Hi Platt and all,
This is just a quick addendum to my earlier post.
Previously I said
> I'm not going to read up on Rees, because I have seen similar
arguments
> by other eminent scientists, and I consider them highly fallacious. .
. .
I finally DID have a look, and was surprised to find that I mostly agree
with Rees. This is the result of reading parts of the article
http://www.discover.com/nov_00/featlife.html that Platt did not quote.
Platt, you shouldn't take this as a criticism of your summary - what has
happened is that I read the same article through a slightly different
pair of glasses.. . .
The part of the article I wish to add is the following:
DICOVERY:
But Rees offers yet another explanation, one that smacks of neither
resignation nor theology. Drawing on recent cosmology- especially the
research of Stanford University physicist Andrei Linde and his own
theories about the nature of the six numbers- Rees proposes that our
universe is a tiny, isolated corner of what he terms the multiverse.
The idea is that a possibly infinite array of separate big bangs erupted
from a primordial dense-matter state. [snip] "If there is a large stock
of clothing, you're not surprised to find a suit that fits. If there are
many universes, each governed by a differing set of numbers, there will
be one where there is a particular set of numbers suitable to life. We
are in that one."
---
So I slightly misrepresented what Rees said when I wrote:
>Rees is looking at a dice that came up three and asking
>why it came up three and not six . . .
He really appears to be saying that the dice came up three in our own
universe but one, two, four five, six in others. Rees proposes that it
may be possible to verify signs of these alternative universes. i.e. to
find empirical evidence (the "brute force" argument) that the
alternative numbers are not only theoretically and potentially possible,
but that these possibilities have actually existed. This would turn the
argument from metaphysics to physics.
DISCOVERY:
Labeling any theory "metaphysics," he contends, "is a damning put-down
from a physicist's point of view," because metaphysical notions cannot
be proved or disproved. The multiverse, on the other hand, "genuinely
lies within the province of science," says Rees, although he concedes
that the concept remains speculative.
So Platt, our gentlemanly disagreement is under serious threat. You
claim to mostly agree with Pirsig and Rees. So do I. Maybe we don't
disagree after all.
Jonathan
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