Lawson, I recently bought Tegmark's latest book in which he discusses these ideas. In the book, he speculates on how the universe will eventually in various scenarious like the Big Chill, Big Crunch, Big Rip, Big Snap and Big Bubble depending if the inflation theory of the universe is correct or not.
It is unusual, however, that he didn't mention how the current universe can be the cause of the next one--not necessarily due to the cyclic universe that can be caused by the Big Crunch-- which is the current proposal that Roger Penrose is making in the current lecture circuit. Nonetheless, I do appreciate many of Leonard Susskind's theories. On the YouTube physics lectures, he's apparently teaming up with Rafael Buosso to present their new ideas relating to the holographic nature of the universe. I'd like to hear what they have to say, particularly on the possibility of the superluminal expansion of the universe which appears to be a possible given the latest discovery about the universal inflation. ---In [email protected], <LEnglish5@...> wrote : Tegmark's page has links to lots of his essays: http://space.mit.edu/home/tegmark/crazy.html http://space.mit.edu/home/tegmark/crazy.html One thing that I didn't realize is that he believes that there's no real difference in the kind of universes found in Type I, Type II and Type III multiverses. They're just convenient ways of categorizing different details. Leonard Susskind recently published a paper that he claimed showed that the Type I and Type II multiverses were identical. L ---In [email protected], <jr_esq@...> wrote : Lawson, I can buy into the first and second level of this multiverse. But the third level is very dubious, given that it's based on probabilities. And the fourth level is purely speculative about the physical existence of mathematical principles or structures. At the end of the day, these are still theories. I don't know if these scientists will ever conclusive prove that the multiverse actually exists. But it's entertaining to think that the ETs are actually us. ---In [email protected], <LEnglish5@...> wrote : What he doesn't mention about this idea of a Type IV Multiverse where any mathematical construct can be teh basis for a universe, is that this really means that any *story* about a world defines a real universe where that story exists. No matter what kind of story it is, whether about elves and hobbits, werewolves and vampires, Warp Drives and Transporters, Flying Monkeys and Flying Witches, Gods and Demons, if it can be written down following normal rules of story-telling, than it exists in SOME universe with some mathematically consistent set of laws of nature. Robert A. Heinlein explored this concept in The Number of the Beast, where a hardy band of adventurers had outfitted a large Winnebago with a universe-transiting engine. One of the dimensions you could explore (tehre were 6 degrees of freedom to set the engine) was teh literary dimension of universes based on books. At one point, they visited Oz, and Glenda installed a bathroom window in the back of the vehicle that opened out onto The Emerald City. It was actually a small dimensional portal into The Emerald City, and you could watch birds flying by, feel the wind, etc. Too small to crawl out of though. Perhaps my favorite line in the book was when they were discussing the battle against teh forces of darkness and how things weren't going well and one of the characters said that they must face the possibility that they were "fighting an Author." L
