi-verse model, it will follow that many, many strange things will be going on somewhere in the multi-verse.  What that means for ours, though, is much less clear to me.

Well, I've got a better counter than my last one: No amount of technology will ever make a species capable of violating the laws of physics of whatever universe they're in at the moment. So they may be able to become extremely powerful, but they will not be 'god'.

Hypothetically by utelizing loopholes in differing physics a species which could transfer between universees might be able to apparently violate teh laws of one. For example, if we find a universe and somehow manage to travel to it which conservation of mass and energy do not apply (or better matter/energy can be created but not destroyed- consider teh hypothetical end of the universe scenario for that!) we could then import matter/energy from that universe to our own.

However another limitation has occured to me in terms of the proposed 'proof' which is that it manages to get from a finite to infinite number of universes by indicating that they do not necessarilly exista t teh same time. Leaving aside questions such as the nature of time and how it might differe between universes it also adds levels of complexity to the issue of brigibility in that a number of the potentially inifinite universes that this hypothesis leans upon will not be accessible to each other simply because they do not coexist. For example if the current M-theory model of cosmology is correct it would seem that 'our' universe essentially reincarnates every so many trillion years as it achieves heat death and then collides again with another universe. Obviously we could never reach from our current universe to a previous or future universe within the same brane-matrix that we exist within.

I wouldn't go so far as to say 'highly speculative' (at least not without branding all of theoretical physics as 'highly speculative'). From my understanding, it's a widely accepted aspect of quantum physics right now - that universes are a natural, if relatively (if one can have 'relative' in this context) phenomenon starting at the level of the quantum foam, wherein a quantum singularity event expands to such levels. The question simply becomes, 'what exists outside of our universe, and can there be a limit to it?' If the supra-universe quantum foam setting exists outside of time, it is by definition infinite, and there will be an infinite number of universes formed by it.

This is compounded by a simple examination of the statistical probabilities of a universe forming meeting the requirements of supporting life. In a nutshell, scientists such as Stephen Hawking, have said that the odds of such are extremely small. These are not just the odds of supporting life as we know it, but ANY complicating conglomeration of matter with sufficient time to evolve into life, under any circumstances. The clear conclusion is, either we are *tremendously* lucky, or this is happening lots and lots of times.



Not in each instant. However, if you select one universe with one intelligent life-form, the probability of it continuing advancement is non-zero, until it reaches stage 5 of the Kardashev scale (since that's the ultimate end of this postulate). More formally, it should be written, 'there exists such intelligent lifeforms that have a non-zero probability...' but that seemed less fluid to read, and I'm not writing for a purely scientific audience :P



Yes, like I pointed out, this is the point that causes me the most concern. There are theories which make it possible to cross universes, but atm, it's still both theoretical and speculative.



The Kardashev scale I use as a matter of convenience. If a species is capable of harnessing all or most of the energy of the universe, that means they have the technological prowess to alter the universe itself - and to perform actions that, from our point of view (to allude to Clarke), 'is indistinguishable from magic'.

There is certainly the possibility that a species might be able to complete such feats at a lower level of technological advancement, but I didn't care to write out the additional probabilities, because I didn't feel it really added anything to the argument. The hinge point is more D than it is E.




Correct.



No, however, a technologically advanced civilization will understand the laws of physics better than a less advanced civilization, and as such will be able to violate the understood laws of physics of that less advanced civilization. Again, to point to Clarke, sufficiently advanced technology would be indistinguishable from magic.

Certainly one could imagine that a fellow with a helicopter and a loudspeaker back in 2,000 BC could have quite an impact on the theological development of the time, for instance.

However, more generally, what I'm hoping to allude to is that universes can be created (because it happened), which suggests that universes can be intentionally created. And just as technology permits us to better manipulate functions in the physical universe, a more advanced race could better manipulate those same functions. Basic features like guiding evolution through the introduction of retro-viruses, manipulating the formation of planets and stars and so on are not violating the laws of physics, but are actions we consider 'godlike'.



Why is this obvious?

I'd agree that the "many-worlds" interpretation of quantum mechanics is accepted by many people who know a lot more about physics than I do, but I'd stick by the statement that it's highly speculative.  It's not, as far as I know, a testable hypothesis (or, rather, no one has come up with a way to test it, as far as I know).  It's one interpretation of the findings we have, but it's not something we can currently check.

On the topic of the probability of a universe meeting the requirements for life, I think that's based on a number of tacit assumptions for which we have (and possibly can't have, if we're restricted to our own universe) no evidence for or against.  How many possible ways are there for a universe to form?  Are physical constants just picked randomly out of a hat (in which case it is indeed very unlikely), or are they related in some way that we have yet to discover which limits the set of 'possible universes' significantly?  I don't think anyone is currently in a position to answer that kind of question.  Since we only have a sample of one universe to work with, any predictions about the statistical likelihood of any of its traits are by necessity entirely speculative.

All that said, I don't mean "speculative" to be taken in a negative way.  Speculative doesn't mean wrong, just that we're dealing with possibilities, not certainties with this assumptions.


Okay, I think I see what you meant now, though I think this leads to an odd way of describing the heart of the matter.  I think it'd be more direct to state the assumption as "it is possible for an intelligent life to become 'gods' via technological advancement, and that the probability of any given instance of intelligent life doing so is non-zero."  The assumption that 'godhood' can be reached via technological advancement is non-trivial enough that I think it should be made explicit.  In part because it gives us the definition of 'god' used for the proof (which is different than most people probably have in mind when reading the word--especially when capitalized!)


This is a bit different from "god" though, and quite a big different from "God," I'd argue.  Not necesarilly a fault with the proof, but perhaps one with the thread title ;) (though making it more accurate would probably generate less posts, so I'm in favor of provacative titles).

Yeah, I'm working on my 'embellish the truth a bit to get people to read, and hide the dirty math bits underneath' skills. Working out okay?

Full disclosure, I've also been reading WAAAY too much stuff about Kip Thorne, FTL, time travel, and so on as of late, so it's where my brain is.

I'll also say that this matches very neatly with the LDS theory of God, which I find fascinating. The non-LDS Christian assumption seems to be that there is only one God anywhere, and He always was God, which has always bothered me a bit as a philosophy.

The reason that it is obviously imposible to reach future or past univerese within teh same brane-matrix as our own is that they never temporally coexist with ours nor does our universe allow temporal travel of the type that would allow a transition to and from such a universe. Of course tehre is also some question as to what portion of natural laws are intrinsic to this particular brane and which ones are artifacts of the peculiar resonance of this universe-incarnation, but I don't know if we'll ever get a good answer to that.

Why is that obvious? Do you have a proof for it? There are many dimensions beyond our basic three or four, and possibly many meta-universes beyond this one. I think saying we cannot travel to past or future universes is as speculative as saying we can.

I'm not saying that we can't travel to past or future univeres, I'm saying that we cannot travel to past or future versions of our universe- after the heat death of this universe 9according to the main model of m theory) our universe will collide with another one and that impact will 'reincarnate'' our universe in another form with the same brane- that is what I am saying we cannot access.

I don't know. I feel pretty comfortable saying, if we can travel from our universe to another universe (to another brane), then we could simply wait out the death of our original universe and travel back to that brane when a new universe is formed. Of course, that is also assuming that universes are formed on the same branes, rather than a 1:1 ratio between branes and universes.

We could in theory travel to another brane then bake to this one after the death and rebirth of our own universe (possibly) what we could not do is move *back* to our original universe through this method.

As to the presumption it is part and parcel of the same theory (string/ M-theory) which was invoked at teh begining of this discussion as to the possibility of multiple - and presumedly inifinte worlds. If we throw out the idea of multiple consecutive universes within the same brane then we also throw out the entire brane- string cosmology since that model of successive universe is the foundation for the idea of multiple universes. Otherwise we are dealing with inifinitely rubber science as the foundation of the 'proof'.

Not sure that's relevant to the argument.

(But why not? If it's possible to travel back in time, which seems it may be such, might it not to travel from universe A to universe B, wait until A is destroyed, then, for fun, go back in time to before A is destroyed?)



I don't recall ever hearing about this when studying string theory. Do you have a reference?

You mean you don't watch organ Freeman's Through The Wormhole? M theory (the successor to string theory) has been covered pretty extensively in the majority of episodes.

And the evidence is pretty conclusive that true time travel is not possible- either you would be visiting an alternate universe which exists in a past frame of reference (which would be a different brane) or you would not be able to travel to the past.

I didn't know Morgan Freeman was a physicist... Is there anywhere I can look it up?



(Assuming you're talking about traveling into the past. Traveling into the future happens every day. We've documented subatomic particles traveling at near-light speed experiencing extreme time dilation, for instance.)

I have not seen any evidence for that. In fact, quite to the contrary. Kip Thorne has been postulating quite aggressively on the possibility and what is required for it. So has Norokov. Stephen Hawking for a while said it was impossible, but then retracted his statement. In fact, as far as I can tell, from my own research:
1) Traveling into the past will occur whenever you exceed light speed, and around certain anomalies such as black holes, or as a result of quantum effects.
2) It is very possible that it happens every day, it's just on a scale we have not measured yet.

He's not, he just hosts the show, where they discuss a particular concept with several doctoral physicists with solid reputations in the field discussing different models and theories. It's a television series.

Since it would require an infinite amount of energy to achieve teh speed of light and then presumedly an infinite amount more to exceed it what would happen if you do so doesn't really fit within the realm of the possible.

Now unless you are prepared to discus various hypotheses of time travel and what those mean compared t our discussion (as I stated before the parallel world version of time travel is certainly okay but then you aren't in the same brane anyways, singular-universe forms of time travel have the problem that if you interact with the past you have changed the universe from what it was in some way therby creating a paradox. Incidently examples of time travel when light speed is exceeded (which in not in fact automatice merely possible with different frames of reference intersecting due to the 'no prefered frames' mandate of special relativity: and that one I read from Einstien's own book!)are given as a part of teh explanation of why, beyond simple mathematics it is impossible to exceed the speed of light- in short special relativity is predicated on the basis that time travel (within this universe) is not possible.

You only require infinite energy if what you are accelerating has mass (and of course, we're talking about the macro-scale. Quantum scale operates differently.)



You never ended this sentence.

(And yes, I am. I'm currently reading 'The New Time Travelers - A Journey to the New Frontiers of Physics' by David Toomey. It's very well written. Just make sure, if we're going to discuss this, we do it before it's due back at the library.)

While Einstein did claim traveling back in time is impossible, he did this eighty years ago, and using only a much more limited understanding of physics than we have now. As he said, 'he's earned the right to be wrong'. Hawking did for a while say that time travel was impossible, but it was based on two hypothesis; one which was limited to a single method of travel, the other was basically just 'just because', but he ultimately retracted it.

If we accept the possibility of wormholes, we accept the possibility of traveling back through time.

There seems to be some disagreement as to whether you could travel back in time and create a new universe as opposed to having to travel back in time to an already extant alternate universe, but it is clear that within M theory any time travel will involve alternate universes. It will also be noted from the site above that wormholes are not actually a confirmed phenominon.

(GM Note: Web site sometimes shows inappropriate adverts. Please do not click if you are a minor. The site is just a sci-fi forum discussing M-theory, so the content itself is fine.)

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This message was last edited by the GM at 17:53, Sun 11 July 2010.

Here's my view on this whole subject, and to summarize I'm afraid I'm going to be a damp rag over this whole thing, as it seems a lot of science fiction to me.

Now I'm not saying that I have very many credentials; I've been reading Geometry for Dummies so far as my expertise in math is concerned, though I have looked over the Wikipedia pages (unreliable as they are, I rather trust them over a film where we're to believe it because the narrator is Morgan Freeman; I learned better than that from watching Expelled for Ben Stein).



I've read about M-Theory and the Various String Theories.

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1. Despite what Morgan Freeman might have been narrating, M-Theory doesn't seem to have anything to do with other Universes, and Membranes refer to mathematical concepts defined by the number of dimensions they cover.

2. The "Alternate Universes" rubbish is based on the assumption that the most basic laws of the Universe could be anything other than what they are.  Given that we have a sample size of precisely 1 at the moment, it can hardly be considered a solid fact proven by any "Theory".  I'm just not seeing where String Theory actually provides this idea (maybe people are taking "dimensions" in a non-geometric sense?)

3. As String-Theory, in any of its forms, has yet to provide falsifiable tests or predictions based on the real world, all that can be said about the mathematics is that they potentially match up with the current evidence we already have.  But as they don't actually provide any tests, they are interchangeable (and thus why there are so many of them).  They can't even really be considered Theories at all at the moment; Conjectures or Theorems would be more appropriate, being mathematical descriptors.

4. Generally in the String Theories and M-Theory time is not considered part of the spatial dimensions, so Freedom of Movement wouldn't seem to be considerable.

5. One does not multiply factors necessarily, and since no tests have yet been provided, there is no way to prove that the extra dimensions are necessary for the model to function, no way to provide exclusivity of one explanation over all others.

What they are describing is one version of M-theory. For instance, people have speculated that there are 7, 10, 11 or 12 dimensions. There are other versions of M-theory (and even more theories about the nature of the universe!)

In the end though, the conclusion seems to be 'well, it's possible, but we really have no idea' either way. Which brings me back to my original problem with the argument - that it assumes a particular nature of the universe which, currently, is purely theoretical and even in some details, to quote Tycho, speculative.

PM
This message was last edited by the GM at 15:24, Sun 11 July 2010.

PM

(For all non-GMs, the PMs are just discussing questionable advert on the link. Don't think we're picking on silveroak or anything.)