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  • The Multiverse and Existential Scale | Robert Lawrence Kuhn

Today we continue the FQxI "My Favourite" short series, where our members explore profound scientific ideas. In this episode, Robert Lawrence Kuhn delves into the mind-bending concept of the multiverse, reflecting on the staggering scale of potential universes. Drawing from his work on "Closer to Truth", Kuhn explores the philosophical implications of inflation theory and the provocative question: Why does anything exist at all? Join us as he contemplates the breathtaking vastness of reality and the mathematical scales that challenge our understanding of existence. Closer to Truth: https://closertotruth.com/ Watch the episode of Closer To Truth featured in this video: Series 01, Episodes 02: How Vast is the Cosmos? https://closertotruth.com/video/how-v... Stay tuned for the next episode, where another FQxI member reveals their most cherished scientific inspiration.

Keywords: #Inlfationary_Cosmology #Multiverse #Pocket_universes

I think the only way we’ll ever be able to answer Kuhn’s question “Why is there anything at all instead of nothing?” that leaves no somethings unexplained is to start with absolute metaphysical nothing. Not the nothing of physicists that still contains the laws of physics, not the nothing that contains counteracting positive and negative energies, not the nothing that contains possibilities, etc.; but absolute nothing. We’ve always ruled this out because of the ex nihilo nihil fit (out of nothing, nothing comes) idea. But, I think there’s a way to start with nothing and not violate this principle.  If we start with nothing and end up with something, and because you can’t change nothing into something, the only way this could be is if that “nothing” was somehow actually a “something” in disguise.  Another way to say this is by using the analogy that you start with a 0 (e.g., "nothing") and end up with a 1 (e.g., "something").  We know you can't change a 0 into a 1, so the only way to do this is if that 0 isn't really a 0 but is actually a 1 in disguise, even though it looks like 0 on the surface.  That is, in one way of thinking, "nothing" just looks like "nothing".  But, if we think about "nothing" in a different way, we can see through its disguise and see that it's actually a "something".  So, “something" doesn't come out of "nothing".  Instead,  the situation we used to think of as "nothing" is actually a "something”. If "nothing" is actually a "something" in disguise, this would always have been the case, meaning that "something" always has been here.  But, at least we now have a clue on how to start and proceed in figuring out how that can be. The next step I think is to figure out why any normal thing like a book exists and then see if that can be applied to “nothing”. I think it can be. It’s hard to think about, of course, because our minds would not be there in “nothing”, but we can try our best.

  1. The Multiverse concept.

(0:32) … what I didn't understand is, when estimating the size of the multiverse, huge exponential numbers were given, but no units of measurement … (0:55) When I first met Andre [Lind] in person on the set of Closer to Truth, first season in 1999, I asked him about the units. Andre smiled and said units don't matter …

I think that Robert Kuhn is correct to question the size/ “units” issue in a multiverse. But the multiverse concept is wrong anyway, simply because to implement a multiverse requires a consciousness/ knowledge and creative INFRASTRUCTURE to exist OUTSIDE of every existing, and potential new, universe. The existence of an external logical infrastructure is necessary in order to implement the multiverse idea.

Mathematicians/ physicists get away with the multiverse concept simply because they have never acknowledged the invisible logical infrastructure that underlies ALL visible mathematics. This supporting logical infrastructure is provided by the consciousness and agency of the mathematicians and physicists themselves, so it is unacknowledged/ invisible/ hidden.

  1. Why not nothing?

(2:06) … Closer to Truth has focused on: “Why is there anything at all, why not nothing?”

“Why not nothing?” is a question we can’t fully answer. We can potentially explain the physical world (i.e. the universe) we inhabit as being due to the world being a type of standalone, self-sufficient thing that has consciousness and creative aspects, the world we see being a consequence of the playing out of these consciousness and creative aspects. But we can’t explain why these consciousness and creative aspects exist in the first place.

    Lorraine Ford
    Re the mathematical universe/ multiverse concept (continued):

    Mathematics is not mathematics.

    Almost all, if not all, of mathematics is made up of the consciousness and the agency of mathematicians. But mathematicians never seem to notice themselves and the part they play in mathematics; they (wrongly) seem to assume that the mathematical symbols represent every necessary aspect of mathematics.

    So, there can be no such thing as a mathematical universe WITHOUT a logical infrastructure that plays the same part that human mathematicians play in man-made mathematics.

    With a single mathematical universe, this necessary logical infrastructure can be internal to the system. But with a multiverse, the logical structure must be external to all the existing universes, and all the potential new universes coming on.

    Because mathematicians never seem to notice themselves and the part they play in mathematics, they never seem to notice that a multiverse would require an extensive logical infrastructure that would need to be explained.

      Lorraine Ford
      Re: Why not nothing?

      The world can’t be explained solely in terms of a description of aspects that seem to exist:

      • Categories (e.g. energy, mass, position, acceleration, velocity);
      • Relationships that have been inferred to exist between the categories (i.e. laws of nature); and
      • Numbers that apply to the categories.

      These aspects don’t explain how it could be that the world would know its own categories, relationships and numbers. So, it must be further inferred that a fundamental-level consciousness/ knowledge aspect is possessed by the world (or by small parts of the world).

      These aspects also don’t explain why the world would ever move or change:

      • Why move from no categories to some categories?
      • Why move from no relationships to some (law-of-nature) relationships?
      • Why move from no numbers to some numbers (these numbers apply to the categories).
      • Why move from one number to another number? The delta symbols in the equations that represent laws of nature only represent number change IF other numbers change: i.e. the equations don’t explain why the world would ever initiate number movement or continue to initiate number movement.

      So, it must be yet further inferred that a fundamental-level creative aspect is possessed by the world (or by small parts of the world).

      These higher-level inferences, i.e. that fundamental-level consciousness/ knowledge aspect exists and that a fundamental-level creative aspect exists, cannot explain WHY a knowledge aspect would exist in the world or WHY a creative aspect would exist in the world.

      So, we can’t explain: “Why not nothing?”. We can only explain that, if there is something, then these are the necessary aspects of that something.

        Lorraine Ford
        Isn't ' number' itself a higher level concept? What the world has is quantities, separations, people sometimes produce a ranking of items under consideration., all of which can be quantified by a person or device designed for that task.

          Georgina Woodward
          Everything in the human mind is seemingly a higher-level concept. And, of course, mathematicians have very high-level, highfalutin concepts about numbers. But the real-world numbers, categories and relationships of physics are very low-level aspects of the world.

          @"Lorraine Ford"#873II 7
          I don't doubt that matter resosonds to other matter accorng to what exists and is happening without names or numbvers, which are parts of lzanguages,

            Georgina Woodward
            Georgina, why do you never pause to think or to check your spelling?

            Everything in the human mind is seemingly a higher-level conscious concept. And, of course, mathematicians have very high-level, highfalutin concepts and ideas about numbers. But the real-world numbers, categories and law-of-nature relationships of physics are very low-level aspects of the world.

            These numbers, categories, and relationships are no accident, and no mistake: they are mathematically necessary aspects of the real-world system.

            High-level human minds can consciously conceptualise the low-level number, category, and relationship aspects of the world. But it is logically necessary that the low-level world ALSO, in its own way, knows its own numbers, categories, and relationships. Obviously, this necessary aspect of the low-level world is the foundation out of which higher-level knowledge/ consciousness is built.

            The question of what exists, and what can be inferred to exist, is quite separate to the question of measurement, and the units of measurement. Only the categories can potentially be measured; the low-level numbers can't be measured because they are the result of measurement; laws of nature can't be measured; consciousness/ knowledge can't be measured. However, people CAN represent numbers, laws of nature, and consciousness/ knowledge with special symbols.

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