Talk:Multiverse/Archive 4

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

Archive 5

Stipulations on curvature?

A review of The Cosmic Landscape states that "the particular multiverse version proposed by Susskind, however, has the great virtue of being testable in one respect. It is supposed to have started out by quantum tunnelling, resulting in a spatially homogenous and isotropic universe with negative spatial curvature."^{Google it}, meaning that if our universe is not open this particular multiverse theory would be falsified. Will many multiverse theories result in open universes, or is this a particular case? If there is a tendency for multiverse theories to make stipulations on curvature, it seems like an interesting point to mention. Can someone please expand on this?--Wp500 (talk) 23:32, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

Its impossible and heres proof

if level one multiverse exsisted then somewhere everything must happen, happened and will happen and so, then this means somewhere out there a civilisation has took over the multiverse and made everything happen but its impossible to say, a person dies but also doesn't, so that means that this theory is impossible as two possibilites meet making impossibility, and then so how can two things happen in every universe as it must of happened because somewhere everything must happen and if everything must happen somewhere then somewhere a civilisation has blown up the multiverse and killed us all and countless other things and so infinite possible outcomes cant happen in every universe and so the level one multiverse theory is impossible unless, infinite impossibilities are possible. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Deanolympics (talk • contribs) 10:39, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

But since it's also possible that such a civilization never existed, there is a whole other set of universes never touched by them, and of course, lots of different sets that have been took over by other civilizations. Absolutes don't work the same at this level, somthing can be two or more different things at once; everything was destroyed and still exists, neither is a lie. --TiagoTiago (talk) 21:53, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

The proof is incomplete, because it is unproven that it is possible to blow up the multiverse. --MrBurns (talk) 00:58, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

the infinite universe theory, is wrong, they are just probability, they are not actualized, infact einstein and others point to some unknown mechanism(God) underneath the quantum mechanics, in which case makes this universe determinate. There are 7 universes, this is the "lowest universe". This Universe is steadily expanding, and the big bang was not how they describe it, but similar, the mainstream bigbang says that it was infinitely small and infinitely hot, and that it has been expanding and cooling ever since, however this makes no sense, as there is no observable evidence that the centre of the universe is hotter, the truth is God did the big bang, and did it according to his will. this universe also has other planes, or atleast one other plane, which is a plasma realm, the physics in the electric-plasma plane alongside our universe is capable of sustaining(and maybe evolving) sentient life forms. So there is 7 universes, ours being the lowest, plasma is the main form of matter, we have a parallel plane/dimension to ours, the big bang is real, but is performed by God(beyond our comprehension), and the universe is steadily expanding. It could also crunch in on itself, and be reborn. I hope this information makes sense to you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.175.1.221 (talk) 23:51, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Speculation. I don't believe any magical god did it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.3.63.21 (talk) 11:25, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Nobody's saying that God is magic, they are just suggesting that the Universe came from a Singularity (Created by God). This is not such a giant leap when you think about it, without a force that is and always has been, we would become trapped in 'What caused the Big Bang? Well what caused the cause of the Big Bang?' We would be faced with a neverending series of questions and answers. Also, the idea of a multiverse is speculation at this point. There is no hard evidence for a multiverse, (and most likely never will be) because we can only measure what is in our universe. It seems to be much more philosophical than scientific. One last thing I'd like to add: Saying that there is an infinite number of universes is in no way, shape, or form scientific, because to measure an infinite, it would take infinitely long. Hyblackeagle22 (talk) 01:58, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Contradiction

Isn't there something fundamentally wrong with the notion of a multiverse? If the Universe is all there is, how can there be multiple Universes? Either it is everything - or it isn't. If there is another Universe, than isn't it really a part of the Universe that we don't know or can't detect? Shouldn't the Multiverse be called the Universe and each Universe in the Multiverse be called something else - some part of the Universe? I know they are just words, but words are important.206.109.195.126 (talk) 00:54, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree with you, but that isn't how the words have come to be used. BTW, shouldn't this be at the bottom of the talk page? --Michael C. Price ^talk 01:34, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

When they were first discovered, Galaxies were called "island universes", but now that we know there is more than one of these, we don't call the Milkyway the universe anymore. Originally, Andromeda was thought to be a nebula within the Milky Way, but it turned out to be a galaxy instead. In all likelihood, the word universe in religious texts probably referred not to the galaxy or universe as we know it but only an aggregation of stars (heavens) visible by the unaided eye. This highlights a trend, which if continued, would imply that the current universe would lose its "universe" label if another one was discovered several trillion light years away by using a more advanced telescope.Kmarinas86 ^(6sin8karma) 03:54, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

From my understanding, the fundamentals of the multiverses go as follows. The all began through the same EXACT process, presumablely the Big Bang Theory. From then, the exact same groups of mass are moving in exactly the same direction at the exact same time as the mass groups of the other 'Universes'. From then, the same mass groups move to through the same points, the 'gas and dust' moving along the same paths, attracting into the same interstellar clouds, or nebulas, as are in our universe. From there the same galaxies formed, creating the same nebula that formed our sun, form the same sun in another universe. And the gravity the sun possess caused the forming planetesimals to orbit, and form in the exact same sequence as the ones in our universe, causing what they theorized as a "Parallel Universe". Please correct me if I'm wrong. -PoofyGoofyMike 7:06 PM central time 15th, April of 2009. —Preceding unsigned comment added by GoofPoofyMike (talk • contribs) 00:07, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

No, this question is more philosophical than anything. The idea that there are multipule universes is fine, but the idea of the word "uni" only means that we can observe what we can see or detect. Somebody said this (not really sure who) "To existist is to be precieved." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 153.90.173.157 (talk) 21:19, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

There is no contradiction in the idea of "multiverse". The problem is contradicting plural/singular and definitions of words. If you use the following words/definitions, there is no contradiction:

UniVerse = everything that exists. If anything was "outside the universe", then the definition of "universe" would expand to include that too. There is exactly 1 UniVerse and it may be a MultiVerse. Verse = any Cross_section_(geometry) of the UniVerse. There are less cross-sections of the universe than there are Subsets of the universe. The UniVerse and every MultiVerse is a Verse. MultiVerse = any Set_(mathematics) of Verses.

BenRayfield (talk) 14:53, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

I find the talk of multiverse or multiverses useful mostly for providing good examples of incoherent use of language. It may be useful to talk of there being various domains in the universe (depending upon what one wants to single out), but usually if someone says "everything plus everything else", we recognize it as a bit of humor.

Why all the crazy science?

Why do you need all this stuff about the universes being in different dimensions or having different physics? Wouldn't it be much simpler to say that out beyond the border of our universe there is some empty space and eventually another universe trillions of light years away? --67.193.45.183 (talk) 03:00, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

One would think....Jjdon (talk) 23:30, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

That's not really what the idea of a multiverse is. If you could travel there by going however many trillion miles from earth it would still be part of our universe, just far away from Earth. There isn't anything 'outside' space in our universe - the space IS the universe, and there is literally nothing outside it, because it doesn't exist, which is what makes the concept of multiverse so radical and why other dimensions, etc. needed to account for the concept. Cvislay (talk) 03:41, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Fictional multiverses section

Does this unreferenced and trivial section serve any real purpose? Are there any fictional multiverses of any genuine historic importance (e.g. ones that led to new cosmological hypotheses)? As the section stands, wouldn't it be better just to have a link to Parallel universe (fiction) in the see-also section? Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 05:05, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

I understand your argument, I think perhaps what we should do would be to replace the content in the Fictional Multiverses section with a few notable fictional multiverses, and anyone who wants to learn more should go to the page you mentioned or to the page on the specific multiverse mentioned. What I mean would be to replace the content in this section with a list of links to other pages. Such as a bullet for TV, with an example of two; a bullet for literature, with an example or two; a bullet for film, with an example or two; and so on and so on, with each example being a link to a page where more specified information can be found.--BigBang616 (talk) 06:29, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

The trouble is that none of the fictional universes inserted to date have been demonstrated to be "notable" under wikipedia criteria: "has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject." This is where the unsourced element becomes so pernicious. Simply turning this non-notable trivia from prose into an embedded list doesn't make this any better. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 08:41, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

According to Wikipedia: "If an article currently does not cite reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject, that does not necessarily mean the topic is not notable." So, just because they don't have "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject" does not mean they are not notable. And you're right, changing this from prose to an embedded list doesn't make it any better. I was just trying to find a compromise between deleting the section entirely and the section in which these multiverses are mentioned in prose. And please don't delete the section again, according to Wikipedia guidelines: presenting information poorly is better than not presenting it at all.--BigBang616 (talk) 17:24, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

"The common theme in the notability guidelines is the requirement for verifiable objective evidence to support a claim of notability." Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 17:45, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

I didn't claim, within the article, that the information was notable, I told you, in this discussion, that I considered fictional multiverses notable. Do you want me to put a reference at the end of the section header to a place an article that discusses fictional multiverses? And all notability is subjective, what I think is notable, is obviously not to you, regardless of what I think. I just think this section should (a) remain here, and if you don't like that then change the section to the way you do like it, and (b) DISCUSS it rationally with me (QUOTING DOESN'T COUNT AS DISCUSSING, I could quote whatever I want all day and it won't have any impact). —Preceding unsigned comment added by BigBang616 (talk --BigBang616 (talk) 19:16, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't give a pair of fetid dingo's kidneys what you "claim" -- I, and wikipedia policy, care about EVIDENCE, hence my quoting to you "verifiable objective evidence to support a claim of notability." If you can find a scholarly WP:RS discussing fictional multiverses generally, then that is a reasonable basis for including a brief general discussion, sourcable to this reference, on fictional multiverses. If you want to provide specific examples you need to provide "verifiable objective evidence" that they are sufficiently noteworthy to warrant inclusion (and no, Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe: Alternate Universes 2005 does not count as "objective"). Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 04:01, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Look, I don't know if you get it, but AS I KEEP MENTIONING, I would like to discuss this before you do anything drastic YET AGAIN. And yes, the Official Handbook does indeed count as a source, apparently you didn't check, or care to check, out the source. Also, it is a work in progress, I will eventually fill out the sources more thoroughly, and will continue to restore the section no matter how many times you delete it. So, until you're willing to discuss this before deleting it again, I will see you then.--BigBang616 (talk) 04:05, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Per WP:NOTE, Marvel publications are not "independent of the subject" nor are they "objective". Per WP:RS they are not "scholarly". They may be sufficient of a source for a fancruft article on the Marvel-related subjects, but not for a serious science article on cosmology. If you insist on reinserting this irrelevant fancruft, I will continue deleting it.

You don't get it at all, do you? I'm trying to have a rational discussion with you, trying to discuss the potential of making changes, trying to come up with a compromise before any changes are made, but what do you keep doing? You read what I'm saying, take a few words out of it, use them in an "argument" against what I said, then do whatever you want. Please, just consider the idea of a compromise between what you want, entire deletion, and what I want mention of the content (all the content) that's already there. I know you'll completely disregard this, do whatever you want (delete change, whatever) without even considering what I'm saying, but I still feel compelled to bring up the idea of a rational discussion. --BigBang616 (talk) 05:12, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Re your recent reverts:

• What excuse have you got for your repeated restoring of the wholly unsourced first and third paragraphs of this section, in violation of WP:PROVEIT?
• What evidence do you have that the Marvel & DC multiverses are of "historic importance", or in the slightest bit noteworthy outside comics-fandom?

As to the general progress of the article, as I have stated before:

• Generally discussion of fictional multiverses requires a scholarly WP:RS discussing them.
• Specific examples requires verifiable objective evidence that they are noteworthy.

Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 05:37, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

You know what, you win. I'm tired of this whole thing. You're right. This is a science/fact-based article and the information I'm trying to save belongs somewhere else, in another article about fiction, just as you suggested. I won't interfere or undo your removal of the section again. You have won. --BigBang616 (talk) 05:39, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Ultimate ensemble (?) vs Schmidhuber's constructive ensemble

The section on Level IV says: "Other mathematical structures give different fundamental equations of physics. This level considers "real" any hypothetical universe based on one of these structures. Since this subsumes all other possible ensembles, it brings closure to the hierarchy of multiverses: there cannot be a Level V. The question is open whether or not scientists will subdivide Level IV in the future."

But Level IV either does not make sense or is already subdivided. Jürgen Schmidhuber says the "set of mathematical structures" is not even well-defined, and admits only universe representations describable by constructive mathematics, that is, computer programs. He explicitly includes universe representations describable by non-halting programs whose output bits converge after finite time, although the convergence time itself may not be predictable by a halting program (Kurt Gödel's limitation). Sources: J. Schmidhuber: A Computer Scientist's View of Life, the Universe, and Everything. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, pp. 201-208, Springer, 1997: http://www.idsia.ch/~juergen/everything/ 2. Algorithmic Theories of Everything" http://www.idsia.ch/~juergen/toesv2/ or http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0011122 (2000) 3. Hierarchies of generalized Kolmogorov complexities and nonenumerable universal measures computable in the limit. International Journal of Foundations of Computer Science 13(4):587-612, 2002 http://www.idsia.ch/~juergen/kolmogorov.html . He also explicitly discusses another subdivision, namely, quickly computable universes: The Speed Prior: A New Simplicity Measure Yielding Near-Optimal Computable Predictions. Proc. 15th Annual Conference on Computational Learning Theory (COLT 2002), Sydney, Australia, Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence, pp. 216-228. Springer, 2002. http://www.idsia.ch/~juergen/speedprior.html . See his web site for more: http://www.idsia.ch/~juergen/computeruniverse.html . The text should be edited accordingly. Discrepancy (talk) 20:47, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Islamic view

Hrafn, what is the position you think I'm trying to advance to? doesn't Islam believe that there are seven heavens? isn't this what the article is talking about? Imad marie (talk) 10:57, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

The Qur'anic verse that you cited made no mention of "Dunyah", let alone that "Dunyah encompasses the entire universe as we know it, including the Earth". It is unclear whether this is WP:SYNTH of this verse, your ownWP:OR or simply an independent unverified claim, but either way it is impermissible. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 11:41, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

My mistake, I copied from Seventh Heaven. I will refine. Imad marie (talk) 11:58, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Would you mind telling me what the Islamic view of multiple heavens (which you have reverted to reinclude) has to do with a "hypothetical set of multiple possible universes"?

There are some Islamic scholars who interpret "heavens" as "universes", with their own physical laws. Imad marie (talk) 14:22, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

The trouble with this is (1) you have yet to cite a source for this 'interpretation' and (2) even if this interpretation were verified, a 'multiverse of heavens' has very little in common with the multiverses discussed in this article.

You don't find the religious view of this article related to Seventh Heaven? Imad marie (talk) 14:24, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

I've likewise templated the Islam section of Seventh Heaven, because it is equally WP:SYNTH that provides no secondary sources for its interpretation of the Qur'an. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 15:11, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Hrafn, I can find references for my claim, however this is controversial because no one knows for sure that the heavens mentioned in the Qur'an (or any other religious book) really refers to the Multiverse (as a physical universe). It's all theories and no one can be sure about it, this applies for Islam and any other religion. If you are against the religious interpretation of Multiverse then you should delete the section (hypotheses in religions around the globe). Imad marie (talk) 17:14, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

No. The Hindu version is very explicitly talking about a 'multiverse' in the same sense as the rest of the article -- multiple universes each with planets and inhabitants. Contrast this with the Islamic view, which is talking about multiple "heavens". Heavens are usually considered to be in some (generally very vaguely specified) way very different, and greatly better, than earthly existence. If they are 'universes' then they are very different universes from our own. Therefore the Hindu view has a reasonable claim to a place in this article, whereas the Islamic one belongs solely in an article on supernatural planes of existence (heaven(s), hell(s), limbo, etc). Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 17:55, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, I'm not an expert in Multiverse, so I'll just drop it off here. But I have to ask: does anyone really know the nature of those alleged (alternative universes)? No, no one knows, it's all just theories and this Multiverse is in the divine knowledge. Muslims think that there are other "heavens" with diffirent physical laws, and that God inhabits the seventh heaven. Aren't those universes? Imad marie (talk) 11:16, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

According to Heaven, it is a 'Plane of existence', rather than a 'universe'. While these concepts might, in some conceptions of them, overlap does not mean that they aren't generally considered distinguishable. The multiverse hypothesis is not talking about heavens, hells, or other such planes of existence. That some philosophers might conceive of such planes of existence as alternate universes is something that can (if WP:RSs can be found) be worked into Plane of existence, I do not think it belongs in this article. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 11:55, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't believe that passage justifies it's self, or have you my friend and I believe that it should be deleted. However I do understand that the when you translate from Arabic to English you loose information, could this possible be the case? I do not speak Arabic. Fakhr al-Din al-Razi makes no mention of cosmos or universes in the passage in 'islam and the cosmos'. Until there is a passage relating to this I think it should be removed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Joshsiret (talk • contribs) 22:22, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Understanding the Multiverse

Multiverse can be recognized as an infinite amount of universes, broken down as the following: for every particle in the universe there must be an infinite number of actualalitys of that particles existance. This can further be theorized as to state: each particle has an antiparticle, thus rendering an additional infinite count actualitys, which then might constitute multiverse as Infinity plus or minus --MrH3MinuteMile (talk) 19:35, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Please restrict yourself to discussion of improvements to the article, rather than discussion of the article topic more generally (per WP:TALK). Also, please cite reliable sources for claims you make. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk 04:52, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Posted here for review first while I work out the wording (and while I work out how to cite references :o) I'm going to add a reference to David Deutsch's paper about the structure of the multiverse: http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0104033 <quote> since quantum interactions are local, it must in the first instance be local physical systems, such as qubits, measuring instruments and observers, that are split into multiple copies, and this multiplicity must propagate across the multiverse at subluminal speeds. </quote> <quote> the Hilbert space structure of quantum states provides an infinity of ways of slicing up the multiverse into ‘universes’, each way corresponding to a choice of basis </quote> These quotes indicate that the multiverse is not a place where every single configuration of each entire universe exists. Instead, localised regions of the multiverse differ from each other and the effects of those differences are allowed to affect the rest of the universe at the speed of light (i.e., the speed of information). The concept of an almost infinite set of universes where everything that could possibly happen does happen causes many to reject the idea of the multiverse because it doesn't match with what we observe. We can instead think of a reality where, at a small scale, systems are exploring an enormous range of possibilities by spreading across the multiverse and in most cases interfering with each other to provide a single outcome across all universes (see inferometer). The vast majority of these extremely localised trips into the multiverse do not have any significant effect on the wider universe. However, in certain circumstances (when we specifically setup an experiment for schrodinger's cat or setup a roulette wheel) the random variations are amplified to create significant differences between macroscopic objects based on a small initial difference. Most physical processes in nature work to dampen down these differences rather than amplify them. When the differences get amplified, the multiverse does contain a (still localised, but with wider spread differences) set of different outcomes. —Preceding unsigned comment added by DavidBoden (talk • contribs) 06:46, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Criticisms

"Critics claim that these theories lack empirical correlation and testability, and without hard physical evidence are unfalsifiable; outside the methodology of scientific investigation to confirm or disprove."

Isn't this a moot point? The idea of a multiverse is strictly hypothetical, or even conjectural at most. No scientist is claiming these ideas to be actual scientific theories backed with empirical evidence, so the criticism is arguing a strawman. ScienceApe (talk) 20:51, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

Scientific theory? Perhaps not, but many scientists do believe and claim that the multiverse constitutes the reality of our universe (whatever that means). From that perspective, criticisms that the multiverse is untestable and unobservable are entirely justified. Remember, critics aren't necessarily opponents; some scientists just believe that actual scientific principles should be adhered to before making any grand pronouncements for the sake of human advancement/book sales.172.190.63.123 (talk) 00:55, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Can somebody explain why complete reference to the Hindu Multiverse (for it is that without debate) has been replaced by the spurious Islamic one? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.193.36.35 (talk) 21:44, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Dear Amulpra: The answer could be that the Hindu Multiverse is not about universes, but about the stratified intellects like those of Plato who must have copied from Hinduism. It is a religious belief just like the Druze philosophy of Lebanon and Syria. It is a world of thinking (soul) that goes from the earthly matter which is the lowest state of existence to the upper intellects seven times closer to the Grand Intellect. Be careful when you say spurious, you could be wrongly judged because the Islamic philosophy elaborated subjects never discussed before, like existentialism and the nature of the human thought in relation to the definition of God. Although based on the Greek Philosophy, the Islamic philosophy developed it and sometimes proved it wrong and challenged Aristotle in many issues. What the Islamic philosophers brought to humanity was sometimes inspired by the Hindu philosophy and at some instances was drifting away from the common religious faith rules. please read, perhaps by reading you will get closer to a better reality. Very respectfully, Noureddine (talk) 01:30, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

The term 'multiverse' is just hype and means either "richly varied universe" (or something close to that), or it means nothing at all, since it is semantically silly to speak of "plural universes" (unless it is in low popular lingo, such as "the universe of poodle fanciers and the universe of surfboarders", etc.). In science, language should be carefully used. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bwikiroa (talk • contribs) 18:51, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

What happened to Classification level III?

It seems as though the article discusses Level II, Universes with different physical constants, but jumps directly to Level IV, Ultimate ensemble. The history has become too deep to sift through, but what has happened to Level III? Would any one care to reiterate the forgotten classification? Or is it possible that the listed fourth classification has been incorrectly labeled?

cbirchle --168.215.198.8 (talk) 16:55, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Dualism

Should we mention the dualism of John Carew Eccles?

• Sir John Eccles is a dualist who won a Nobel Prize in 1963 for his work on the synapse. He believes mind or spirit is sepeate and distinct from the physical machine called the brain. [1]

Or how about Karl Popper's philosophical theory of reality that includes three interacting worlds? --Uncle Ed (talk) 19:28, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Request for Clarification of WMAP Cold Spot

In this article, I was thrown by the term'WMAP Cold Spot which appears in the first sentence of the main body text (below the introduction). What this is should be defined and/or clarified in the body of the text, as I doubt that a typical reader with a general interest in science would be familar with this. Such a reader shouldn't have to read a referenced article to obtain context, but should expect it to be explained at the high level within the article. As such, I request that this term either be explained or removed from the article. --Savlonn (talk) 20:34, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

George Ryazanov

I removed a reference to George Ryazanov for want of a reliable source. His own work The divine state of consciousness seems insufficiently notable. --Old Moonraker (talk) 09:16, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Religious and Philosophical Opinions

Is there any place for unqualified opinion in a physics article? I propose that religious and philosophical material on this page be removed, or moved to a "See Also" section, as they are known to be promotional, rely heavily on personal opinion, are not peer-reviewed within the community of experts in the relevant field of research, and are self-published, per Wikipedia:Verifiability#Sources. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Taigei (talk • contribs) 09:28, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

This is not a pure physics article. For example philosophy is a legitimate academic discipline and David Kellogg Lewis, advocate of modal realism, was a respected academic.Ht686rg90 (talk) 10:17, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Ok, and are religious and philosophical arguments excluded from the qualified sources rules here? For example, when I first read this article looking for some substantial information and criticism, I read the specified complexity reference, and found one page in 27 to mention anything about multiverse, and it was an opinion that David Deutsch's double-split experiment, revealing shadow photons, could be interpreted differently, without saying how. The reference itself is about the "chance of gaps" and argues for a creator. If Deutch's shadow photons are so important, why isn't Deutsch mentioned in the article? And why is this document arguing that there is a God, with no substantial, qualified or useful information about multiverse theory deserving presence? Taigei (talk) 02:36, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

You can find more at for example p. 9 and the "4. Four Widely-Discussed Inflatons" section. I am no friend of the specified complexity argument but it and William A. Dembski have some notability as part of the intelligent design movement so a brief mention of it and a link to the main article about specified complexity where it is discussed and criticized in more detail is not undue. Remember, Wikipedia does not decide which views are correct, it only presents and discuss the notable ones, even dubious ones if they are notable and popular. But maybe this section should be expanded to explain how Demski claims that specified complexity applies to multiverse theory.Ht686rg90 (talk) 10:25, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

I appreciate neutrality, but this is an issue of quality of source material. I will remove the entry in the near future for the following reasons in accordance with Wikipedia's policies on sources (Wikipedia:Verifiability#Sources):

1. Cited source has a reputation for poor "fact-checking and accuracy."
2. Cited material is self-published, does not appear in "peer-reviewed journals and books published in university presses; university-level textbooks; magazines, journals, and books published by respected publishing houses; and mainstream newspapers," or similarly qualified media.
3. Cited source and material expresses "views that are widely acknowledged as extremist, or promotional in nature, or which rely heavily on rumors and personal opinions."
4. Cited material is self-published by an author who is not "an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications."
5. Cited material substantially and clearly promotes a religious view which is not directly related to the article, given that less than ten percent of the source material gives any consideration for the topic of the article.

Taigei (talk) 21:15, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Distance between Universes

In this article, it says that 10^118 meters away, there is a universe identical to ours. But the problem is, how is it physically possible to talk about distance between two independent universes? Each universe has its own space and time, and there is nothing between them - no time or space, hence there is no "between". When there is no spacetime, we cant talk about time or distance - the two are fundamentally linked. Majopius (talk) 22:29, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

There is a theory, that our 4-dimensional universe is just a D-brane in a multi-dimensional space and that every universe is a D-brane. --MrBurns (talk) 16:36, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

That distance of 10^118 meters refers only to Level 1 universes, which, if the "theory" is correct, are in the same (infinite) 3-dimensional space we are in and are very far away. (Level 2 and higher are in different 3-d spaces.) If I understand it, the existence of infinite Level 1 "universes" depends on a model of cosmological inflation in which space inflated to infinity very soon after the big bang, and mass & energy either inflated to infinite amounts too or were already infinite at the time of the big bang. Otherwise there would be a finite number of them, greatly reducing the probability that one or more of them resemble the one we're in. The size of each Level 1 universe is somewhat arbitrary, based on the finite distance that light can travel in 13.7 billion years (or, more precisely the time since the big bang). In my opinion, the Level 1 terminology is somewhat misleading… one might as well use the word universe to refer to the entirety of our 3-dimensional space (which might or might not be infinite) and use another word (such as "semiverse" or "horizon") to refer to the local portion of it that's within the horizon determined by speed of light and age of universe. SEppley (talk) 15:20, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

The terms are used in the article (and by Tegmark) in the way you'd prefer: although it's "Level 1 multiverse" for the whole, and "Hubble volume" for the part.—Machine Elf ¹⁷³⁵ 16:39, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Origin of the term Multiverse

From the citation given, it doesn't seem as if William James was speaking about the same thing that we're talking about here. It seems awkward to elaborate that he was using it in a different context but also misleading to leave it in. BobKawanaka (talk) 13:06, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

I think we should say that he wasn't using it in the modern sense. AFAIK, Deutsch was the first to use it in the QM sense. He certainly popularised the term. --Michael C. Price ^talk 15:34, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

It's not like it's a neologism that comes out of left field, uni -> multi ... it's very possible that later use of the term had no direct relation to the prior use (although such a claim would require a citation). Personally, I see no need to even mention William James because the use is different but I imagine that's a controversial edit. Maybe something like "While William James first used the word in a different sense, its use in a quantum mechanical context stems from ..." BobKawanaka (talk) 16:43, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

If we don't mention you can be sure someone will reinsert it later. --Michael C. Price ^talk 16:47, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

And also, most importantly, this is not actually a quote from the text The Will to Believe but from Is Life Worth Living? also by William James. And this reference omits the use of the word "moral". So the actual quote is :"Visible nature is all plasticity and indifference,--a moral multiverse, as one might call it, and not a moral universe." I don't know if this mistake is from the 2003 OED or deliberate. So, no, James doesn't use it in the way that is meant in the article. But if he's the first to coin it, it is still worth mentioning. Benitoconcarne 00:54, May 3^rd 2013 (EST)

Max Tegmark's theory can be tested

Some parts of Max Tegmark's theory "all structures that exist mathematically exist also physically" CAN BE TESTED by carefully designed internet routing software and patterns of information flowing through it. Some people say "universe" only includes the present, but if the universe equals the total of math, there would be no limits on what can be experienced. You could change the laws of physics because all possible laws of physics are a subset of math. Consciousness and time would also be a subset of math. The "Global Consciousness Project" has already demonstrated unexpected results from their quantum-hardware-generated random numbers.

If the universe equals all math, then we should be able to write a reasonably short Lisp program to run on the Lisputer software and verify the Lisputer is executing in the same way the "laws of physics" are executing, by verifying that the Global Consciousness Project's "random" numbers become less random at that time. The Global Consciousness Project has years of data (about patterns some times and lack of patterns other times, in their generated "random" numbers) to compare it to. We must be careful to cover all possibilities, but if the Lisputer demonstrates an ability to change those random numbers, then we should take that as evidence that Max Tegmark is right, unless later a flaw is found in the test setup or assumptions made in designing/interpreting the test.

http://noosphere.princeton.edu QUOTE: The Global Consciousness Project, also called the EGG Project, is an international, multidisciplinary collaboration of scientists, engineers, artists and others. We collect data continuously from a global network of physical random number generators located in 65 host sites around the world. The archive contains more than 10 years of random data in parallel sequences of synchronized 200-bit trials every second." Our purpose is to examine subtle correlations that may reflect the presence and activity of consciousness in the world. We predict structure in what should be random data, associated with major global events. When millions of us share intentions and emotions the GCP/EGG network data show meaningful departures from expectation. This is a powerful finding based in solid science. END QUOTE.

The following 2 softwares are still being planned and do not exist yet, but what they will do is very simple. The few lines below should be enough for you to understand why those softwares will be able to test Max Tegmarks theory, when I finish building those 2 softwares. I must make an exception on Wikipedia's "unbiased" rule, because claims have been made against Max Tegmark's theory being untestable, and I am the only one who has any idea how to test it. There is a policy against "orginal research", but this is directly based on Tegmark's theory for the purpose of testing it. If what I write here is to be removed, the claim that the theory is untestable should also be removed. Both should stay because testability (falsifiable) is an important part of every science theory.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/lisputer QUOTE: Lisputer "Don't panic". Based on Max Tegmark's theories, a high-level quantum prog-lang for solomonoff, bayesian, determinism, nondeterminism, Global Consciousness Project. Plugin for Schrodingers Network Router. Recursion controls blur/sharpen of multiverse END QUOTE.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/schrouter QUOTE: Schrodingers Network Router Research framework for interactions between UDP packets as exponential amounts of uncertainty build up in divergently branching recursions (EQ, XOR) through many computers on the Internet. Set AI goals more/less uncertainty for multiverse blur/sharpen. END QUOTE.

BenRayfield (talk) 13:38, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Sure, then test it!! After you have tested it, produce a peer reviewed academical report, and send it to Science, Nature or some such, whatever is best suitable for the purpose, and then we can write about it in this encyclopedia. We wikipedians ourself are boring, desert dry librarians collecting sources and citeable facts, we don't do research here. And most specifically: we don't use article space to refer to a section of the talk page. ... said: Rursus (^mbork³) 14:11, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

I removed this text in the section Non-scientific claims because the article text cannot refer to the talk page. The talk page is only for discussing the contents of the article, and referring from the article provides a reference circularity. Presenting research in the talk page is acceptable, but only as a means to improve the content of the article, and only if that research is a discourse about either finding relevant sources, or whether the article is readable, nice, nifty and generally delectable. Otherwise do the academic procedure! ... said: Rursus (^mbork³) 14:26, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Probable proof for multiple universes?

--Ganeshsashank (talk) 11:51, 11 October 2009 (UTC)Also, recently, I've studied the book [3] as a part of my reading. This text book was prescribed to us in our university. As I mentioned, I'm a B.E first year student pursuing mechanical engineering. In that book, when I was reading Thermodynamics, I saw the lines defining an isolated system--No perfect isolated system exists in practice. However, our universe can be taken as a perfectly isolated system because it has no surroundings to exchange energy with. But in my intemediate text book, I saw a point in the same chapter that-entropy of the universe is increasing constantly. My point is- If the universe is isolated system and cannot exchange energy since it hasn't got any surroundings, then its energy-either in the form of entropy or enthalpy or any form should remain constant! But why should entropy of the universe increase??!!. In my view, this may be the scientific explanation for the existence of multiple universes!!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ganeshsashank (talk • contribs)

You can check this link if any one wants...[2]

-- the idea that energy increases/decreases is different from the idea of entropy. Entropy entails that energy moves from a state of high usability to low usability (I forget the exact terms). In fact, only isolated systems have the quality of attaining entropy, and entropy is attained *because* the system doesn't use the energy.

Multiverse does not mean the Six Numbers are not deliberlately set

Although it might be possible for there to be an infinite # of universes, I doubt the universes would have infinite different sets of random physical laws, because that would mean one universe with another random set of laws would automaticly generate evil robots that travels to all other universes and destroys them. Even if the laws were different there would have to be well thought out limitations to what these laws could be and therefore someone to set them. 154.20.194.233 (talk) 02:27, 29 April 2010 (UTC)Mr. Anonymous

If the multiverse extends beyond or above physical law, then I doubt that that anything could travel from one universe to another - that would require physical law to operate at a higher level than we've just posited. --Michael C. Price ^talk 07:55, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

Like i replied above, more than one truth can be valid at once, even when they contradict, so if there is the possibility one universe produced a bomb that wiped all of the multiverse, that is true, but if there is the possibility such a bomb never existed, that is also true, both things are true; kinda Schroedinger's (sp?) multiverse if you will. --TiagoTiago (talk) 22:03, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Logical contradiction is, at last, the definition of wrong in any sense of the imagination. Based on a contradiction, anything is both impossible and possible, so I believe what you perhaps mean to say in a logical sense, isn't really so different from what MCP suggested in a physical sense, that a higher level is required to resolve a given contradiction (an ad hoc orthogonal in phase space). Modal realism takes every logical possibility as true for some world. Physics works out which mathematically rigorous logical possibilities best model empirically rigorous observations, but it's hard to find a theory that, for the most part, only gives what's observable. Tegmark's Level IV would categorize a plurality of sufficient theories of all, as it seems unlikely sheer logical necessity would only lead to what's observable (assuming the cosmological principle that observations are not somehow privileged or freakish, as in skeptical hypotheses that are nonetheless possible). If Level I/III exists and supervenes on Level II/IV, evidently a platonic-bomb is impossible (perhaps due to self-contradiction) or it's the big bang. However, if they don't exist, or supervene on Level I/III, at best a detonation obtains in only half a multiverse, and a multi-bomber will always think it's a dud. The notion pre-dates Tegmark's quantum suicide, and they're both derivative of Schrödinger's cat. But the modal realist would say there exists at least one world in which the cat is alive, and at least one world in which the cat is dead, but in no possible world (in the exact same verse) is the cat simultaneously alive and dead. That's because whatever a physicist might mean by “superposition”, she must intend to paradoxically mitigate the implied contradiction between “alive” and “dead”, which are mutually exclusive in an unqualified sense. Conversely, whatever modal realism means by “world” makes no difference in physics because nature doesn't stand on formalities. So, while there's no superposition of “true” and “false”, there is a dubious law of excluded middle, still no less questionable than it was in antiquity.—Machine Elf ¹⁷³⁵ 09:44, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

A so-called "platonic bomb" is an impossible proposition. It would either violate the first or second laws of thermodynamics, which are necessary for life to exist, and even if they were not and it wasn't impossible, it would not affect universes in which those laws are true. — Preceding unsigned comment added by CynicalProdigy (talk • contribs) 20:38, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Terry Pratchett on heaven and hell

Terry Pratchett theorizes that under the MWI as follows:

"THE CONCEPT YOU PUT BEFORE ME PROVES THE EXISTENCE OF TWO HITHERTO MYTHICAL PLACES. SOMEWHERE, THERE IS A WORLD WHERE EVERYONE MADE THE RIGHT CHOICE, THE MORAL CHOICE, THE CHOICE THAT MAXIMISED THE HAPPINESS OF THEIR FELLOW CREATURES, OF COURSE, THAT ALSO MEANS THAT SOMEWHERE ELSE IS THE SMOKING REMNANT OF THE WORLD WHERE THEY DID NOT..."

-Death

In the short story Death and What Comes Next, http://www.au.lspace.org/books/dawcn/dawcn-english.html

Agent1022 (talk) 06:04, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

Television

Do we really need to have a section dedicated to alternatve universes being referenced on television? I mean, who cares if Family Guy had a plot or whatever centering on alternate universes? Family Guy is a load of bollocks, why talk about it on the Multiverse page? Isn't this just adding length where we don't need it? Family Guy is fictional. Why not devote it to made-for-TV-documentaries about the subject? —Preceding unsigned comment added by ISeriouslyNeedALife (talk • contribs) 06:04, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

It is a matter of "consensus." In Max Tegmark's commentary in, "The Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics: Many Worlds or Many Words?" he says, "... the prevailing view on the interpretation of quantum mechanics appears to be gradually changing. A [emphasis added] (highly unscientific) poll ... gave the once all-dominant Copenhagen interpretation less than half of the votes. The Many Worlds interpretation (MWI) scored second, comfortably ahead of the Consistent Histories and Bohm interpretations."

Mathematics is a tool, not a belief system subject to "unscientific" consensus! But, here we are in a section where the Public's faith/belief is given some putative credence via Television, while the above Comic Book universes are dismissed to some Multiversal Limbo due for being "unscientific." Meanwhile, in reality, the tool (Math) has seemingly fooled all of the Scientific Consensus all of the Time (which bansished to abstraction "word" doesn't exist for the Quantum Cosmologicalal accolates.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.171.169.212 (talk) 18:59, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

Merge Pop Culture section to "Parallel universe (fiction)" article

Discussion for merging the section §In popular culture (and its subsections: §Literature, §Film, §Television and §Other fictional uses) from the Multiverse article to the Parallel universe (fiction) article.

The scope of the Multiverse article is: the Multiverse hypotheses in physics; in philosophy and logic; and in religion and spirituality. Whereas, the "Multiverse#In popular culture" section should explain the subject's impact on popular culture, a topic which seems to be treated in depth by the Parallel universe (fiction) article, the section has been tagged since May 2010 as having accumulated a list of appearances and trivia. Arguably, the section has become unmanageable within the scope of the Multiverse article and it should summarize Parallel universe (fiction) with a {main} link and with any non–duplicated, notable content having been integrate there.

The two articles are both in Category:Science fiction themes. Other current inclusions:

• The Multiverse article is in Portal:Physics, Category:Physical cosmology, Category:Quantum mechanics and Category:Universe; Template:Physical cosmology assists navigation.
• The Parallel universe (fiction) article is in Category:Parallel universes (fiction), Category:Fiction and Category:Setting; Template:Science fiction assists navigation.

CC: "Talk:Multiverse#Merge Pop Culture section to "Parallel universe (fiction)" article" and "Talk:Parallel universe (fiction)#Merge from Multiverse "In Popular culture" section".—Machine Elf 1735 (talk) 17:35, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

I agree that the section is unwieldy and ought to be reduced, with as much of the content as possible transfered to Parallel universe (fiction). Condensing the existing information to a summary subsection by subsection will be a relatively simple matter. I wonder only how the transfer is best performed. Would it be reasonable to first summarise a section and then use the record in the edit history as the source for material worthy of transfer, with the proviso that the transfer takes place soon after, or would it be preferable to transfer first and then summarise? Another disinterested reader (talk) 15:31, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Oh, I missed this somehow. I just now took the tag off the other article (it seemed intrusive; being more of a problem with this article but placed at the top of that one). Last I checked, the recommendations on performing merges make them sound atomic (no sub–parts). I guess the only concern is to provide some sort of cut-off date regarding the source of the contributions (for licencing purposes). The latter method might be preferable; the other editors wouldn't be ambivalent about receiving new content (no proviso).

Personally I would find it difficult to summarize because I know "See Parallel universe (fiction)" probably doesn't sum it all up quite nicely, but that's about as far as I'm likely to get. Anyway, perhaps a "merge" is just too formal.—Machine Elf 1735 (talk) 07:27, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Determinism, Fatalism, Predestination:

The way I see it, Determinism, Fatalism, and Predestination (listed in the "see also") are not contradictory to the multiverse theory. This would be inconsistent with the Interpretations of Quantum Mechanics page in which it is explicitly listed that the "Many-Worlds Interpretation" is Deterministic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpretations_of_quantum_mechanics), yet the Many-Worlds Interpretation is also clearly multiversal. At any rate, I fail to see how the idea of multiple universes could be inconsistent with the idea that things act in a specific way which can be determined by all the variables, especially since such a view is specific to our universe and doesn't require that all universes act this way. Unless someone has information which would explain better this apparent inconsistency, it might be better to change the links. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.92.253.156 (talk) 12:11, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

My theory of the origin of creation, and of multiverses and beyond the creator itself.

In the beginning; “God" is just an unbelievably huge sphere of positive and negative energy living together simultaneously. Pressure from all sides converged in the center of the sphere causing it to implode into itself causing a new sphere to be made that expands inside until it reached its equilibrium. Next it reverberated off the membrane causing an adverse reaction that made an opposite sphere growing at a slower but parallel rate by proxy as the first one. The convergence of the 2nd sphere causes a mix of the two energies I.E. positive and negative thus creating another sphere filled with equal amounts of energy, and newly formed “fusion” gasses, which comprise our known universe. There may have been more and more spheres made after. I don’t see why it wouldn’t continue making alternate universes. Since the first sphere that "God" created had the most energy it would be safe to assume it is positive energy. The second one was like rebound energy, and though it expands like the first sphere it is inside the first positive sphere and grows parallel but will never catch up and will always be smaller thus being forever negative. The point where “sphere 1” meets “sphere 2” on the return must have created not one new sphere but more like concentrated ripple type spheres as in our gassy universe, and if it keeps rippling then it would theoretically create "time" or many universes getting weaker I surmise as they are created. So basically, sphere 1 would be "Heaven" or a bubble of massive amounts of positive energy, and sphere 2 would be "Hell" being infinitely weaker where massive amounts of negative energy collects. The 2 spheres point of collision is how our universe, and possibly more were created. Here is some food for thought; the bible says man was created in gods image, well maybe our sphere or "universe" is an exact yet smaller copy of "God" containing a natural balance of positive and negative energy like "God".I was also pondering whether or not "Purgatory" is where "God" or our energy source exists and that it is a super massive realm of possibly neutral energy, and possibly there are other maga spheres the size of our "God" that have their own creations. Remember I am using the term "God" only as a name of refererence and I am speaking solely from a scientific perspective, as a way to explain what I believe are plausable realms. I would bet that if this theory were to be factual, then perhaps an equation could eventually be developed to calculate the age of not only our universe, but of time itself, "God", and beyond. By Jamie Hicks 3/25/2011 You can read my other thoughts of this on this link... http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?topic=17043&post=93820&uid=100864590107#!/topic.php?uid=100864590107&topic=17043&post=93813&notif_t=board_post_reply#post93813 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.197.129.79 (talk) 17:28, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

The Criticism Section

Answers criticisms without really stating what they are.1Z (talk) 14:20, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Indirect evidence subsection in wrong place?

It seems to me that this is not a criticism of the Multiverse theory, rather, it is a rebuttal aimed at the section before it. If I'm misunderstanding its meaning someone please explain, thanks. Hyblackeagle22 (talk) 02:12, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

?

Now, will somebody who is very truly conversant with multiverse just inform the reading public what role does the multiverse play in regard to the actual factual universe we are living in and are part and parcel of, role that does have an impact in how the nose stay put in our face and is not subject to any absolutely purely random falling off without any cause whatsoever.

Otherwise multiverse is just pure fiction for selling comic magazines and other entertainment media for profit, preying on the gullibility of unthinking folks.

Okay, tell me if the multiverse does not exist at all even in the fiction mind of fiction-bound people, will our actual factual universe be the poorer in any manner whatsoever at all?

Yes, of course, the fiction writers and fiction publishers will lose a good source of their financial income in the actual factual universe where they are living in and are part and parcel of.

And the fiction crazed pseudo scientists will lose their pseudo reason for feeling so self-smart.

112.198.79.222 (talk) 22:14, 16 October 2011 (UTC) Pachomius

The direction in space of the location of a near-by other universe?

This documentary, starting at around minute 21:00, claims that there is evidence of a huge gravitational cluster, so massive, that it may be another universe which has expanded near our own in the direction of Centaurus. Does anybody know the name of this theoretical evidence/phenomenon, does it have an article? Nagelfar (talk) 03:20, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

new age

I wish we could put Ouspensky, if we have to put him in at all, in another category - New Age just doesn't fit him.

From wiki article on 'New Age'...

"The term New Age was used as early as 1809 by William Blake who described a coming era of spiritual and artistic advancement in his preface to Milton a Poem by stating: "... when the New Age is at leisure to pronounce, all will be set right ..."[10]"

Ouspensky would have baulked at that - he would have said that we were in/entering an abortive downward spiralling octave, that there is no progress or advancement whatsoever, etc. Victormanikian (talk) 07:41, 30 November 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Victormanikian (talk • contribs) 07:38, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Black Holes

Apologies to 173.238.69.86 for accidentally hitting enter, I wanted to add that Lee Smolin might be a good WP:RS. Also it's not clear how the existence of black holes or infinite density would seem to negate the existence of a "multiverse", so if that could be expanded, it would be great. Thanks—Machine Elf ¹⁷³⁵ 02:08, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Objections to the word 'multiverse'

The section about objections to the word 'multiverse' contains a factual and a logical error.

The author says:

1. "[universe] means 'entirety'". 2. "it is impossible to have more than one entirety".

1. 1 is not true. Even if it were true, #2 would only be relevant to the word 'multiuniverse', not to the word 'multiverse' under discussion. 'Universe' means 'turned into one', so multiverse could be reasonably taken to mean 'turned into many'. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.22.1.135 (talk) 08:57, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Non-scientific "claims"

I think the word 'claims' should be changed to objections, which is more strenuous and actually accurate. Wikipedia generally maintains a standard for claims that require rigorous evidence, or at least the possibility of evidence. The notion of a multiverse is not falsifiable, and insofar as this is true it has nothing in common with modern science. I do not say this to start a talk-page discussion about tangential matters, but to speak to the truth of the matter. As long as the multiverse remains unfalsifiable it has nothing to do with modern science as it is understood by physicists, philosophers and laypersons. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.23.191.206 (talk) 05:12, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

For Wikipedia's policies, please see verifiability, neutral point of view and no original research.

It's self-evident your notion of multiverse begs the question… Some theories are falsifiable, some may or may not be, and yes, in principle, some cannot be falsified. However, as perhaps you're aware, it's naïve to suggest an unfalsifiable theory “has nothing in common with modern science [x2]”, (or nothing apart from the scientists, presumably), “but to speak to the truth of the matter”… please see soapbox.—Machine Elf ¹⁷³⁵ 08:26, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

WP:Coatrack

I came to this article expecting it to be about the theory in physics and was surprised to see all of the content from various religions, in some cases citing sources that don't use the term "multiverse." It feels like this article should be split, such that the theory from physics has a separate article. Otherwise it seems to be a coatrack, with a lot of WP:OR. I've posted a note on the Fringe Theories Noticeboard soliciting feedback on this. [3] TimidGuy (talk) 10:55, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

The strange thing is that it already has been split but someone has made the section bigger than its respective article. I'll boldly remove the original research elements. I think the Fakhr al-Din al-Razi mention is undue, I may remove it soon. I dumped the content I removed on the religion sub-article and tagged it as OR. IRWolfie- (talk) 15:54, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

Origin of the word "multiverse"

The article's stating that the term "multiverse" was coined by William James in the late 19th century is misleading because altough this may be the earliest known use of the word "multiverse", James was not using it in the sense it is currently understood. The multiverse of phyics is not what James was referring to. If a medieval fisherman were to have described two tangled fishing nets as an "internet", we would be foolish, in an artilcle about "the Internet" to say "the term was coined by a medieval fisherman" and leave it at that. That's essentially what's going on here. The fact that James used the word is really more of an interestng coincidence than anything else and the article should make that clear. — Preceding unsigned comment added by CannotFindAName (talk • contribs) 15:08, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

Omniverse returns

Is there any reason why omniverse should be an alternate name for multiverse? I only see comics referring to omniverse when I search. It definitely doesn't seem a scientific name. Strangely we only just got rid of an editor self-linking to a fringe website about his 'omniverse theory' and 2 days later it reappears as an alternate nameBhny (talk) 18:13, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Mersini's alleged predictions

Can anybody check whether she even claimed in 2007 to have predicted the CMB Cold spot in 2006, let alone whether the 2006 paper contains such a prediction? I can't access the 2007 reference at all, and can only access the summary of the referenced 2006 paper which does indeed predicted possible voids, but it's unclear how well the detailed predictions match what was detected. In any case, due to my limited knowledge of Physics, I probably wouldn't be sure what detailed predictions had been made, even if I could access the full paper. But at least one anonymous contributor to the Mersini Talk page claims he sees no clear predictions in 'the referenced paper', though I don't even know if it's the same paper as the one currently referenced. There's also the problem that I seem to recall a 'great void' having being discovered long before 2006, admittedly by direct observation rather than via CMB data, but it would suggest that a vague prediction of possible voids might not be particularly impressive. This is similar to the problem with 'predictions' about Dark Flow, where a flow towards the so-called Great Attractor had been known about since the 1970s, as pointed out in the Dark Flow article. And I'm unable to even find where to link her third alleged prediction, nor to find any discussion of its significance. But I remember looking at the WMAP article yesterday, and if I understand right, the Mersini article has her 'predicting' in 2006 a fluctuation value below 1, when it was already 0.9 +/- 0.1 before 2006 on the WMAP data. I think it's important (due WP:NPOV) to balance claims that Multiverse theories are untestable, and so on. But I am a bit worried that I may be unwittingly spreading some questionable fantasies of some Mersini fan club (one of whom already implies on her Talk page that she's the next Einstein).Tlhslobus (talk) 14:45, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

I have now had another look at the WMAP article. The fluctuation (sigma_8) picture seems just as unsatisfactory:

The Laura Mersini article says:
In the same year (2006) WMAP reached agreement with SDSS experiment, that the overall amplitude of fluctuation is less than 1. If these observational findings, predicted in the 2006 papers by Mersini-Houghton et al.[citation needed] are confirmed over the next few years, then they may offer the first evidence of a universe beyond our own.

The summary of her referenced December 2006 paper says:
We show that the effect of the string corrections is to suppress $\sigma_8$ and the CMB $TT$ spectrum at large angles, thereby bringing WMAP and SDSS data for $\sigma_8$ into agreement.

But the WMAP article gives the following sigma_8 data:

1year data (released Feb 2003) Fluctuation amplitude at 8h−1 Mpc (sigma_8) WMAP data only 0.9±0.1 — data from all sources 0.84±0.04

3 year data (released Mar 2006) Fluctuation amplitude at 8h−1 Mpc (sigma_8) WMAP data only 0.761+0.049 −0.048 — data from all sources not given

5 year data (released Feb 2008) Fluctuation amplitude at 8h−1 Mpc (sigma_8) WMAP data only 0.796±0.036 — data from all sources 0.812±0.026

7 year data (released Feb 2010) Fluctuation amplitude at 8h−1 Mpc (sigma_8) WMAP data only 0.801±0.030 — data from all sources 0.809±0.024

9 year data (released Dec 2012) Density fluctuations at 8h−1 Mpc (sigma_8) WMAP data only 0.821±0.023 — data from all sources 0.820+0.013 −0.014

Far from the Mersini article's assertion that WMAP reached agreement with SDSS in 2006 that fluctuation was less than 1, the fluctuation was seemingly always less than 1 (or just possibly equal to 1 at the upper end of the 2003 range of possible WMAP-data-only values), so this was hardly something 'predicted' by Mersini et al.in 2006 as claimed in the article. But the WMAP value dropped dramatically in March 2006, suggesting that WMAP and SDSS no longer agreed (though this is not actually stated), and that in December 2006 Mersini et al are offering an explanation for why they are different and how they can be brought back into agreement. But any such disagreement doesn't persist, as the 2008 to 2012 data shows. So quite likely the data shows that Mersini et al are wrong. Quite likely this means that their theory was a testable and falsifiable theory which has been tested and falsified - which, if correct, would actually be a rather important answer to the criticism that Multiverse theories are unscientific because they make no falsifiable predictions. And a similar conclusion may also be available from some of her other predictions. But I don't know enough to say whether any such conclusion is actually warranted. Does anybody else know enough to say so? Tlhslobus (talk) 16:39, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Too much space and weight given to the 'non-scientific' charge?

Does anybody agree with my suspicion that too much space and weight is being given here to the criticism that the multiverse isn't scientific? I began by putting in Laura Mersini's claims rather hesitantly (arguably too hesitantly) because of the excessive enthusiasm of some of her fans - but the fact is she and her colleagues did make predictions. They don't seem to have worked out too well so far (though even there the jury is possibly still out), but that's science, not non-science. Then within a few weeks, I come across Prof Aguirre's predictions, which have been known to perhaps millions of Horizon viewers for nearly 6 months while any reader of Wikipedia was still being told 'the multiverse just ain't testable'. I now suspect there are dozens or even hundreds of proposals or ideas for testing the various models, or at least for testing predictions derived from the various models, or for looking for phenomena that are possible consequences of the models, and that consequently a now demonstrably outdated (always assuming it was ever valid in the first place) and thus now false claim is being given a prominence which it doesn't deserve, and which is simply misleading to readers. But I could be wrong. Does anybody else have any relevant information or views on the matter? Tlhslobus (talk) 22:33, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Multiverse problems

The concept of a multiverse is utterly amazing to me. However, I have some problems with the concept. First of all, there's really no such thing as a "multiverse," is there? I mean, it's all one universe regardless of how many dimensions and such, correct? Secondly, there's THIS: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20130222230324AAqwWxR

"The multiverse theory is the theory that there's an infinite number of universes parrallell to ours with infinite outcomes for anything. But, if that were true then wouldn't there be a universe where we mastered multiverse travel? And wouldn't there have to be a universe where they traveled to this very universe that we are in? There would have to be, since there's supposedly infinite outcomes. So like what i'm saying is if the multiverse theory was true, then there would have to be a universe that traveled to this universe and everyone knew. But no one has. So doesn't that prove it wrong? And also, wouldn't there have to be a universe where there are no alternate universes?"

And I know that Yahoo Answers is not a reliable resource for much of anything on Wikipedia, though this individual has a valid point that is worth considering. I would be grateful if someone could answer this who has some modicum of knowledge pertaining to physics and cosmology. I just want to know the truth. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.70.202.28 (talk) 18:47, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

The Universe is a level above the multiverse

I feel it is necessary to address the matter as a mistaken use of vocabulary.

The word universe, as in UNI-verse highlights the nature of everything and all included. That means that if there are many such things then we have a contradiction in terms, there are many but there can be only one.

Therefore I believe we should speak of many cosmoses rather than many universes. THE UNIVERSE can comprise many (eventually parallel) cosmoses but all parallel ‘whatever’ (be them dimensions or even multiverses or …) is always comprised in one single universe. So even the multiverse would be an underlying level to the universe!

As a scientist I follow the rules given by scientific publications but following my gut feeling there is a vocabulary error. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.198.212.162 (talk) 19:13, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

Yes multiverse is a pretty stupid word but our opinions don't matter. We have to go by the common name- WP:COMMONNAME Bhny (talk) 05:00, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

Consistent histories

Is the theory of consistent histories by James Hartle and Murray Gell-Mann somewhat related to the idea of Hugh Everett? The article does not mention it.--Carnby (talk) 20:13, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Universes in MWI do not split

The statement that Everett's Many-worlds states that there is only one universe that branches into multiple universes is not only incorrect, the paper by Tegmark that is cited to support the statement specifically states that this idea of splitting is a misrepresentation of MWI. Also, the a citation (footnote 7, at the time of this writing) references two different articles, one by Tegmark, and one by David Deutsch. I'm not sure which article is cited for what in the paragraph, so I'm flagging it as failed verification. I'll try to unravel it later this weekend, unless someone can find a reliable source. Undisputedloser (talk) 04:07, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

For laymen: Cite recent article mentioning multiverse

I suggest a small addition, for the benefit of readers unfamiliar with physics, to Wikipedia's article entitled Multiverse. Add a one-sentence summary and reference to an article by Stephen Weinberg, "Physics: What We Do and Don't Know," The New York Review of Books, vol. 60 (Nov. 7, 2013), which is posted online. A Wikipedia contributor familiar with the subject of the article would be better able than I am to make this addition. A short time ago I added a similar comment to the Comments section of the Wikipedia article on Anthropic Principle. NedF (talk) 21:47, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

Looks like a pretty good recent article. I'll read it and see if I want to put a reference in. Or maybe it can go in External links. Or maybe not at all, I need to read it. Thank you for the suggestion. And feel free to take some responsibility yourself to include a reference or make some other edit you think improves the article. Worst that can happen is that it's reverted. 70.109.180.167 (talk) 01:47, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

Outrageously one-sided discussion of the topic

This wikipedia entry is an outrageously one-sided promotional treatment of a subject that most serious physicists think is of dubious value. The "claims of first evidence" are not things taken seriously in the community. For an example of what is missing here, see the wikipedia entry for "String theory landscape" which at least refers to the objections of leading particle theorist David Gross and Lee Smolin's article on the subject. Another recent reference would be this from prominent cosmologist Paul Steinhardt

http://www.edge.org/response-detail/25405

Finally, at my Not Even Wrong blog, one can look at categorized postings on this topic

http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?cat=10

for a wealth of references which would provide some balance to the current state of this entry. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Peterwoit (talk • contribs) 19:20, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

I've made a couple of edits. It would be better if we spread the criticism throughout the article rather than have a separate section as per WP:CRIT. Bhny (talk) 01:48, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

Why doesn't P.W. write his own independent and neutral referenced encyclopedic version of the article on a subpage? It would have to be one that he thinks is worthy of Wikipedia. We can then learn from it, and possibly copy-paste some material from it. --IO Device (talk) 02:50, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

Someone please review the Multiverse#Search for evidence section.—Machine Elf ¹⁷³⁵ 05:23, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

Apparently Hawking believes in the multiverse: [4]. I understand that according to Woit, when a prominent physicist criticizes the multiverse, that validates that the multiverse is wrong; but if a prominent physicist endorses the multiverse, that merely proves that the physicist is crazy. However, Wikipedia must adopt a more neutral point of view and report on the mainstream views of physicists in accordance with their prominence, rather than only reporting the views of physicists who agree with Woit. Rolf H Nelson (talk) 06:10, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

Here's an endorsement that the multiverse is a reasonable possibility: "These Level I and III possibilities fit reasonably well within variants of conventional views about our current best understanding of physics." The source is some guy named Peter Woit. [5] Rolf H Nelson (talk) 07:13, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

In restoring the conclusion of Tegmark's rebuttal to the Occam's razor criticism, I mean to say I think the best argument from both "sides" should always be put forward and in this case, the conclusion really is necessary to "bring it home" for the lay reader (and me). Also, the puns (like the "What is going on here?" line) help show how playfully both "sides" tend to approach the controversy.—Machine Elf ¹⁷³⁵ 16:04, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

Yes indeed, Peter Woit does seem to support strings/branes/extra dimensions and the Multiverse. When authors criticize the multiverse, Peter calls them "ranters and cranks," writing, "I have to admit that one of the things that every so often makes me wonder if I’m completely misguided, and maybe there is a lot more value to strings/SUSY/branes/extra dimensions etc. than I think." https://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=6156 Peter Woit also support Max Tegmark's Multiverses in the Wall Street Journal, while then resorting to his standard two-faced doublsepeak, referring to Tegmark as a crank on his private blog. Tegmark noted this lack of character on Peter's part, "On a personal note, I’d also appreciate if you could explain the striking discrepancy between your blog post above and your review of my book in the WSJ: the latter struck me as quite balanced, with no mention of “grandiose nonsense”, “inner crank” or non-scientific speculation related to my family, name, funding, motivation, etc." https://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=6551&cpage=1#comment-204008"

Please everyone, realize that Peter Woit appears to have a non-scientific agenda in criticizing this page. Max Tegamrk captures it here: "I also find your posting style disturbingly unscientific, and can’t help feel that you’re applying a double-standard: you keep writing interesting, respectful and carefully balanced replies to me personally about how the Level I multiverse is a valid scientific discussion topic, etc., while at the same time writing pithy sound-bites to others suggesting that everything multiverse-related is unscientific nonsense. To me, one of the core principles of scientific integrity is to only say things that you’re willing to stand by. For example, when I write an anonymous referee report, I like to pretend that I’m going to sign my name under it." https://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=6551&cpage=2#comment-204090 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 104.3.19.131 (talk) 9:34 am, 21 March 2014, last Friday (2 days ago) (UTC−7)

The talk page is for improving the article not for personal attacks. Bhny (talk) 18:55, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

Yes Bhny. And that is why we should not include Peter Woit's calling Max Tegmark a crank on his blog in the article. Let Peter relegate the personal attacks to Peter's bog, where Peter and Columbia are of course free to publish personal attacks and call people cranks. However, we should include Dr. Peter Woit's words from the Wall Street Journal in a form such as, "While Peter Woit endorses certain versions of the Multiverse, writing, "These Level I and III possibilities (of the multiverse) fit reasonably well within variants of conventional views about our current best understanding of physics," he does not fully endorse Level II versions of the multiverse, arguing that they come with no "experimental warranty." ." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 104.3.19.131 (talk) 22:44, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

There are no Woit quotes nor is there anything about Woit in the article. Please just discuss improving the article. Bhny (talk) 20:18, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

As a leading science critic and physicist at the prestigious Columbia University, Peter's views on the multiverse, published in the prestigious Wall Street Journal, should be included. A simple search demonstrates that Peter Woit has written more about the multiverse than Max Tegmark. When one googles "Multiverse Woit," there are 43,200 results. When one googles "Multiverse Tegmark," there are only 34,700 results. Woit has spent a lot of time pondering the multiverse, has pubished his views in prestigious publications, and his views deserve to be heard. A sentence such as, "While Peter Woit endorses certain versions of the Multiverse, writing, "These Level I and III possibilities (of the multiverse) fit reasonably well within variants of conventional views about our current best understanding of physics," he does not fully endorse Level II versions of the multiverse, arguing that they come with no "experimental warranty." ." Such a sentence ought be added. Where should we add it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 104.3.19.131 (talk) 21:55, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

"his views deserve to be heard" is rarely an appropriate argument for putting quotes from anyone in an article. Wikipedia is not about letting anyone "be heard". Please understand that this paragraph is not arguing against including quotes from him, merely that one person's statements only "deserve to be heard" on Wikipedia in very rare cases.

If you want to put forward an argument that having a quote from him in the article makes the article better in some way (e.g. improves maintaining a WP:NOV, etc.), that is a completely different issue.

My opinion from a style point of view is that there is already an overabundance of quoted text in this article. I really should go back and re-read the article from start to finish to see how it flows. However, I note that the quotes and text introducing them currently take up nearly 40% of the article contents by word count. That is already very heavy on quoted material for the article.

After looking, briefly, at the reference you provided in the WSJ it did not appear that a book review is appropriate to quote on this page. This article is not about the book "Our Mathematical Universe" by Max Tegmark. However, given that the content of the review is behind a paywall, I was not able to read the entire contents. Someone else who has access to the entire review will need to comment. — Makyen (talk) 01:51, 23 March 2014 (UTC)

Please Makyen, realize that wikipedia was created to serve the Public with Truth. Nobody has created a more thorough resource of multiverse-related links than Peter Woit. Nobody has read and critiqued more books on it. Peter Woit is a theoretical physicist at Columbia University which is a prestigious institution. Why not serve the the Public with the expert Peter Woit's views on the multiverse, instead of making the public read the hundreds of sources Peter has read himself? A sentence such as, "While Peter Woit endorses certain versions of the Multiverse, writing, "These Level I and III possibilities (of the multiverse) fit reasonably well within variants of conventional views about our current best understanding of physics," he does not fully endorse Level II versions of the multiverse, arguing that they come with no "experimental warranty." ." Such a sentence ought be added. Where should we add it? What would be wrong with adding a simple, fair and balanced, sentence from an expert physicist who has read and reviewed more books / papers / articles on the Multiverse than anyone else?— Preceding unsigned comment added by 104.3.19.131 (talk) 16:06, 23 March 2014 (UTC)

There is absolutely nothing "wrong" with including attributed quotes from Peter Woit or Lee Smolin or others that are critics of "scientific" theories that have no hope of experimental confirmation or falsification. This must be done, not just here, but at related articles String theory, M theory, or branes or similar. These articles (and multiverse) should be linked with Scientific method, and contrasts should be drawn to show how they are similar and differ from other historical theories that existed in limbo for a while before they were tested or falsified against some physical measurement that would have been expected to turn out differently if the theory did not hold. Consider the difference between aether that was falsified by the Michaelson-Morley experiment, and general relativity that was verified (or at least supported) by the Perihelion precession of Mercury. This discussion must be included in Wikipedia in all relevant articles and this is one of them. 70.109.182.129 (talk) 17:12, 23 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks 70.109.182.129. When I tried to include quotes from expert Peter Woit, Bhny attacked me personally and deleted the words, not just on the page, but then Bhny repeatedly deleted my words on this discussion page. How might we go about reporting Bhny to wikipedia? Certainly their censorship (on both the main page and this talk page), apparent agenda, and personal attacks have no place on wikipedia? You can see Bhny's violent attitude expressed in, "There are no Woit quotes nor is there anything about Woit in the article. Please just discuss improving the article. Bhny (talk)," where Bhny violently and tyranically states that there will be no quotes, from theoretical expert Peter Woit on the Muliverse, in the article. Bhny's sockpuppets then state that because Peter's quotes are behind a paywall at the Wall Street Journal, they cannot be admitted. By the logic of Bhny's sockpuppets, no physics journal would ever be able to be quoted on wikipedia, as they are behind paywalls. Does Jimmy Wales know about Bhny's desire to destroy the integrity of wikipedia, by banning all references to all the leading scientific journals, so that Bhny might rule supreme? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 104.3.19.131 (talk) 18:09, 23 March 2014 (UTC)

There are instructions for dispute resolution here- WP:DR Please feel free. Accusations of sockpuppetry are a very serious matter. If you think this is true then it can be investigated here- WP:SPI. This talk section is about improvements suggested by editor Peterwoit who thought the article lacked references to scientists critical of multiverse. I thought the section was devolving into personal attacks on Peter Woit and had little to do with improving the article. Some of these attacks even violated WP:BLP. If I accidentally deleted some things things relevant to the article then it was a mistake and I am sorry. Of course I have no problem with adding relevant things (about Woit or any expert) to the article that improve the article and I welcome discussion of adding such things. Bhny (talk) 19:01, 23 March 2014 (UTC)

Good to see you changing your tune, Bhny, for the moment. Earlier you wrote, "There are no Woit quotes nor is there anything about Woit in the article. Please just discuss improving the article. Bhny (talk)." Dear Bhny, please explain to everyone why you censored Woit's quotes from the article, and why you insist that there are to be to quotes from Woit in the article, after you deleted Woit's quotes. Might you have a personal vendetta gainst Peter Woit? Peter Woit is a theoretical physicist at the prestigious Columbia University who published his views on the Multiverse in the prestigious Wall Street Journal. Why are you so hell-bent against including a brief summary of his expert words in the article? To everyone here, it looks like you have some personal beef with Dr. Woit by insisiting that the article will not contain any quotes from him. Please leave your personal issues/beefs/vendettas out of wikipedia. We will hold off on reporting you for the moment, but please note, we are on to you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 104.3.19.131 (talk) 19:10, 23 March 2014 (UTC)

I don't think I removed anything from the article (posting a link to the specific edit is normal for this kind of accusation). I have no sockpuppets. I don't insist on having or not having quotes from anyone. I don't know what you are talking about. My "tune" is to create a good article. Bhny (talk) 19:14, 23 March 2014 (UTC)

Bhny, you wrote, "There are no Woit quotes nor is there anything about Woit in the article. Please just discuss improving the article. Bhny (talk)." You wrote this right after expert Woit's quotes were violently removed from the article, thusly insisting that Woit's quotes can not, and will not improve the article, apparently due to some hidden vendetta/agenda. How else can you explain your denial of Woit's expertise and the removal of his pertinent quotes? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 104.3.19.131 (talk) 19:17, 23 March 2014 (UTC)

As a leading science critic and physicist at the prestigious Columbia University, Peter's views on the multiverse, published in the prestigious Wall Street Journal, should be included. A simple search demonstrates that Peter Woit has written more about the multiverse than Max Tegmark. When one googles "Multiverse Woit," there are 43,200 results. When one googles "Multiverse Tegmark," there are only 34,700 results. Woit has spent a lot of time pondering the multiverse, has pubished his views in prestigious publications, and his views deserve to be heard. A sentence such as, "While Peter Woit endorses certain versions of the Multiverse, writing, "These Level I and III possibilities (of the multiverse) fit reasonably well within variants of conventional views about our current best understanding of physics," he does not fully endorse Level II versions of the multiverse, arguing that they come with no "experimental warranty." ." Such a sentence ought be added. Where should we add it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 104.3.19.131 (talk) 19:20, 23 March 2014 (UTC)

I have no objection to adding quotes by experts such as Woit. The reason I said that there were no quotes by Woit was because I was looking at the current version and missed the previous edit. If there were Woit quotes, they were removed by someone else. I would not have removed them. I wasn't "thusly insisting" anything other than constructive talk on the talk page. The article was changing quickly at the time and the discussion here was ugly and some of it violated WP:BLP. I have no agenda. Please assume WP:GOODFAITH. Bhny (talk) 19:47, 23 March 2014 (UTC)

Well, then Bhny, please demonstrate your WP:GOODFAITH and re-add the Woit quotes that were violently deleted, instead of so flippantly writing that Woit's quotes are not in the article, and thus cannot improve the article. Or are you still playing games? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 104.3.19.131 (talk) 20:00, 23 March 2014 (UTC)

104.3.19.131 you have accused me of being a sockpuppet. I, of course, state that I am not. If you believe that I am, I suggest that you bring the issue to WP:SPI where it can be investigated. Overall, please discontinue using personal attacks and ad hominem arguments. Bhny has no need to show his good faith, and re-adding Woit into the article has nothing to do with such. In almost every statement you have made you have exaggerated the statements made by Bhny and myself. I suggest you read them again and take in what was actually written, not the distortion which you describe.

I stand by what I stated, even though you have claimed I stated something else:

• "his views deserve to be heard" is rarely an appropriate argument for putting quotes from anyone in an article. [I do not believe it to be a valid argument in this case.]
• My opinion, from a style point of view, is that there is already an overabundance of quoted text in this article. [emphasis added]
• ...it did not appear that a book review is appropriate to quote on this page. However, given that the content of the review is behind a paywall, I was not able to read the entire contents. Someone else who has access to the entire review will need to comment.

Note that contrary to your claims: I did not state, or even imply, that something behind a paywall should not be permitted on Wikipedia. I did state that because it is behind a paywall I did not read it in its entirety and that someone else needed to comment. By that I meant that someone else needed to comment on if the text went so far beyond a book review such that the text written therein should be given special weight beyond that normally accorded a book review.

Bhny, I should say that I feel that some of your removals from the talk page were excessive. Looking over the portions removed, there were comments which I feel should not have been removed. I understand that in the heat of the moment it may have been easier to just revert or undo, but more discrimination would have been appropriate here.

104.3.19.131, Ignoring the "his views deserve to be heard" argument: So far, your statements as to why Peter Woit should be included in the article are that he is "a theoretical physicist at Columbia University" and that there are more Google hits when searching for "Multiverse Woit" than "Multiverse Tegmark". Neither of these is a valid argument, nor does it establish anything with respect to Perter Woit's credentials with respect to comments on "Multiverse". Further, I would point out that a search for 'Multiverse "Woit"', which causes Goggle to limit results to the name instead of assuming that you might have misspelled some other word as Woit, returns 6,240 hits. Getting more specific, a search for 'Multiverse "Peter Woit"' returns 4,700 hits. Removing the 1,530 of those which are from his blog results in 3,170. Of these, an additional 220 are from mentions elsewhere on www.math.columbia.edu. Scanning down these results I note that a considerable number of them are people commenting about posts Woit has made in is blog. On the other hand, a Google search for 'Multiverse "Max Tegmark"' returns 27,800 hits, or about 9 times as many. Given that there were only 49 results in the Max Tegmark search which were from mit.edu, I did not bother with removing them. The fact that the number of hits in a web search can be both intentionally and unintentionally manipulated is only one of the reasons that such is not usually a valid argument.

104.3.19.131, You keep saying things like "prestigious Wall Street Journal". Adding, and reiterating the "prestigious" part dose not enhance your arguments. The fact that you repeatedly state it that way implies that you are attempting to inflate your arguments. As such, it detracts from your argument instead of enhancing it. I would also note that we're talking about a book review, not an independent article about a particular subject. Further, the relative value of writing in a particular publication varies across multiple factors. One of those is how closely the subject matter matches that for which the publication is known. In the case of the WSJ, it is well known for finance and business news and articles. It is not well known for its publications about the Multiverse, or a broad subject area surrounding such.

Please note that I am not, at this time, specifically arguing against having a quote from Woit in the article. I am merely pointing out that the arguments expressed here to date have not established him as an expert in the field who's opinion it is appropriate to quote in the article. I am certainly willing to hear other arguments on this. However, so far, the arguments here have not begun to indicate a good reason to include quotes from him in the article. — Makyen (talk) 04:46, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

Last night, while driving home, I heard the Multiverse reported on as as scientific reality on the radio. One of the speakers quoted wikipedia. I would like to congratulate Makyen and his snarky sockpuppets for destroying Western Science and Western Civilization by censoring and deleting the Truth as spoken by prestigious physicists working at the prestigious Columbia University publishing in the prestigious Wall Street Journal. Why all the h8? h8 on h8rs. Censor, delete, and fill these pages with your failed fanboy anti-physics rage instead of truth. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 104.3.19.131 (talk) 18:59, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

Speaking of Occam's razor, please keep in mind that 104.3.19.131 resolves to New Jersey, where Peter Woit is employed. Rolf H Nelson (talk) 01:22, 26 March 2014 (UTC) Never mind, stupid mistakes on my part: that's AT&T's HQ, and Woit was a student at Princeton NJ but currently works at Columbia NY. Rolf H Nelson (talk) 01:00, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

I don't see how Occam's razor has anything to do with whether IP 104.3.19.131 is Peter Woit or not, and I don't think it matters. I think we should invite, in fact, I am inviting either 104.3.19.131 and/or Peter Woit to make edits to the article that address his or her concerns. The worse that can happen are that the edits are reverted. But, if the edits are to the effect that, like String theory, M theory, or branes, that a scientific notion of other universes has not crossed the threshold of falsifiability, that is no experimental test or solid observation has been seen or even proposed that would have results that these theories would support (or be shown to not be supporting), if anyone makes edits like that, I will support those edits. That means if the edits were reverted without cause, I would edit war a little about it. But I am an electrical engineer, not a physicist and, I must confess, I do not understand any of the M-theory math from Edward Witten and company. So I, myself, will not make these edits that I think should be made. But, if they are good edits, I will defend them. 70.109.178.83 (talk) 14:19, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

Mistaken statement (that all possible physical states will occur in an infinite universe)

Under the heading of Brian Greene's "Quilted Universe", this statement appears:

"With an infinite amount of space, every possible event will occur an infinite number of times."

This is not correct. The first thing to say is that this statement is mathematically impossible if, as we currently understand things, spacetime is locally a continuum.

The usual conclusion, which I think Henri Poincaré first observed, is that with probability = 1, almost every possible physical state for a finite piece of state space will occur not exactly, but rather will occur only to within an arbitrarily small tolerance.

This may seem like a negligible distinction, but it is not.Daqu (talk) 04:42, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

Serious omission

This article proceeds to discuss multiple universes, but never talks about what this might mean. Since the word "universe" is naïvely taken to mean "all that exists", it is not made clear what it might mean for there to exist multiple universes.

I am not saying there is a conceptual problem with this. I am only saying that the article does not address this point. Which must leave many readers confused about what possibility of more than one universe might mean.Daqu (talk) 14:13, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

Philosophy vs. Physics vs. Materialism

This sentence seems to be contradictory: everything that exists and can exist: the entirety of space, time, matter, and energy as well as the physical laws and constants that describe them. because everything that exists and can exist may or may not map well to our current best model, some of which may be expressed through Physics. It implies an assertion that space, time, matter etc. is unfolding the concept everything that exists and can exist, but actually it may constrain it just as well.

This approach doesn't seem to be justified because all reference that is given is that the term used for the thing the article refer to was coined by a philosopher and psychologist, thus it is unclear whether the assertion supporting an imply of materialist-like beliefs holds.

It would be more clear to add a separate sentence after everything that exists and can exist similar to this:

"The theory X (add-reference-here) express it as" and continue with space, time, matter, etc.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Naxa (talk • contribs) 18:21, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

I have tried to change it into "everything that physically exists" (as in other languages) but it was undone by a robot. Somebody may do it better than me.

In reality, the assertion that "the entirety of space, time, matter, and energy as well as the physical laws and constants that describe them" is "everything that exists" is not beyond dispute. For example, mathematical platonism (deffended by Gödel) claims that mathematical entities exist in an non-physical way (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_mathematics#Platonism). We can say the same about the laws of logic. This is beyond the multiverse.

Adding "physically" preserves the philosophical neutrality of the definition. The current definition implies materialism and materialism is only one of the philosophical positions that are valid. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.247.105.73 (talk) 23:46, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

I'll try to change it back, but since I am editing as an IP, it might also revert mine. The fact is that Wikipedia is biased toward materialism or physicalism. So the word "physical" is implied, because within the Wikipedia worldview there is nothing outside of the physical. Certainly, I agree with this notion from the POV of science. Science has to be materialist, but philosophy need not be and that is where the bias in Wikipedia shows. The worst of it is, of course, at the Intelligent design article where the arrogance of the materialist has totally taken over the article despite the history of the term. I will change it back, but I will not be surprised if it gets reverted again. But that single point does not bother me too much either way. It's small potatoes. 24.147.122.250 (talk) 16:17, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

The basic statement is untrue no matter what philosophical niceties you impose on it or don't impose on it. It is not true that, in an infinite universe, everything that can happen will happen an infinite number of times. In fact, given any completely specified "potential event", the probability that it will happen even once is zero. This is a straightforward mathematical theorem of set theory that does not even use probability theory at all: Given any completely specified potential event in, say, a finite region of spacetime, this is one out of continuum-many (1 out of 2^ℵ₀) possible events. The smallest infinity is ℵ₀, and it is known that the continuum (2^ℵ₀) is a distinctly larger infinity.

But how many of these finite-sized chunks of spacetime are there? No matter how spacetime unfolds, there are only ℵ₀ of them. This means that almost all potential events (all but an infinitely small fraction of them) will never happen, not even once, because there are 2^ℵ₀ different events but only ℵ₀ chances for one to happen.Daqu (talk) 06:37, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

Alternate Universes vs. Alternative Universes

The article says that universes within the multiverse are known as "alternative universes" however, I've never heard that wording used. I commonly hear "alternate universes". I think who ever wrote that bit probably meant to use the word "alternate" rather than "alternative". The meaning is probably the same but alternate is the word everyone actually uses. 72.64.98.194 (talk) 02:55, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

Boy, I agree with that. And I had never noticed. Gonna check/correct that now. 108.20.195.128 (talk) 18:03, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

I don't know about these universes, but I do know about the distinction between the words "alternate" and "alternative". The adjective "alternate" means one of two things, often one of two that go back and forth temporally or spatially between the two. The adjective "alternative" just means a possibility other than the usual one.

Since there is probably no alternation between two universes involved, the proper word here is probably "alternative".

The word "alternate" is often misused to mean "alternative", but it's best if Wikipedia does not make the same mistake.Daqu (talk) 20:55, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

Not sure I can do this, but!

I just wanted to thank all those who worked on this topic. It's so comprehensive. I love seeing all the theories laid out in a way that's understandable (to whatever a degree a non-physicist can handle the information ;D). I also loved seeing those pro and those con the arguments. =D

I wish I had something to add, other than these kudos, but I do not! Just, thank you! =D

(OH, and Daqu, I think that was your name, sorry! You seem brilliant! =D Kudos to you, as well!)

Sending the best 2605:6000:E8C3:9A00:E46D:FA3D:D35:F314 (talk) 08:56, 10 January 2015 (UTC) Jen Todd, Pflugerville, TX

Discussion of capitalization of universe

There is request for comment about capitalization of the word universe at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Capital letters#Capitalization of universe - request for comment. Please participate. SchreiberBike talk 00:41, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

Notification of request for comment

An RfC has been commenced at MOSCAPS Request for comment - Capitalise universe.

Cinderella157 (talk) 03:23, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

Infinite and finite sets

Hi, I'm not a mathematician or a physicist, but it is easy to show that an infinite set does not necessarily encompass all finite sets. Take, for example, the set of all positive integers, which is infinite. But the set of all fractions under 10 (or any other limit) is finite, but it is not included in the first infinite set. Thus there is another set that consists of all positive integers and all fractions under 10 - an infinite set plus an finite set. In a similar way, it is possible to imagine an infinite set of universes, plus a finite set that is not included in the infinite set. Your change has been reverted by two different people now, so please have a read of WP:BRD, and if you still disagree then please start a discussion on the article talk page and seek consensus before you make the change again. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 19:44, 7 February 2016 (UTC)

• And actually, looking again, both you and I appear to have misunderstood the phrase. It actually says "...the hypothetical set of finite and infinite possible universes'" - that is, the set of all possible universes which are infinite and all possible universes which are finite (ie the "infinite" and "finite" refer to two types of universe, not to an infinite set and a finite set). Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 19:49, 7 February 2016 (UTC)

Multiverse

As I see it, some universes are finite, and some are infinite. The multiverse then includes both. To clarify this, I think the word "possible" should be removed, as the sentence already states that these universes are "hypothetical." Wahrmund (talk) 20:26, 7 February 2016 (UTC)

I think both terms are needed because they refer to different things - each universe is a possible one, with the set being hypothetical. That is, each universe is a theoretically possible one, but the hypothesis is that the set of them (ie the multiverse) exists. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 20:47, 7 February 2016 (UTC)

Okay, so I am following Zeb's advice and putting all this on the talk page. I don't think the size or scale of the universes is or should be at issue here. Whether the universes are finite ("finite" in what sense? length or breadth or mass or age?) or infinite is a property of universes. But the set of universes that we call "the Multiverse" is either finite or not finite (i.e. the count of universes in the set is either finite or not finite). That property is what should be referred to in the lede of a Wikipedia article called "Multiverse". Whether the universes encompassed in the set of universes we call the Multiverse are finite or infinite in some physical measure is simply not on-topic for this article. Not sufficiently on-topic to be in the lede of this article. 98.118.36.105 (talk) 07:20, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

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Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Multiverse/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

I've removed the part about Spencer Danby after some research into his credentials which appear to be far from forthcomming. If his criticism were correctly being presented, then he misinteprets modal realism considerably. The 'questions' he pose have very little to do with David Lewis, either.

Last edited at 17:31, 21 September 2007 (UTC). Substituted at 00:36, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

unjustified withdrawal of material

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

@Bakingsoda. You seem to be claiming that there is no outside source to this material - when I have told you there is, and provided it. please reconcile your saying that that there is no primary source, with my provision of a peer-reviewed paper in the scientific literature. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.53.10.205 (talk) 13:57, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

Nothing heard. if I haven't heard back within 48 hours or so, I shall add the material back in. to repeat - all that is in those paragraphs is from a peer-reviewed paper in an international journal, which is cited in said paragraphs. so your claim that there is no primary source is incorrect. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.53.10.205 (talk) 15:21, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

Only a WP:PRIMARY SOURCE provided, you need to include secondary sources to establish WP:Notability, WP:UNDUE otherwise. Baking Soda (talk) 15:27, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia's WP notability stipulation only applies to whole articles, not to content within articles. The paragraphs come from a peer-reviewed paper: so the premise has been accepted by leading authorities in the multiverse field e.g. the editor of the journal is a professor of Astrophysics at Harvard University. And yet you feel qualified to dismiss it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.53.10.205 (talk) 15:44, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

What about WP:SECONDARY SOURCEs? Baking Soda (talk) 16:05, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia's policy on the need for secondary sources is not absolute. so you making up your own policy. you trying to pull policies designed for whole articles and apply them to a small piece of an already existing article. when this piece is relevant to the page (multiverse) and has been validated (peer review) by leading authorities in that area. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.53.10.205 (talk) 16:12, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

Nothing heard. if I haven't heard back within 48 hours or so, I shall add the material back in. Please don't reply again with wikipedia policies for a new article, which this isn't. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.53.10.205 (talk) 20:14, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

WP:SECONDARY SOURCEs policy applies to all article additions. Advise you check at Wikipedia:Help desk. See this for a similar suggested addition. Baking Soda (talk) 20:48, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

Incorrect:

[1] "primary sources that have been reputably published may be used in Wikipedia". [2] "A primary source may only be used on Wikipedia to make straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the primary source but without further, specialized knowledge". [2b] i.e. A secondary source is needed if you are re-interpreting a primary source. In this case that doesn't apply. [3] BTW: the primary source in this case can also be considered a secondary source to other journal articles cited on the wikipedia page.

Nothing heard. so if not heard anything within 48 hours it being reposted. I have shown you the parts of wikipedia policy applicable in this case. please don't just refer me again to this policy - where these very sentences lie, asserting the actual validity of using the source. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.53.10.205 (talk) 21:31, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

don't make up your own policies. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.53.10.205 (talk) 21:06, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

Nothing heard back - again, its going up unless you can show me something in wikipedia policy against. it isn't beyond the boundary of reason that a peer-reviewed paper in an international cosmology journal, on the multiverse, be used as a source on the multiverse wikipedia page. indeed, that is why it isn't prohibited in wikipedia's policy, as I have spelled out with the four points earlier. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.53.10.205 (talk) 22:13, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

To save everyone's time, any claims sourced to the creationist junk-science, and not meaningfully scientifically peer-reviewed, Journal of Cosmology are categorically inadmissable on this page per WP:UNDUE and WP:FRINGE, and I will help revert them as soon as I see them. Feel free to escalate to the RS board or the fringe board if you feel like wasting your time. Rolf H Nelson (talk) 02:51, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

Any multiverse theory is fringe. So, on your given basis, the whole page could and should be pulled, with WP:FRINGE written here subsequently by way of justification. Journal of Cosmology is a peer-reviewed science journal. a plain fact. the Journal of cosmology wikipedia page needs to get looked at because it give credence to the disputes of very minor scientists and bloggers against titans of science e.g. Fred Hoyle, one of the finest minds to have ever walked this earth. why are we listening to what some "blogger" has to say about his work, with wikipedia putting their view on parity with - no in excess to - that of Fred Hoyle. To get back to the matter in hand. Indeed, if admitted onto the page this piece will be one of the only parts of it to be qualified with a peer-reviewed paper. the overwhelming majority of the rest of the page is without any such substantiation (and so by your stipulation, should be removed). what is really going on here - you don't like the finding of the paper, which has been sanctioned by the community e.g. the editor of Journal of Cosmology is a Harvard professor of Astrophysics, yet you deem yourself more qualified. so you see yourself fit to block a published multiverse theory from the the multiverse wikipedia page and deny wikpedia readers access to the full range of multiverse theories. censorship. plain and simple. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.53.10.205 (talk) 06:35, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

48 hours to respond or its going back up. we can't have the "thought police" denying wikipedia readers access to relevant information on a page, just because it runs contrary to their own views. wikipedia needs to present the full range of ideas, especially if from a peer-reviewed journal source in the context that most of the rest of the page content is without any such substantiation, and readers can make up their own mind. to prevent access to such material, which is presented alongside all the other multiverse theories (so the reader has the information to make their own judgement), is WP:UNDUE. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.53.10.205 (talk) 13:15, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

If you you go ahead and add your unreliably sourced WP:FRINGE content (see Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_91#Journal_of_Cosmology), you risk getting blocked, doing more damage to content you'd like to add. Please see Wikipedia:Dispute resolution for an alternative route. Baking Soda (talk) 13:36, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

Any multiverse theory is fringe, without any experimental justification and very arguably out of the realm of science - so WP:FRINGE applies to the whole page and cannot be applied selectively to this one multiverse theory. to do so demonstrates WP:UNDUE. to discredit journal of cosmology you cite wikipedia pages and wikipedia chats, which isn;t a valid source by wikipedia's own policy on sources. journal of cosmology is a valid primary source by wikipedia's own criteria - look it up and get back to me. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.53.10.205 (talk) 14:09, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

give me the lines of actual wikipedia policy to which you can refer to suggest that journal of cosmology is not a valid source. to repeat - wikipedia pages, chats, blogs, news reporting on blogs etc. is not valid sourcing by wikipedias own policy on sources. so you cannot use these to discredit an actual valid source, by wikipedia's own criteria. BTW - articles published in any science journal are contested by other science papers. this is how science works. a back and forth. choose any science journal e.g. nature - and it will have many other science papers in many other journals contesting findings of papers within it. this contesting actually reflects that this journal is an active participant in the scientific literature and scholarship. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.53.10.205 (talk) 14:18, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

Lets go through this systematically - with each of your problems in turn. firstly - to get one out of the way. can we agree that the multiverse - any theory - is WP:FRINGE. indeed, not one has any experimental evidence and there are strong arguments that it probably isn't falsifiable and so isn't science. so applying WP:FRINGE to any one multiverse theory over any other is ludicrous. your response? on this - show me a primary research paper in a premier peer-reviewed science journal advocating any of the multiverse theories presently on the wikipedia page. It is important to apply the same criteria in all directions equally. otherwise it is just plain WP:UNDUE. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.53.10.205 (talk) 21:13, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

response? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.53.10.205 (talk) 13:12, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

No, multiverse is not WP:FRINGE. See the talk archives; the question of whether multiverse is fringe has been discussed before. Please do not add material sourced to the junk-science Journal of Cosmology in the clear absence of WP:CONSENSUS to do so, even if your fellow volunteer editors don't respond to your tenditious arguments right away within the timeframe you specify. Rolf H Nelson (talk) 00:27, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

Listen, I think that the article is pretty clear about the controversial nature of the multiverse hypothesis. I dunno who this Michael Forrest character is or what he has to offer the discussion that is widely considered notable. And immediately connecting the hypothesis with any particular person's musings about infinitely plural Gods is not what the physical multiverse hypotheses are about. That Everything from Nothing section is not really on-topic and certainly appears to be WP:OR and from no one of note in the physics and cosmology disciplines. 66.220.232.37 (talk) 04:04, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

We have been around the houses as you try to find something in wikipedia's policy to prohibit this being included on the page. they have been batted away. as it stands now - you don't want it included because it is published in a peer-reviewed journal, whose editor is a professor of Astrophysics at Harvard University, not to your liking. but then, as I said previously, where are the peer-reviewed primary papers advocating any of the rest of the page? you haven't addressed this. You are in contravention of wikipedia's policy. bias. people deeming that they know "what the physical multiverse hypothesis are about" more than others, indeed - more than the published literature. the wikipedia page should reflect the full range of multiverse theories, especially if published after peer-review (which isn't applicable to most of rest of page), not your editor's picks of what you favor. BTW - you misunderstanding and misusing WP:OR - it cannot be on a wikipedia page but can be in a journal article (again - how many of these incorrect/abused applications of policy are we going to have to go through?!) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.53.10.205 (talk) 12:45, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

Michael, I dunno how to put this more kindly, since you don't take the hint: Your Everything from Nothing theory is crap. And it is original research. And you're trying to use Wikipedia as a platform for promoting it. It doesn't belong here. Your batting away bluster doesn't change that fact. And, unlike BakingSoda, I don't think there is any reason whatsoever to believe that there are universes other than the only one we have any possibility of observing. 66.220.232.37 (talk) 16:36, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

You are in contravention of wikipedia's policies. You think that your viewpoint is important here. you are mistaken. this is wikipedia not your personal webpage and wikipedia's policies reign supreme. you don;t understand what wikipedia means by original research - it means that wikipedia content must not be novel, it must have some prior basis elsewhere. which of course there is in this case. The definitive lines, that should end all this, from said policy:

"we publish the opinions only of reliable authors, and not the opinions of Wikipedians who have read and interpreted primary source material for themselves". "If you are unsure about the quality of a journal, check that the editorial board is based in a respected accredited university, and that it is included in the relevant citation index". - editor is a professor of astrophysics at Harvard, and google scholar respectively. Many prominent scientists publish in it. e.g. the very prominent Sir Roger Penrose at Oxford university, whose papers in said journal have hundreds of citations in many other journals. "Content from websites whose content is largely user-generated is also generally unacceptable. Sites with user-generated content include personal websites, personal blogs, group blogs, the Internet Movie Database (IMDb), the Comic Book Database (CBDB.com), content farms, most wikis including Wikipedia, and other collaboratively created websites". - so don't quote me material from wikipedia pages, chats or blogs etc. it isn't admissible. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.53.10.205 (talk) 17:31, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

Being indexed Google Scholar does not even slightly count. Rolf H Nelson (talk) 05:10, 3 May 2016 (UTC)

It does count, by wikipedia's objective criteria. your opinion doesn't count. the wikipedia policies count, you do not. an editor should be a servant to the policies, indeed a slave to them, not lording it over pages policing it with their own opinions and views. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.53.10.205 (talk) 13:04, 3 May 2016 (UTC)

No consensus on your suggested additions here, best to take it to Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard and Wikipedia:Fringe_theories/Noticeboard. You can also resort to Wikipedia:Dispute resolution (Dispute resolution board/RfC). Baking Soda (talk) 17:54, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

I think its heading that way - so going into that: how is your blocking this new material not in contravention of wikipedia's policies?, in the light of my last. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.53.10.205 (talk) 18:33, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

To avoid getting off-topic, I'll agree with you that 66.220.232.37's reasoning about *why* the JoC paper doesn't merit inclusion aren't policy-based; however, mine are. As I said, it fails WP:WEIGHT. You clearly know enough about the journal to come to that same conclusion yourself if you care to look again with a more objective eye, so if you can't see for yourself that JoC is fringe, there's nothing I can think of to do or say to help you understand. Rolf H Nelson (talk) 05:10, 3 May 2016 (UTC)

I am certain that it is per Wikipedia policy that authors do not use Wikipedia as a platform for promoting their original research. 66.220.232.37 (talk) 12:34, 3 May 2016 (UTC)

True enough. My only minor objection would be that 201.53.10.205 says it's not WP:OR, and he's technically wrong b/c WP:OR requires "reliable sources", but IMHO it's confusing for you to cite WP:OR instead of WP:WEIGHT or WP:RS. Usually WP:OR is cited in the common case where an editor tries to advance a claim while citing absolutely nothing at all. If hypothetically an editor were to violate common-sense WP:COI by surreptitiously citing a paper that he himself has published, I still wouldn't cite WP:OR; in that case one could report it as WP:COI in addition to WP:WEIGHT, but since the content isn't getting added to the article in either case I wouldn't bother reporting the COI. Anyway, just my $.02, it's not a big deal. Rolf H Nelson (talk) 03:43, 4 May 2016 (UTC)

you talk of objectivity and then exercise extreme subjectivity/prejudice in plain sight. again, stick to the policies. they are there for a reason. they reign absolute (well they should). Wikipedia has an objective measure to gauge journals: "If you are unsure about the quality of a journal, check that the editorial board is based in a respected accredited university, and that it is included in the relevant citation index". - its Editor is a professor of astrophysics at Harvard, and google scholar respectively. Many prominent scientists publish in it. e.g. the very prominent Sir Roger Penrose at Oxford university, very arguably one of the greatest living scientists, whose papers in said journal have hundreds of citations in many other journals. So, by the objective measure set out by wikipedia - the journal passes. BTW - most of the rest of the material on the page would not pass such scrutiny! to conclude - all your opinions are irrelevant, it is the policies that matter. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.53.10.205 (talk) 12:35, 3 May 2016 (UTC)

So, I've put in a request for a third opinion. now this might be void, because as i was filling it out i noticed that this is for disputes involving just 2 editors, whereas here I think we have 3 vs. 1. so if it isn't applicable i will go up the chain to the next level of dispute resolution. but see how we go, if someone will take it on. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.53.10.205 (talk) 15:59, 4 May 2016 (UTC)

BTW - when I get around to it I'm going to edit the Journal of Cosmology wikipedia page, which you are all taking as bible (even though wikipedia pages are not to be considered as reliable sources by wikipedia's own policy - so you are in breach of wikipedia's policy in using a non-reliable and non-admissible source to try and discredit a reliable source, defined as such, by wikipedia's own policy on sources). The Editor of Journal of Cosmology is a Harvard University professor of Astrophysics and its editorial board includes Sir Roger Penrose of Oxford University, a physicist of such standing that there are few scientists alive today that could be considered in the same league. And yet its wikipedia page is basically just the rants of bloggers, and news sources reporting on these rants. their word is taken on parity - no in actual excess of - actual professional, distinguished scientists at the world's best universities. ridiculous. BTW - yes some papers in Journal of Cosmology are contested, but that is true of any journal e.g. Nature, Science etc. So, that isn't anything unique to journal of cosmology. Indeed, there are many Nature, Science, PNAS papers retracted. so actual malpractice at work. yet fine - these things happen and isn't used to discredit the whole journal. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.53.10.205 (talk) 15:25, 5 May 2016 (UTC)

The bloggers seem to have a problem with Journal of Cosmology publishing some astrobiology articles (e.g. by an ex-NASA scientist). but Nature, arguably the premier journal, publishes astrobiology articles also (a quick - by no means exhaustive - search unearthed): See: http://www.nature.com/subjects/astrobiology e.g. look at this nature article that reports on amino acids in space (building blocks of life in space) http://www.natureasia.com/en/nindia/article/10.1038/nindia.2014.31 there are whole journals dedicated to astrobiology: e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astrobiology_(journal) and it has a large wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astrobiology BTW - organic materials have been found in meteorites. Fred Hoyle one of the proponents that life may have first developed in space rather than on earth (it is a non-understood process either way) is one of the greatest scientists ever, who figured out how the sun worked. a massive achievement. the blogger who dismisses his viewpoint and its inclusion in a journal of cosmology article - what has he ever done or found out? how is his view on anything put on a parity with Fred Hoyle? this is the problem with wikipedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.53.10.205 (talk) 16:05, 5 May 2016 (UTC)

Before I escalate this up the chain further - perhaps you would like to comment on Journal of Cosmology in the light of my last? On what basis can you say that is an unreliable source, given that it meets wikipedia's criteria for a reliable source. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.53.10.205 (talk) 12:52, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

Nope, I still disagree and deem it obviously non-WP:RS. Rolf H Nelson (talk) 02:09, 15 May 2016 (UTC)

You don't answer - you don't provide, or even attempt, any justification. Your "deeming" is in contravention of wikipedia's policies. your "deeming" and opinions should be irrelevant, although they causing such problems here as you impose them on others via this wikipedia page. it also somewhat ridiculous - you basically saying your viewpoint supersedes that of the editors of Journal of Cosmology e.g. Roger Penrose, one of the greatest scientists of all time. Well, wikipedia's policies don't put you ahead of Roger Penrose - it puts you very much behind. THE policy: "If you are unsure about the quality of a journal, check that the editorial board is based in a respected accredited university, and that it is included in the relevant citation index". Roger Penrose is at Oxford University, the chief editor is a professor at Harvard University and the journal is listed in google scholar. Done. Simples. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.53.10.205 (talk) 13:15, 15 May 2016 (UTC)

I'm assuming that this discussion is about this material: [6]. The cited source, by Michael D. Forrest, does not appear to be very substantive, and it is not written by an authority on the subject of cosmology. Yes, it sometimes happens that such stuff gets published, even in peer-reviewed journals. I think the material that is being proposed for this article is far too long and, therefore, undue. The general idea of something from nothing can be better cited to a book by Lawrence Krauss A_Universe_from_Nothing. Isambard Kingdom (talk) 13:43, 15 May 2016 (UTC)

It is about that. wikpedia editors must NOT attempt to interpret primary sources - this is in wikipedia's policies. but there is too much of this going on here. BTW the findings of the paper are almost the polar opposite of the Lawrence Krauss book. so no - it cannot be replaced by that reference. i can cut the paragraphs down to make them shorter - that is a reasonable point.

No, you don't need to cut it down. Thanks. Isambard Kingdom (talk) 19:50, 15 May 2016 (UTC)

The Journal of Cosmology appears to some to be unreliable and predatory. I wonder if the Journal's claimed board of editors is legitimate. Isambard Kingdom (talk) 14:01, 15 May 2016 (UTC)

Evidence? There are too many opinions going on here and no fidelity to facts. Is this where we are at? - resorting to even denying that the Editors are who they say they are? Ridiculous. BTW - Roger Penrose is not just an editor of Journal of Cosmology but has published in the journal also. see: (cited 127 times, by many other journals): https://scholar.google.com.br/scholar?q=Consciousness+in+the+universe%3A+Neuroscience%2C+quantum+space-time+geometry+and+Orch+OR+theory&btnG=&hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.53.10.205 (talk)

Your edit history shows that are preoccupied with this one issue. The wikiarticle Journal of Cosmology discusses its reliability. Thanks, Isambard Kingdom (talk) 19:47, 15 May 2016 (UTC)

Read the rest of what I have written here RE: the wikipedia page for Journal of Cosmology. to cut to core of it: you are taking a wikipedia page as a reliable source, which it isn't by wikipedia's own policy on sources, to discredit Journal of Cosmology which is a reliable source by wikipedia's own policy on sources i.e. in contravention of wikipedia's policies. at end of day the Journal of Cosmology wikipedia page is nonsense, it is just the rants of some bloggers. because they don;t like some of the astrobiology articles published by the journal. it is a wikipedia page that is presently failing. its important to stick to the wikiepedia policies - they are there to make wikipedia as good as it can be and not be the mouthpiece for the rants and biases of bloggers. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.53.10.205 (talk) 21:03, 15 May 2016 (UTC)

Okay, but the article and the author are not notable. We don't just cite new articles because you like them. Thanks. Isambard Kingdom (talk) 21:09, 15 May 2016 (UTC)

Is the author of the article, Michael Forrest, affiliated with some institution related to cosmology? Isambard Kingdom (talk) 21:15, 15 May 2016 (UTC)

opinions again. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.53.10.205 (talk) 21:16, 15 May 2016 (UTC)

Second point - you making up your own policies and stipulations. just implement wikipedia's policies. not your own. it could be Boy George that wrote it, regardless, - the salient point is that it has been signed off by peer review at the Journal of Cosmology, which is a reliable source by the stipulations of wikipedia's own policies. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.53.10.205 (talk) 21:20, 15 May 2016 (UTC)

That is pretty much a necessary condition, not a sufficient one. Isambard Kingdom (talk) 21:21, 15 May 2016 (UTC)

you don't like the finding of the paper and seek to block it, despite its inclusion being an actual assertion of wikipedia's policies. we have been around so many houses as you scramble to block it. the number has been farcical and are getting more and more ridiculous e.g. now saying the journal editors are not who they say they are etc. - thats a favorite actually. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.53.10.205 (talk) 21:28, 15 May 2016 (UTC)

so - its there in plain sight. the paper is a reliable source by wikipedia's own definition of such. it is relevant to the page. it should go up. wikipedia breaks down if editors try to make their own page, reflecting their own opinions and biases, rather than adhering to wikipedia's policies. this is what we have in this case and this page is presently failing. i am going to put it up again within 48 hours. I think the arguments against have been exhausted now. indeed they were never there. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.53.10.205 (talk) 12:18, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

There is no consensus for including this material, which, judging from your edit history, is your fixation. Thanks. Isambard Kingdom (talk) 12:52, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

Third Opinion

A Third Opinion was requested. It was deleted by another third opinion volunteer, who noted correctly that there were more than two editors involved. Third Opinion should be used if there are only two editors involved. It is not applicable when there are two main editors involved and other editors have commented. (One of them may be the Third Opinion.) There are at least two registered editors and one unregistered editor. A previous suggestion was made to try either the reliable sources noticeboard or the fringe theories noticeboard. Those are still reasonable ideas. Robert McClenon (talk) 14:01, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Is this kind of page well suited to an encyclopedia?

The idea behind an encyclopedia is to aggregate existing content, not to create new content - especially that of a speculative nature. Without sound theoretical grounding and even the proposal of how experimental evidence can be obtained, this page seems misleading at best and useless at worst. Perhaps it is best to wait and see if the theory ever becomes more developed and some substantial review articles have been published. As it stands this appears to be a collection of pet theories without any real science to back them up (however interesting the idea might be). — Preceding unsigned comment added by DrNoBrain (talk • contribs) 04:26, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

I do not think so. Read properly the origin of the concept. Multiverse is as true as Schrödinger equation.Kartasto (talk) 08:55, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

Deletion of Jim Johnson's submission

Isambard, please assure me that you read the article before coming to your conclusion that the subject is lightweight. I think it addresses an overlooked topic which is relevant to multiverse theories. It also may apply in the Laws of Nature section. Thanks, Jim Johnson.Jim Johnson 22:41, 8 November 2016 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jimjohnson2222 (talk • contribs) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2602:304:B10B:A640:8D5C:8720:87EF:D7FA (talk)

I can't even find the article indexed on Google Scholar, [7] unless my search is bugged it sounds like the journal might not valid be for inclusion. Rolf H Nelson (talk) 21:35, 12 November 2016 (UTC)

The Journal of Philosophy and Cosmology is not on Beall's list. That looks good for the girth or gravity for Jim's reference. 65.183.156.110 (talk) 04:20, 13 November 2016 (UTC)

If the journal isn't prominently indexed per WP:SCHOLARSHIP, it badly fails WP:UNDUE. (To be clear, Google Scholar isn't one of the indexes Wikipedia takes into account, but being not even indexed in Scholar is a really bad sign.) If it does turn out to be indexed, it still fails WP:SCHOLARSHIP due to lack of citations. In a case like this, theoretically an article "too new to be have been cited yet" can pass WP:SCHOLARSHIP, if there were evidence that the article has entered "mainstream discourse" (for example widespread immediate mainstream media coverage). The guideline is common sense; it would obviously not be reasonable to require we editors who are against inclusion to "prove a negative" and prove that the article is *not* yet a part of mainstream discourse! Rolf H Nelson (talk) 04:40, 23 November 2016 (UTC)

1. the journal ref is Journal of Philosophy and Cosmology http://ispcjournal.org/en/archives.html

Please view the video for the key concepts in the article referenced. There is very little published on this subject and I think ir adds value bt clarifying a confusing subject. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I08miipzI3A&feature=youtu.be Thanks, jim jihnson Jim Johnson 21:35, 14 November 2016 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jimjohnson2222 (talk • contribs) Different laws of nature are not considered when discussing fine tuning because “they are what they are”. Only the Mathematical Hypothesis proposed by Max Tegmark, entertains different laws of nature. However, they must be considered when thinking about reality and space. My article, published in the Journal of philosophy and Cosmology, defines a conceptual model that separates space from initial conditions and the big bang. It provides a definition of the laws of nature and discusses the ramifications for different laws. The eighteen-page article has ten Scientific American references and nine books by noted physicist. My previous article on the constants of nature, published by Physics International, is a Wikipedia reference. Topics in Wikipedia that relate to the laws of nature are: Multiverse, Mathematical Universe Hypothesis, Fine-tuned Universe, Physical Laws, and Laws of science. Assuming the Wikipedia reviewers agree; I plan to edit references into the first three topics. I think the dispute process is the best way to resolve the question of value and relevance to the topics.2602:304:B10B:A640:2C0C:A9BB:A38C:29CD (talk) 14:57, 16 November 2016 (UTC)

Do you think Johnson is a notable author on this subject? The article he wrote doesn't seem to be cited by anybody. Isambard Kingdom (talk) 15:07, 16 November 2016 (UTC)

Isambard, the article has only been out one month so citings are not expected yet. I am challenging your edits.Jim Johnson 16:06, 16 November 2016 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jimjohnson2222 (talk • contribs)

Okay. Isambard Kingdom (talk) 16:12, 16 November 2016 (UTC)

Isambard, does ok mean the changes are ok or the challenge is ok? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2602:304:B10B:A640:2C0C:A9BB:A38C:29CD (talk) 18:51, 16 November 2016 (UTC)

I thought you were going to go to dispute resolution or something. I don't think that would be a good use of your time, but you can request dispute resolution if you want. I still don't think that your article is noteworthy. Citing it puts it on the same tier with other authorities in the subject, and that would not be appropriate. Thank you. Isambard Kingdom (talk) 18:55, 16 November 2016 (UTC)

Yes I am disputing but must go to the next level since three have been in talk. Did you look at my list of references? Are you saying only these people can publish sometime of value? After all we are talking multiverse. Jim Johnson 21:55, 16 November 2016 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jimjohnson2222 (talk • contribs)

Personally I think the reference to the article could stay in while this is being discussed. So The Journal of Philosophy and Cosmology is not on Beall's list. That's good. I took a quick look at Jim's paper in it and another look at another recent paper. Admittedly the other paper in this journal looks quite a bit airhead with issues of "afterlife" and others normally associated with religion. But both physics and religion have cosmologies, so I don't see that as much of a problem. 173.48.60.68 (talk) 06:49, 23 November 2016 (UTC)

Is Edward Witten a skeptic on multiverse?

I was wondering if the following sentence makes Edward Witten a sceptic on multiverse, and if his name should be added: “I would be happy personally if the multiverse interpretation is not correct, in part because it potentially limits our ability to understand the laws of physics. But none of us were consulted when the universe was created.” https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/new-physics-complications-lend-support-to-multiverse-hypothesis/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by Icantevennnnn (talk • contribs) 13:39, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

I'd say definitely not, it seems to confirm that he is not a skeptic. Doug Weller talk 14:15, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

"hypothetical" vs. "pseudoscience" and consistency.

Ya know, I wouldn't necessarily give this last revert a second thought, but if User:Isambard Kingdom were to go to Intelligent design and replace "pseudoscience" with "hypothetical", his/her edit would be reversed immediately and scornfully and he/she might get blocked. How much more science and testability does the Multiverse have that Intelligent design lack? 173.48.60.68 (talk) 23:10, 23 November 2016 (UTC)

Genuine scientific backing, unless you're really calling Hawking and the other proponents pseudoscientists. Doug Weller talk 14:19, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

Another view

I have a bit of a problem with the idea of multiple universes that are, one way or another, related to each other, or at least (could) influence each other.

Consider a universe as a manifestation of a space-time continuum. So each universe in a multiverse has it's own notion of time and space. As soon as we think of "another" universe relating or reacting with "our" universe, we observe that other universe with out notion of space and time. However: our space and time do not apply to the other universe (neither apply the other universes time and space to our universe).

This means that from within our universe (or space-time continuum), we can not observe other universes, because if we could, the other universe is part of our notion of space and time, and thus, by definition, not another universe.

Other universes may exist, but cannot be observed. Neither can we say "where" or "when" a given universe exists or existed. Again: because the "where" and "when" only apply to our own universe.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.62.68.228 (talk) 11:55, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

Should Lee Smolin be included as a proponent of a multiverse theory?

In the article, there is reference to "Lee Smolin's fecund universes theory."

But his name does not appear in the list of proponents. I dunno how Dr. Smolin would represent his own view. Perhaps someone who knows him might ask. 96.237.136.210 (talk) 03:40, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

Asking him would be original research. Anything included must be based on what is published in reliable sources. If he has not made his position clear in all his papers, books, talks and interviews then there is nothing more to say. Any list of proponents and skeptics is going to be problematical because there are multiple multiverse concepts and some people fall into both categories. I suspect that Smolin is one of them. Weburbia (talk) 08:17, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

I'd say that unless his views are represented in independent reliable sources, then whatever his views are, they don't belong here. Doug Weller talk 09:34, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

Add specific reference

After the first sentence in the Explanation section, "The structure of the multiverse, the nature of each universe within it, and the relationships among these universes differ from one multiverse hypothesis to another." Add the specific reference that takes a macro view of universe creation process: Creating a Universe, a Conceptual Model, Journal of Philosophy and Cosmology, http://ispcjournal.org/journals/2016-17/PC_vol_17-86-105.pdf This should provide necessary perspective. Please respond if you do not think this adds value. Jim J Jim Johnson 15:27, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

Another source

[8] Doug Weller talk 18:07, 9 September 2017 (UTC)

Removal of James Johnson reference.

The removal of the James R Johnson paper citation seems a little premature. ISPCJournals does not seem to be on Beall's List. The paper didn't look half bad and even contained a reference to another paper I hadn't known of before. Is it right that the citation was so quickly removed? It is not obviously pseudoscience. 96.237.136.210 (talk) 03:21, 10 September 2017 (UTC)

obvious REFSPAM and more importantly, a primary source. We build WP from secondary sources that describe what is going on in a given field, not papers presenting individual theories -- we have no way to know how much WEIGHT that should be given to them, and we should not try to judge. Has nothing to do with pseudoscience per se. Jytdog (talk) 03:37, 10 September 2017 (UTC)

Jytdog, this is not a theory but a model based on fact. When discussing the multiverse, the laws of nature are assumed. By acknowledging and defining them, a complete picture is obtained. This this article, quoting 14 noted physicist, adds direct value . The comments above, by one user on Sept 10,confirm this. Since it was deleted after a day, how much more support would it receive? Please provide specific justification for deletion. Thanks Jim Johnson 15:05, 16 September 2017 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jimjohnson2222 (talk • contribs)

Four things:

Please clarify if you are the same person as the IP addresss above.

Jytdog, I just discovered this now and I can confirm that I am not James Johnson (but it appears that Jimjohnson2222 might be). 96.237.136.210 (talk) 06:02, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

Jytdog, I do not know my IP address but all my comments have Jim Johnson or James R Johnson. Jim Johnson 18:38, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

Please be sure to indent and your sign your posts on Talk pages. See Help:Talk_pages#Indentation.

Please review WP:SELFCITE. If this is your paper please say so.

The paper appears to be what we call a "primary" source, where the authors' research is first published (these are papers where knowledge that has been created, or a synthesis that has been developed, is first is made public). It does not appear to be what we call a "secondary source", which is a source that itself attempts to summarize what is already known and accepted in a given field. Would you please confirm that this is a primary source? Jytdog (talk) 20:19, 16 September 2017 (UTC)

The reference cited is a Secondary Source as defined by,”Secondary sources involve generalization, analysis, synthesis, interpretation, or evaluation of the original information.” The article expands on a multiverse topic briefly discussed by physicists Greene and Tegmark. Yes, I am author and forgot to sign last update. Jim Johnson 15:07, 17 September 2017 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jimjohnson2222 (talk • contribs) 15:08, 17 September 2017 (UTC)

The source says: "This article defines a conceptual model separating the laws of nature from the universe’s energy source and its expansion". It is the author's model, presented here, and is the primary source for that. Jytdog (talk) 20:02, 17 September 2017 (UTC)

No, the Model is not original research. Any physicist would acknowledge that it describes our current understanding. The issue is that most ignore talking about the” laws of nature” because, like the multiverse, validation of different laws is not possible. However, analysis speculating on different laws is no different than speculating on Multiverse. Both Brian Greene and Max Tegmark are quoted on their thoughts related to laws of nature. Jim Johnson 03:06, 18 September 2017 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jimjohnson2222 (talk • contribs)

If there are no other objections, I will add back reference in a few days. Jim Johnson 11:22, 27 September 2017 (UTC)

That isn't how it works. Per WP:SELFCITE you need consensus to add it, which you do not have at this point. Jytdog (talk) 20:05, 27 September 2017 (UTC)

Jytdog, all your objections have not been valid and another user supports the change, what else is necessary? Jim Johnson 21:25, 27 September 2017 (UTC)

You do not have consensus to add this. If you want to pursue dispute resolution please see WP:DR. Jytdog (talk) 21:36, 27 September 2017 (UTC)

Request for Comment

Please reference Wikipedia: Dispute resolution noticeboard for extended discussion. This along with this (Multiverse Talk) page describe the issue. October 4, 2017 Jim Johnson 19:08, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

I removed the tag. This is not an appropriately framed RfC and will waste everyone's time. I will pose one in a bit. Jytdog (talk) 19:24, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

So instead of an RfC, I think a better use of community attention would be if we posted at WP:RSN. Would you be open to doing that instead? Jytdog (talk) 05:04, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

Jytdog, no, I think my position is stronger with a RFC type review. Also, I am concerned that there will be confusion based on the four changes. Should we consider all or restrict the issue to one of the two articles? In Wikipedia a Reference is no doubt more important (Model for Creating…) than an External Link (like the Utube) or External Article (Dimensionless Constants in Physics International). Jim Johnson 23:32, 5 October 2017 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jimjohnson2222 (talk • contribs)

As a comment from the peanut gallery, I'm not convinced this is a good reference to add, so I agree with Jytdog. SnowFire (talk) 00:06, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

RfC on source

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

In this diff, User:Jimjohnson222 added a citation to a paper he wrote, (no change to content) so that the content looked like this:

The structure of the multiverse, the nature of each universe within it, and the relationships among these universes differ from one multiverse hypothesis to another.

References

The edit note was Add a specific reference that explains, from a philosphical perspective, multiverse possibilities. I reverted, with edit note one example; we need a review. pretty clear refspam too

There was discussion above, and a DRN here that ended with a suggestion for an RfC.

Should we use the reference, or not? Jytdog (talk) 01:19, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

!votes

• Do not use. There is no Journal of Philosophy and Cosmology. There is, however, a The Journal Philosophy and Cosmology, which is what I assume is intended. It appears to be the personal project of Oleg Bazaluk, who has no shortage of publications in predatory journals [10]. I am skeptical of its reliability. Certainly a new uncited paper, in a non-physics journal, is the wrong reference for this sentence. —David Eppstein (talk) 02:29, 6 October 2017 (UTC)
• Do not use Bazaluk publishes through the dicey publishers Cambridge Scholars Publishing, see[11]. I love their "peer review": "We will agree a peer review strategy Like all academics and publishers we recognise the value of peer review within the publication process. We offer a number of options to our authors and we will work with you to develop the most appropriate approach for your particular work."[12] Doug Weller talk 12:25, 6 October 2017 (UTC)
• Nope, suggest WP:SNOW close. It's refspam from a fringe lesser journal. If this paper is really such a good source, I'm sure that other reputable books will have similar information and/or cite this paper soon enough, and we can cite them then. SnowFire (talk) 14:03, 6 October 2017 (UTC)
• No, this is not a respectable scientific journal and the article is not serious science. Attic Salt (talk) 12:33, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

Discussion

• It is my understanding that Jimjohnson has devoted a lot of time and love to studying cosmology and that while this is not his professional field, he is not pushing FRINGE views or pseudoscience. In my view Jimjohnson could add a lot of value as an editor if he would take the time to understand the sourcing policies and guidelines -- the heart of them -- and spend time in Wikipedia summarizing sources that are widely considered authoritative in the field, and not on citing his own works. I think it is great that Jimjohnson has been able to get a paper published in the field - not at all easy for someone without credentials in the field.

Yes it is a lower quality journal. For that reason, and because as I wrote above and at the DRN, the paper and the youtube presentation of it both emphasize that the paper is attempting to resolve some tensions in the field by defining "a conceptual model separating the laws of nature from the universe’s energy source and its expansion" and so it is a primary source -- for those two reasons -- we should not use it, but should use higher quality secondary or tertiary sources widely seen in the field as authoritative. We rarely cite primary sources and lower quality sources, and that is because those kinds of sources often do have pseudoscience, FRINGE views, or bad science in them. The issue is the type of source this is. No reason has been provided as to why this particular primary source in a low-quality journal should be used instead of secondary or teritary sources published in higher quality journals or books. (please be aware that we get lots of people showing up at Wikipedia to push FRINGEy views, who cite just these types of sources -- Wikipedia is vulnerable to this due to its open nature. Keeping source quality high and doing so consistently is fundamental to maintaining the quality of articles and not getting into endless disputes... so we are pretty fierce about this)

There is also the policy at play, that the purpose of Wikipedia is not to promote anyone or anything.

Jimjohnson, just because you can cite your paper doesn't mean you should, and it is disappointing that this issue is taking up the time of editors (including you), when all of us could be building content based on high quality secondary sources instead of being stuck here. Experienced editors who come here will be expressing that exasperation some. Jytdog (talk) 16:18, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

Jytdog, looks like your logic wins. Thanks for handling the discussion so competently. I understand the reason for restricting sources but was encourage by the editor (or reader) who found it valuable so proceeded with the dispute.

There is still the second Physics International article (peer reviewed) which was added as an External Article in the Dimensionless Constants topic. How should it be handled?

Jim Johnson 17:09, 7 October 2017 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jimjohnson2222 (talk • contribs)

You mean this paper. I am sorry to say this, but that journal is published by Science Publications, and that publisher appeared on Beall's list of predatory publishers, and we don't cite papers in such journals. I'm sorry. Jytdog (talk) 18:05, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Hypotheses or Theories?

Through out the article it talks about various multiverse hypotheses, and yet at the same time it refers to them as theories. There being a distinct difference between the two, what's the official consensus on how the multiverse is viewed from a scientific standpoint? After all, in the article it mentions "Multiple universes have been hypothesized in cosmology, physics, astronomy, religion, philosophy, transpersonal psychology, and literature, particularly in science fiction and fantasy. In these contexts, parallel universes are also called "alternate universes", "quantum universes", "interpenetrating dimensions", "parallel dimensions", "parallel worlds", "parallel realities", "quantum realities", "alternate realities", "alternate timelines", "alternate dimensions", and "dimensional planes"." And yet through out the article everything is referred to as a theory and not a hypothesis. There should be a little clarification on this because one gets the idea that we are talking about established scientific theories, and yet that is not possible because it's beyond the realm of testability.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.171.172.185 (talk) 13:23, 14 February 2018 (UTC) 

Some comments

Fresh New Scientist[13]: “One of the most common misconceptions is that the multiverse is a hypothesis,” says Sean Carroll at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. In fact, it is forced upon us. “It is a prediction of theories we have good reason to think are correct.”

Multiverse is about quantum mechanics Kartasto (talk) 17:32, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

"That humans live in"

The phrase "including the universe that humans live in", currently found in the opening paragraph, seems ill-advised. The Many-Worlds Interpretation take on how a multiverse might work implies that the multiverse contains an infinity of other universes with humans in them.

What gives me pause is that I don't know if it's acceptable for a Wikipedia article to refer to its own existence, which the most straightforward fix I can think of, "including the universe that we live in"/"including our universe", would be doing. --Scrooge MacDuck (talk) 12:15, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

Proponent?

In the proponents/skeptics section should Hugh Everett (of the many-worlds interpretation) not be listed as a proponent? 173.228.123.166 (talk) 04:29, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

Well, many worlds interpretation means multiverse...Kartasto (talk) 09:57, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

Added with (easily found) source. Prinsgezinde (talk) 08:29, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

Shouldn't we have a separate list that says "former proponents no longer living include" which has Hugh Everett and Stephen Hawking? Once someone is deceased, they are no longer a proponent or skeptic. RightGot (talk) 12:35, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

The Conglomerate (of Universes): Multiverse without random bubble universes and parallel worlds

"The BIG Bang-Bit Bang was a supermassive white hole – inflation expansion of energy/matter and information 13.8 billion years ago - spawned by a supermassive black hole at the heart of a galaxy in our parent universe. This duality combines general relativity’s singularities of infinite density in a ‘Cosmic Egg’ birth of this and all universes within The Conglomerate: multiverse without random bubble universes and parallel worlds. Our Universe exists inside the Planck density of that SBH and shares the same boundary/event horizon. That SBH-SWH phase transition was an umbilical Einstein-Rosen wormhole with energy/matter and information transformed and transferred. This Universe is 1-in-2 trillion offspring each with similar inherited physical constants. This ‘simple’ cause-and-effect cycle/circle of life – birth-life-death-transformation-rebirth - explains both infinite space and eternity. Reproduction is the simplest plan of continued existence for everything from cells to plants to animals to humans to universes. 2601:580:D:5BA2:AD5F:59F:A54C:851A (talk) 15:04, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

Fundamentally incoherent

ok, according to this article:

"The multiverse is a hypothetical group of multiple universes. Together, these universes comprise everything that exists: the entirety of space, time, matter, energy, information, and the physical laws and constants that describe them."

But the article for "Universe" says:

"The universe (Latin: universus) is all of space and time and their contents including planets, stars, galaxies, and all other forms of matter and energy."

So which is it?

These discussions are fundamentally incoherent. ---Dagme (talk) 19:16, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

Absurdly Negative Article

Half of cosmologists support the multiverse. The tone of this article is relentlessly negative. The bubble dark flow theory is dismissed, when some groups interpret the data as supporting it. It's an embarrassment. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.80.117.214 (talk) 07:09, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

The "etc" edit

See [14] for example. We're up to something like 15RR. All additiona have been made by one editor, and undoes have been made by many different editors. There certainly appears to be consensus not to include this change. Anyone want to justify keeping it? Meters (talk) 21:31, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

Hugh Everett?

Why is Hugh Everett not mentioned? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2603:8000:F201:2879:C43F:E269:F564:108A (talk) 05:28, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

who and why should he be mentioned? 114.125.110.227 (talk) 23:52, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

I improved the lead section

Since someone told me (I think?) to discuss my edits here but i didn't really understand anything else. 185.53.198.141 (talk) 19:06, 13 August 2022 (UTC)

Please do not add unsourced content to the lead section that is also unsourced in the body of the article. If you would like to help, please find citations in reliable sources. Thank you. Netherzone (talk) 20:18, 13 August 2022 (UTC)

This page needs a revamp.

I honestly don;t know where to start, but it has a horrible quality compared to the other wiki pages I've seen. The article also has a huge amount of vandalism and users undoing others edits.

5TheHunter (talk) 00:23, 7 October 2022 (UTC)

"Colonization of other universes" listed at Redirects for discussion

The redirect Colonization of other universes has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2023 April 7 § Colonization of other universes until a consensus is reached. Steel1943 (talk) 05:53, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

STOP USING THEORY

This article is embarrassing compared to other science-related wiki articles. The multiverse is a hypothesis NOT a theory. I’m not going to explain what a theory is in scientific terms, but just read Objections to Evolution, to get an idea of what I’m talking about. I need some help on fixing this obvious mistake. Wolfquack (talk) 23:15, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

Do you mean like String Theory, for which there is no evidence? 216.24.170.165 (talk) 14:09, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

The first line has written "hypothetical". 1.47.144.246 (talk) 05:05, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

Agree wholeheartedly and have replaced 'theories' with 'ideas' in the lead. Thanks. Thelisteninghand (talk) 20:21, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

omniverse

what about the omniverse hypothesis, stating that the omniverse stores all of existence 92.24.92.70 (talk) 09:52, 16 June 2023 (UTC)