The Amazing Amazingness of Infinity
I was watching a documentary on the the LHC [1] last week. I’ve been interested in science all of my life, and all things quantum since my twenties. My views on life and what the universe could be have been influenced by Brian Greene, Steven Hawking, and a cavalcade of others that followed. I’m bright enough to absorb what the good Dr. Greene has dumbed down for the laity, but I’m no physicist.
So in watching this show on the LHC, I came across the Super Symmetry vs. Multiverse theory debate, and what the weight of the Higgs Boson had to do with it. In short, if the Higgs was found to have one mass, it would tend to favor one theory or the other.
If Super Symmetry is correct, than our universe is ‘natural’, the constants that determine how the universe works are self-emergent from the existence of the universe. If Multiverse Theory is correct, then our universe is just one random lucky universe in a near infinity of other universes that have different constants that divine the laws of nature.
It turns out that the LHC discovered the Higgs mass closer to the value predicted by Multiverse theory. Some scientists are a bit perturbed by this. They’re reluctant that come to terms with the idea that the universe we live in is a result of random chance. Or at least they think that the constants that determine the laws of our universe should be self-emergent, not left to chance.
That set off alarms in my lay-man’s brain. We’ve been here before. Einstein said something similar at the dawn of Quantum Mechanics. “God does not play dice with the universe.” Einstein was unwilling to accept the truth of a quantum universe, one where a particle was a probability rather than a certainty. The reluctance of some to accept that our universe is just a lucky happenstance strikes me as similar.
It’s difficult to come to terms with the idea that our existence, that all of existence, is nothing more than a winning lottery ticket. Billions of people turn to religion in the face of this very question. To a semi-outsider, it would appear that science is having a crisis of faith, the lines drawn between ‘naturally emergent’ and ‘randomly lucky’.
Both have some interesting philosophical implications if taken beyond the immediately testable science. In a ‘naturally emergent’ universe, there isn’t a different way the universe would evolve. The universe is self-tuning. In a multiverse scenario, there could be an infinity of universes that have different physical laws. Given the nature of infinity, there should be an infinity of universes that are identical to ours, as well as an infinity that are different.
Think about that. If multiverse theory is right, there could be another you, with the exact same experiences that have made up their life. For all intents they would be you, another you. In fact, given infinite universes, there should be an infinity of you. And you thought one in eight billion made you feel small and insignificant.
If Multiverse theory is correct, and to me it seems more likely than a self-regulating universe that turns out just right, you are one in an infinity. And you are AN infinity. That seems perfectly Heisnbergian. And not at the same time.
[1] The Large Hadron Collider, a physics experiment at CERN in Europe.
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