First things first. I’m more than willing to accept that it’s possible that there are many worlds or that there’s a multiverse. I’m even willing to accept that many worlds actually exist. However, I’m not willing to accept the titillating, sexy and self-obsessive crap that’s said about them by some scientists, and which the New Scientist gleefully quotes.
The following essay isn’t a scientific or metaphysical take on the existence (or not) of many worlds. It’s a take on some of the silly things which have been said about them by scientists.
Yet, like the science writer Philip Ball, most readers will see the appeal of many worlds.
Ball writes:
“Alternative realities hold an irresistible allure. Whether it’s Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life, or the quantum-computed parallel universes of Alex Garland’s recent TV series Devs, the possible lives that we can imagine having led but did not lead offer a stage for acting out our fears and fantasies.”
Ball then ties that to the science — or, more precisely, to interpretations of the science. He continues:
“It is no surprise, then, that the Many Worlds interpretation (MWI) of quantum mechanics seems to hold such attraction. Even though most physicists dismiss or even deride it, it is often eagerly embraced by physics popularizers and their audiences. Yet it can be hard to figure out how seriously some of its advocates really take it. I believe some physicists genuinely see it as an elegant solution to deep conundrums of the notoriously mind-bending quantum theory, and I sympathize with some of their reasoning. But when they start talking about ‘quantum brothers’ (and presumably sisters, though Many Worlds has curiously few female advocates) [] I have to wonder whether, indifferent to the philosophical complications, they are just enjoying the fantasy.”
… “[j]ust enjoying the fantasy”.
And many people may now say: And what’s wrong with that?
Nothing.
As long as we all realise that’s precisely what it is: people just enjoying the fantasy.
And it’s not as if Philip Ball has just made all this stuff up.
For example, according to the science writer John Gribbin, “[t]here really is [] a Wuthering Heights world (but not a Harry Potter world)”.
The New Scientist writer Rowan Hooper himself implicitly expresses the vanity — or fear — of many of these deep words about many worlds in the following passage:
“If the multiverse is real [] there always will be a universe in which ‘you’ are alive, no matter how long you play.”
Isn’t this a (scare-quoted) “scientific” version of the afterlife posited by religions? Indeed, it’s not much more sophisticated than that. (It may even be less sophisticated.) It actually reminds me of the spiritual idealist Bernardo Kastrup’s words on the afterlife, which are also equally reassuring to his disciples.
In a video called ‘When We Die and The Meaning of Life’, Kastrup offers his viewers the following (as one of them puts it) “very reassuring” words:
“Under analytical idealism, your core subjectivity remains as you as you go through the process of death, and even after. Because your core subjectivity is the core subjectivity of nature. It’s what exists. Where is it going to go? Life and death happen to it — within it. Life and death are events in core subjectivity, not at the beginning and end of core subjectivity.”
In any case, Philip Ball himself goes into the science (or lack thereof) of many worlds, which I won’t be doing in this essay. However, I will be making various logical points. That said, my main theme will be the psychological self-obsessions of the scientists who feel the need to speak about many worlds in the way that they do.
[A strong distinction can be made between the many worlds of Hugh Everett (i.e., his rejection of the collapse of the wave function), and the various scientific theories about the multiverse, which only tangentially mention wave-function collapse. However, these distinctions don’t really impinge on the issues discussed in this essay.]
So let’s start with the Machine Learning researcher, physicist and writer Max Tegmark.
Max Tegmark on Many Worlds
In an interview with the New Scientist’s Rowan Hooper, Max Tegmark said the following:
“‘I feel a strong kinship with parallel Maxes, even though I never get to meet them. They share my values, my feelings, my memories — they’re closer to me than brothers.”
[Recall Philip Ball’s earlier words: “But when they start talking about ‘quantum brothers’ [].”]
How does Tegmark know anything about these “parallel Maxes”?
Does he simply do so according to the probabilities which are vital to many-worlds theory? In other words, if there really are infinite worlds, then Parallel Maxes surely must “share [Tegmark’s] values, [his] feelings, [his] memories”…
But what a weird route to kinship this is.
Tegmark has a “strong kinship” with Parallel Maxes simply because, according to many-worlds theory, they must exist. However, he hasn’t met any of these Parallel Maxes. He hasn’t any direct experience of them. Thus, even if Parallel Maxes do exist, then why does Tegmark feel kinship with them — if there are no causal interactions whatsoever between himself and these “counterparts” at all?
Is this a gross misuse of the word “kinship”, or am I simply being pedantic here?
In other words, are these Parallel Maxes purely logical constructions — or even like David Lewis’s “counterparts”?
Another thing is that if there are infinite Parallel (or Possible) Maxes in infinite possible worlds, then why do all of them share Tegmark’s values, feelings and memories? Some Parallel Maxes must do so, according to the logic of many-worlds theory. However, infinite Parallel Maxes won’t.
So why does Tegmark believe that all Possible Maxes share all his values, feelings and memories? If every possible Tegmark exists, then many Maxes — infinite Maxes — must also be serial killers, self-obsessed narcissists, paedophiles, dictators, etc.
Rowan Hooper also tells us that Tegmark’s
“cosmic perspective makes it difficult for [him] to feel sorry for himself: there’s always another Max who has it worse than him” .
Shouldn’t Hooper have told his readers that there’s also a Parallel Max who “has it” better than Our Tegmark too? There’s also an infinite number of Parallel Maxes who have it almost exactly the same as him. And there’s also infinite Parallel Maxes who have it slightly better, slightly worse, much worse, much better, etc. than Tegmark @ our world.
So, with all these possibilities, one wonders what the point is.
Indeed, one wonders why Tegmark should single out the Parallel Max who “has it worse than him”, and not the infinite Maxes who have it better than him.
As before, Tegmark may single out the Parallel Max who has it worse than him purely because this serves an emotional and moral purpose. However, that’s just a fact about the psychology of Max Tegmark @ our world. It has little to with the metaphysics, science or logic of many worlds or the multiverse.
In other words, many-worlds theory has provided Tegmark with a playground in which he can do various things. Indeed, Hooper says that Tegmark can “learn some lessons” from these many worlds. Yet it must also be said that many other people will learn very different lessons — even ones that directly contradict Tegmark’s own — when they also think about many worlds.
Perhaps Tegmark wouldn’t deny any of this.
Again, what point does thinking about infinite Parallel Maxes serve?…
Well, Our Tegmark himself tells us:
“The multiverse has definitely made me a happier person. It’s given me the courage to take chances to be bold in life.”
Readers may wonder if Tegmark would believe in the multiverse had it made him an unhappier person. And what if its existence had made him cowardly by stopping him from taking chances in life? After all, why shouldn’t deep thought about many worlds have these negative effects on people too? Indeed, according to the logic of many worlds, it will do. What’s more, there’ll also be an infinite number of Parallel Maxes who’re made unhappy when they think about many worlds.
For Tegmark, many-worlds talks serves a moral and emotional purpose. And in order for that to work, he must ignore all the Parallel Maxes who’re evil, dull, without interest, etc.
Consequently, this contemplation of Parallel Maxes just seems like a vanity project on Tegmark’s part.
Indeed, according to Shannon Hall, Tegmark “has even calculated the distance you would have to travel to meet your doppelganger”. Apparently, it would be “1 followed by a hundred thousand trillion trillion trillion zeros” metres.
So is the multiverse personal therapy for Tegmark?
Perhaps it is, and there’s no problem with that. Yet this therapy has little to with the science, metaphysics and logic of the multiverse. But, again, perhaps Tegmark and others wouldn’t claim otherwise.
Now take the words of a professor of mechanical engineering, Seth Lloyd.
Seth Lloyd on Many Worlds
Is it ethics/morality, religion or even politics which drives these statements on many worlds?
Seth Lloyd, for example, tells us that he’s “always enjoyed the gradual marginalisation of humanity”. He adds that many-worlds theory is “really like the ultimate step in the marginalisation of human beings”. What’s more, he “enjoy[s] that” marginalisation.
Some readers may wonder why it’s better to talk about the “marginalisation of humanity” than it is to go all anthropic and (as it were) big up humanity (i.e., in terms of its place on the cosmic stage).
Instead, why not do neither?
It can even be argued that Seth Lloyd’s delight in the marginalisation of humanity belongs to exactly the same mindset as that of those who big up humanity. In other words, all he’s doing is inverting this (as it were) binary opposition, and thus playing exactly the same game.
[This is just as the existentialists inverted religious people’s stress on “the meaning of life, the universe and everything” by stressing the absurdity and/or meaninglessness of life, the universe and everything. See my ‘Life and the Universe are Neither Meaningless nor Meaningful’.]
To explain in more detail.
Many religious people — and others too — have stressed the profound importance of (what Seth Lloyd calls) “humanity” in the Universe. Lloyd stresses humanity too. It just so happens that he focuses on humanity by marginalising it.
The happy medium is to neither to big up humanity, nor to marginalise it.
More carefully. In some contexts, the importance of humanity can easily be made. However, in other contexts, its lack of importance can also be made. Moreover, the stress on the marginalisation of humanity by a member of humanity (using the highly-sophisticated theories of humanity to do so) just seems bogus or even self-contradictory.
This isn’t to argue that humanity should be bigged up because members of it came up with many-worlds theory itself (which can be used to marginalise humanity). However, many-worlds theory, depending on context, shouldn’t really be used to marginalise humanity either.
Indeed, Seth Lloyd marginalising humanity could even be seen as him bigging himself up in the process — and he’s a member of humanity.
Crudely, are there any other beings marginalising themselves in other worlds?
Now for Canadian theoretical physicist and “evangelical Christian” Don Page:
Don Page on Many Worlds
Don Page takes the biscuit when he brings God into the many-worlds equation. He states:
“God won’t collapse the wave function to cure people of cancer, or prevent earthquakes or whatever, because that would make the universe much more inelegant.”
Don Page is motivated by aesthetics and theism — at least in this passage. He believes that if God collapsed the wave function, then that would be aesthetically “inelegant”. In other words, curing people of cancer and preventing earthquakes would be — at our world — inelegant.
This means that Page’s God doesn’t collapse the wave function for aesthetic reasons. Instead, we have many worlds in which every possibility is instantiated. (Including starvation, deadly diseases, rape, war, etc.)
This is bizarre stuff.
Anyway, that’s Don Page on God’s personality.
What about Page on the personalities of what he calls “many-worlds experts”?
Page happily admits that he’s
“somewhat relieved to find that even many-worlds experts ultimately behave in much the same way as people who know nothing of it”.
However, Page concludes by saying that he’s “also realised that it shapes the way they think about their decisions”.
My first thought is that most many-worlds experts don’t think about many worlds in the (religious and theistic) way in which he does. In other words, they don’t use it as a tool in theology, personal morality, and whatnot. That said, Page went onto say that thinking about many worlds did “shape” the “decisions” of the experts who did the thinking. However, that shaping results in them “behaving] in much the same way as people who know nothing of it”.
So, again, what’s the point of all this stuff about many worlds?
Note:
Most of the quotes in the essay above come from the New Scientist book The Universe Next Door. The passages from Philip Ball don’t come from that book.
