a new proof for the truth of string theory
The proof presented in my previous blog post has meanwhile be examined by many commentators (two) and I have now enough confidence to use its structure in a slightly different context.
1) String theory is the possible 'theory of everything', underlying the physical reality of our world Wo.
2) We know that s.t. leads us to the concept of a multiverse M which contains our world, but many other possible worlds too: M = {Wo, W1, W2, W3 ...}.
3) It is possible that one of those worlds contains evidence for the truth of s.t. (e.g. the energy scales are such that it is easy for physicists to probe the Planck scale).
3b) Therefore M contains at least one world Wst where s.t. is evidently true.
4) But if s.t. is evidently true for one world Wst, then it must be true for all worlds in M.
5) Therefore s.t. is evidently true for our own world Wo.
6) You will notice that the above conclusions are independent of detailed assumptions about the (composition of) multiverse M.
I am aware that this is a physicist's proof and look forward to mathematicians formalizing it in the decades to come.
Also, I am sure that some string theorists already use this argument implicitly, but I still think there is some value in making it explicit.
a new proof for the existence of God ...
... from assumptions about many worlds.
I believe the following proof is a variation of Plantinga's ontological argument and continues my theological studies. But I think this new argument is sufficiently different from those previous attempts and therefore should be interesting to the reader.
1) We assume the existence of a multiverse M, which contains all possible worlds. [*]
2) M contains our world Wo.
3) It is possible that there is a world Wg created by the omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent God.
3b) Therefore M contains the world Wg which was evidently created by God.
4) If M = { Wo, W1, W2, ... Wg ... } contains one world created by God then
we must assume God created all worlds in M (otherwise God would not be omnipresent).
5) Therefore, if we assume the existence of many worlds as above, it follows that our world Wo was created by God.
6) While the above conclusion is already sufficient, we can go one step further to clarify the
meaning of 5):
The existence and creation of our world is independent of other worlds (see first footnote),
therefore God created our world regardless of assumption 1). [**]
[*] M is not necessarily the multiverse of string cosmology or related to the many worlds of quantum theory; We only assume that M contains all possible worlds independently and independent of specific theories.
As you will notice, the infinite character of M does not really play a role
in the proof, so one need not worry about antinomies related to the set of all possible sets etc.
[**] Consider the sentence s = "If it rains in Australia, then my dog barks here in Vienna."
We know that the fact of a dog barking in Europe is independent of rain falling in Australia.
Therefore, if we know that s is indeed true, then we know that the dog barks (regardless of what happens in Australia).
added later: It seems that some have a problem with 3) which implies the *possibility* that God exists. I would recommend to re-read this previous blog post, in particular paragraph 2 and 3 and footnote [2], for an explanation why such atheistic doubt is not rational.
I believe the following proof is a variation of Plantinga's ontological argument and continues my theological studies. But I think this new argument is sufficiently different from those previous attempts and therefore should be interesting to the reader.
1) We assume the existence of a multiverse M, which contains all possible worlds. [*]
2) M contains our world Wo.
3) It is possible that there is a world Wg created by the omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent God.
3b) Therefore M contains the world Wg which was evidently created by God.
4) If M = { Wo, W1, W2, ... Wg ... } contains one world created by God then
we must assume God created all worlds in M (otherwise God would not be omnipresent).
5) Therefore, if we assume the existence of many worlds as above, it follows that our world Wo was created by God.
6) While the above conclusion is already sufficient, we can go one step further to clarify the
meaning of 5):
The existence and creation of our world is independent of other worlds (see first footnote),
therefore God created our world regardless of assumption 1). [**]
[*] M is not necessarily the multiverse of string cosmology or related to the many worlds of quantum theory; We only assume that M contains all possible worlds independently and independent of specific theories.
As you will notice, the infinite character of M does not really play a role
in the proof, so one need not worry about antinomies related to the set of all possible sets etc.
[**] Consider the sentence s = "If it rains in Australia, then my dog barks here in Vienna."
We know that the fact of a dog barking in Europe is independent of rain falling in Australia.
Therefore, if we know that s is indeed true, then we know that the dog barks (regardless of what happens in Australia).
added later: It seems that some have a problem with 3) which implies the *possibility* that God exists. I would recommend to re-read this previous blog post, in particular paragraph 2 and 3 and footnote [2], for an explanation why such atheistic doubt is not rational.
shape up
"I figured you might be able to give me some pointers. I need to shape up."
Lester Burnham
Well, there is this paper which explains 'why decoherence has not solved the measurement problem'. (It is pretty much the argument I used here to state the 'interpretation problem'.)
Then there is this talk about the divergence of perturbation series in QFT.
And finally there is this paper about the strong coupling limit of the Wheeler-deWitt equation.
please can you help me?
Recently, this problem came up in one of my pet projects:
Does anybody know the current state-of-the-art if one needs to distinguish a weak 1st order phase transition from a 2nd order transition with lattice simulations?
If you have an opinion please please let me know and leave a comment.
added later: It might help if I explain a little bit better what I am talking about.
In my pet project I am doing Metropolis simulations on a 4d lattice and the size is limited so that 32^4 is already 'very large'.
Of course, finite size scaling is an important tool, but I would like to know e.g. if it is still state-of-the-art to use the Binder cumulant, or if there are better ways to do this.
Also, one can try to directly identify meta-stable states, but what is the best technique to do so? I know that e.g. simple histograms were sub-standard already ten years ago.
I am also curious if people use partition function zeros in real problems and if something like this has become a standard tool in recent years.
I would appreciate any input e.g. pointers to articles or books that may be relevant. Please do not hesitate to post a comment (which you can do as anonymous).
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
