Your attributing an agency here, an ‘it’ that ‘does’ something. But the same ‘it’ is what you’re trying to explain, so there’s an issue of recursion involved. — Wayfarer
That's very interesting. How does it know to do that? In the early moments of the universe it's cranking out all these possible configurations, and it's only got one more left. How does it know that? What if it forgets to do one particular configuration? Can it go back and do it later? Can the universe continue to exist or does this one single imbalance make the universe unstable in some way? — fishfry
You know I just don't believe this duplicate earth story. Say there's a universe or a multiverse and it's got every possible state represented infinitely many times ... except there is one state that just happens to only occur once, by incredible amazing luck ... one little blue watery planet with bad politics, third from the sun ... and it's the only one like it in the entire multiverse. — fishfry
But we're making progress if you agree that ergodicity by itself is not sufficient. — fishfry
Only speaking loosely. Ignorant of the physics. Asking if there's an explanation of why all states must occur. Is this all as in all? Or all as in statistically all, but possibly missing one or two with no harm done to the universe? — fishfry
All possible states must occur because of:
1. Infinity, which I have mentioned several times previously. Space must be infinite.
2. Mass fluctuations approach zero on large scales.
3. The mass densities at any set of points has a multivatiate Gaussian probability distribution.
Conditions 2 and 3 may be combined into the weaker condition that the correlation functions of all orders vanish in the limit of infinite spatial separation.
Together the above conditions are called ERGODICITY — tom
Your bullet items are probabilistic. And you are applying probability theory to an infinite event space. — fishfry
It is a fact that when you extend finite probability theory to infinitary realms, you lose certainty. — fishfry
You are applying without justification your intuitions and beliefs about finite probabilities to infinite ones. — fishfry
You have to take this into account when making metaphysical claims based on probabilistic arguments, — fishfry
Much of the attraction of the Multiverse is that it removes the requirement to explain particular initial conditions and physical constants because all are realised somewhere. — tom
Fundamental constants are finely tuned for life. A remarkable fact about our universe is that physical constants have just the right values needed to allow for complex structures, including living things. Steven Weinberg, Martin Rees, Leonard Susskind and others contend that an exotic multiverse provides a tidy explanation for this apparent coincidence: if all possible values occur in a large enough collection of universes, then viable ones for life will surely be found somewhere. This reasoning has been applied, in particular, to explaining the density of the dark energy that is speeding up the expansion of the universe today.
Ask yourself why it’s a problem that needs solving. — Wayfarer
I am not aware that Tegmark made the mistake of aggressively claiming that probability one means 'certain' in an infinite sample space, as you did.Perhaps you would like to get in touch with Max Tegmark and give him the bad news? — tom
OK then, my answer is simply "No, I do not intend to contact Mr Tegmark, as I have no reason to believe he needs correcting".
I see your suggestion about contacting him as irrelevant, as was the reference to the Nobel committee. — andrewk
So sure, if I look at the constants of nature, a perfectly natural question arises as to why they take particular values. Wouldn't it be nice to find a theory that predicts them? — tom
Are they probabilistic? Perhaps you could show what you mean by that, and which points comply with your meaning?
Infinite realms? Loss of certainty?
Intuitions, infinite probabilities?
Metaphysical claims? — tom
Maybe not. Maybe science will never explain the various constants, the 'six numbers' that purportedly underlie everything. Maybe the attempt to explain at that level is forever beyond science, and produces only pseudo-science, 'multiverses' being an example. — Wayfarer
Before I compose a detailed reply to each of the points you raised; can you please tell me which part of my post is giving you trouble? Do you not understand the distinction between almost surely and surely? Or do you understand it but think it doesn't apply in the present discussion? Or think that Tegmark doesn't think it applies? I just want to figure out what level of misunderstanding we're having on this point. There's no question that I'm accurately relaying the math of infinitary probabllity theory. So there must be some disconnect between that and the physics. — fishfry
You mean maybe the six numbers are magical? — tom
Funny, I see them as subtractions.They’re both metaphysical issues which physicalists are trying to solve by infinite ad hoc additions to physical theory. — Wayfarer
I find them elegant solutions. The unsavory feeling you get seems to be a challenge to a religious view of what you are. Yes, I would find that unsavory, and cause for further investigation, not a terminus because it threatens my biases.The short version: the ‘many worlds theory’ is based on avoiding the philosophically unsavoury implications of the observer problem.
The multiverse - ditto for the unsavoury implications of the fine-tuning problem.
I look forward to your refutation of our best Cosological theory, right here, on this forum, by a true expert. — tom
The unsavory feeling you get seems to be a challenge to a religious view of what you are. — noAxioms
If you make a statistical argument on an infinite probability space and you don't take measure zero events into account, you have to say why they're not relevant in the particular case under discussion. If you can't formulate a coherent reply, you don't understand the ideas you're promoting. — fishfry
There are no measure zero events, as explained multiple times in this thread. — tom
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