Don Page - Do Multiple Universes Surely Exist?

Multiple universes? How can scientists come to believe in more than one universe? The idea sounds astounding. Our universe is immense by itself. How could there be more than one? What's more, multiple universes can be generated by radically different mechanisms. But what's a 'universe' anyway? The whole vast ensemble of universes is now called a 'multiverse'.



Don N. Page is a Canadian theoretical physicist at the University of Alberta, Canada.


Closer to Truth, hosted by Robert Lawrence Kuhn, presents the world’s greatest thinkers exploring humanity’s deepest questions. Discover fundamental issues of existence. Engage new and diverse ways of thinking. Appreciate intense debates. Share your own opinions. Seek your own answers.

[AuditAmplifier]

That certainly took an interesting turn half-way through... sheesh...

[dongshengdi]

Working on a branch of physics called supersymmetry, Dr. James Gates Jr., discovered what he describes as the presence of what appear to resemble a form of computer code, called error correcting codes, embedded within, or resulting from, the equations of supersymmetry that describe fundamental particles. Gates asks, "How could we discover whether we live inside a Matrix? One answer might be Try to detect the presence of codes in the laws that describe physics." And this is precisely what he has done. Specifically, within the equations of supersymmetry he has found, quite unexpectedly, what are called "doubly-even self-dual linear binary error-correcting block codes." That's a long-winded label for codes that are commonly used to remove errors in computer transmissions, for example to correct errors in a sequence of bits representing text that has been sent across a wire. Gates explains, "This unsuspected connection suggests that these codes may be ubiquitous in nature, and could even be embedded in the essence of reality. If this is the case, we might have something in common with the Matrix science-fiction films, which depict a world where everything human being's experience is the product of a virtual-reality-generating computer network."

[jeffmckinnon]

Today I live in a world where we can't dismiss anything, no matter how strange.
If I look from my own perspective....
In 2001, my wife passed away and I went into full blown suicidal depression. I became a junkie with a pile of money and no desire to live. I decided to end it all with drugs. Every day I would take huge doses of cocaine and / or heroin. And every new morning I would just wake up. Angered and frustrated, I would double the dose and "Go Again" Yet still I would wake up the next day. The doses would get so strong that they were hardly liquid any more. Eventually I ran out of money, roughly a decade ago.
2 years ago, I had a heart attack and died. I still woke up the following morning, and the world just keeps pushing the boundaries of what is believable.
Over the years, I have lost many loved ones, yet I am still me, and I still keep waking up every single day. I have seen the possible and I have seen the unbelievable, but I have not been able to see death. I am not sure I believe in it any more.
Perhaps I died all of those times and simply jumped to another vibration where my wife still does not exist for me, and tomorrow always comes.

[jayjames]

What about each separate person exists in their own universe since no two people can occupy the same space and time, hence 9billion universes?

[marka.arcenas]

Your always great content it's interesting going to a university college without going to..respect and please keep this kind of content going

[bluelotus]

Someone who just for the sake of elegance creates infinite worlds with infinite sentient beings subjected to pain and death looks more like a fancy videogame monster than like a Divinity.

[orlovsskibet]

Me listening to Don: That doesn't sound like science...
4:35 - Oh it's not

[kipponi]

Like that they talking Everett multiverse. He was the man first suggested it.
He was father of EELS singer/songwriter.

[robinboyle]

This is something I started wondering when I was about 5 years old (I'm 76 now). I wasn't doing quantum physics as a child, but I started thinking that every time I made a decision somewhere else I made a different decision. This was a huge part of my childhood. So where's my Nobel Prize?

[ShutUpWesley]

I admit it, they had me in the first half.😭

[noisemagician]

I don't believe the universe splitting off when conscious beings make a decision.
What is more likely, that we don't fundamentally understand the universe and our theories are incorrect or that an entire universe ''splits'' off when you make a decision.
What does it mean to split off, how much energy does that require, how can making a decision generate energy to begin with, how can that energy be powerful enough to split a universe.

If you look at history every time we thought we had figured things out we encountered paradoxes, anomalies and inconsistency, when that happens usually a paradigm shift occures We came up with a better description of reality, I suspect that the same will happen this time with gravity, quantum mechanics and inflation.

[robbrown]

I think of the energy that looks after beings as likely a multi-billion year old energy from which we are offspring and from which we continue to evolve. We cannot fathom this energy in reality except to know its love and to attach ourselves to the process of loving as a way to move closer to its presence, and in so doing we might guarantee our survival as a species and learn something about from where we have come and to where we may be going.

[jamesruscheinski]

While there may be many other intelligent life in universe / cosmos, could also consider forms of existence beyond intelligence like humanity

[existncdotcom]

.“I refuse to answer that question on the grounds that I don’t know the answer.”  Existnc

[B.S...]

Since there are fewer variables in a multi-verse hypotheses, as chance replaces all the hidden variables needed to cause the initial conditions and constants of a single universe, Ockham's razor favors the multi-verse.

[beaconterraoneonline]

To be honest, I am always astonished when a scientists talks about a god … in a way that’s just … well yes god exists, no question at all; and gives a god a gender, etc.

[mrshankerbillletmein]

Why seculate about something that canot be observed

[mtgradwell]

It's quite simple really. There are universes in which multiple universes exist, and others in which they do not.

[henriknielsen]

The multiverse won't survive a run in with Ockham's razor

[Otenko]

thanks for continuing to ask questions