
The Multiverse Is an Ancient Idea - dnetesn
http://cosmos.nautil.us/short/128/the-multiverse-is-an-ancient-idea
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lappet
I wish there was more focus on non-Western philosophy in such articles. Often
there are one or two Greek philosophers, one or two Muslim philosophers and a
brief mention of something something Buddhist philosophy. What about Hindu
philosophy? What about Chinese philosophy? I can ascertain that the two facets
he describes, cyclical nature of universe[1] and multiverse[2] are both part
of Hindu philosophy. I wish there was more focus on diversity of ancient
thought. Time travel is something that was alluded to in many ancient cultures
and is a vast topic, imo[3]

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheel_of_time](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheel_of_time)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kakudmi#Meeting_with_Brahma](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kakudmi#Meeting_with_Brahma)

[3]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_travel#History_of_the_tim...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_travel#History_of_the_time_travel_concept)

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ianai
I agree with you in spirit, but I also realize this is a piece on the
internet. If you want something completely definitive then you should be
looking elsewhere.

As Emerson said "round every circle a larger can always be drawn" (paraphrase)

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lappet
Of course. Thing is - I think I understand the goals of the
publication(Nautilus) and want them to be better - it would benefit everyone.

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ianai
You know more about nautilus than I do. Would they usually have covered all
major viewpoints? Beyond the top three but all the way to, say, top 20 (just
for instance).

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Avshalom
So there's an essay I thought it was called The Scientist and The Sage by
Asimov (or Sagan?) but I can't currently find a link.

The point though is that there's only a couple useful things you can say about
the universe: it has a definite begin and a definite end, an infinite
beginning and no end, some combination of that, or it's cyclical... and
because there's a very limited set of possibilities it's trivial to find an
ancient sage opining on something that sounds like the big bang and the heat
death of the universe.

Similarly either this universe is all there is or 'the multiverse' which means
it's very easy to find historic sources spouting off things that sound like a
multiverse. With out actual evidence, math, _science_ behind it though it's
not interesting that they came to this conclusion because simply guessing that
this is the way of things doesn't push our understanding forward.

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chmike
I don't think that _evidence_ is what would determine if it's worth of
scientific study. For me it's _testability_ the criteria. If the thesis is
testable it's worth of scientific study because we will learn something form
the test result.

If a thesis is not testable, it's just an idea in millions (i.e. existence of
God). The validity will remain undetermined and there is nothing to learn from
studying it.

The concept of _evidence_ defines a narrower scope.

The testability is determined by the existence of constrains that must be
satisfied.

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tantalor
Of course; even "this new idea is actually old idea" is an old idea:
Ecclesiastes 1:9, "The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and
that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing
under the sun."

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bmuon
Nautil.us seems to be obsessed with the multiverse. This seems to be related
to "Fake physics":
[https://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=9053](https://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=9053)

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nautilus
Nautilus Cosmos is a special project exploring astrobiology, fine tuning, the
multiverse and dark matter. That is the reason for the amount of focused
content.

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justinpombrio
Do physicists take the multiverse idea seriously? Specifically, the one in the
article that says that there are multiple universes each with _different_
physical laws? (This is very different from QM many worlds, where universes
share the same laws.)

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akvadrako
Most physicists don't think about other universes with other physical laws
because they don't really affect what we see.

Cosmologists interested in fine-tuning might.

Quantum foundation theorists often consider alternatives, not because they
think they are real, but because it's useful to understand why QM has the form
it does. Mostly their results suggest QM is difficult to modify without
becoming trivial or useless.

I think the drive comes more from the metaphysical direction. It's hard to
imagine why one set of laws would emerge as physical unless all sets of laws
are physical, just by virtue of existing mathematically.

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ankurdhama
Anyone who proposes multiverse theory (or any theory for that matter) please
include the process to test it and if you can't then please don't waste people
time. Always remember the idea of scientific method.

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dahdum
Nautil.us breaks the back button on Chrome.

To recreate...click the link and scroll down a bit, they fill your history
with the same page, so you can't use the back button.

Dark pattern or honest mistake?

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kneel
Seriously annoying whatever they're doing.

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evv555
Multiverse isn't just an ancient idea. It's the center piece of pre-modern
philosophy.

Bruno and Leibniz were arguing from the plenitude principle. The principle
asserts "the universe contains all possible forms of existance". The idea is
introduced by Plato's ontology from which everything after is arguably a
derivative.[1]

1\.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_plenitude](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_plenitude)

