Astronomy

Multiverse theories posit that our universe is one of many, in which countless

possible scenarios have played out. PIXABAY

12 ASTRONOMY • DECEMBER 2018

T

he perennial desire

to find an answer

to the question,

“What’s going on

here?” is taking

increasingly bizarre turns. One

such turn is the recent buzz

that the cosmos is possibly an

artificial construction.

The concept has become

so widespread that it even

appeared in a movie review in

The New York Times May 10,

in which science columnist

Dennis Overbye wrote, “The

news from some physicists like

the late Stephen Hawking is

that the universe might be a

hologram, an illusion like the

three-dimensional images on a

bank card. Some cosmologists

have argued that it is not incon-

sistent — at least mathemati-

cally — to imagine that the

entire universe as we know it

could just be a computer simu-

lation, as in The Matrix.”

This is certainly an appropri-

ate creation myth for our time!

Could it be true?

It’s not inconceivable that

some aliens could be so far

ahead of us that they could

design such a computer code.

And with artificial intelligence

rapidly advancing even in our

own lifetimes, the classical

question about whether com-

puters could gain sentience, a

sense of themselves, would be

answered if we ourselves were

indeed such computer entities,

programmed to think and have

memories. Certainly, the visible

world all around us could be

replicated by computers —

we’ve all experienced 3D movies

that fully capture a sense of

STRANGEUNIVERSE

We’re now exploring a whole new kind of creation myth.

BY BOB BERMAN

Is the universe

a hologram?

depth and yet actually occur on

a f lat, two-dimensional screen.

Given another century or mil-

lennium of programming prog-

ress, why couldn’t nature be

synthetically replicated?

OK, those of you who are

quick thinkers, I can anticipate

your objection. Namely, if our

human lives and experiences

can be explained as computer

code, this still doesn’t explain

the origin of the alien life forms

that created this artificial digi-

tal realm. That remains an

enormous loose end.

But I have deeper problems

with the idea. I can’t express

them any better than did

physicist Moshe Rozali of the

University of British Columbia

in response to a March 2017

blog post by Scott Aaronson

discussing the simulation

hypothesis. Rozali wrote in a

comment: “My main problem

with the simulation story is not

(only) that it is intellectually

lazy or that it is masquerading

as some deep foundational

issue. As far as metaphysical

speculation goes it is remarkably

unromantic. I mean, your best

attempt at a creation myth

involves someone sitting in

front of a computer running

code? What else do those

omnipotent gods do, eat pizza?

Do their taxes?”

There’s another f law, too. I

think we should automatically

be chary of explanations that

align with our current technol-

ogy, because it smells like

anthropomorphism. We saw

this a few decades ago when

some popular books claimed to

explain Peru’s Nazca Lines as

runways built by ancient aliens

to land their spacecraft. This

should have aroused skepti-

cism simply because runways,

while common nowadays, are a

very transient item in Earth’s

history. Imagining any of our

current tech needs or gadgets

like cellphones or toasters as

alien devices suggests we’re

“projecting.” It would be like

explorers in the 1890s finding

a circle on a cave wall and

believing it’s a drawing of an

ancient alien in a hot-air bal-

loon. Alien gadgets resembling

whatever is humankind’s cur-

rent leading-edge stuff should

automatically be tossed into

the “most unlikely” bin.

Thus these popular holo-

gram and computer-simulation

creation myths seem worse

than unimaginative. They defi-

nitely make my mental alarm

lights flash, even if my brain is

only a simulation.

Have we got any better cos-

mic models for you?

A growing favorite is the

multiverse. But you should

know there are several compet-

ing multiverses. The first was

the quantum theory explana-

tion proposed in 1957 by Hugh

Everett. Called the Relative

State and later renamed the

Many Worlds Interpretation,

the idea was that every time

anything happens, the alterna-

tive outcome also occurs in

some parallel universe.

You were too shy to ask out

the prom queen. But since it

could have happened, it did

happen, and somewhere out

there you and she are married

and living in a parallel Peoria.

For real. Many physicists accept

that a new universe pops into

existence each time you make a

left instead of a right turn.

Why would anyone believe

this? Well, it would explain the

wave-particle duality of light,

which we see in double-slit

experiments. In such experi-

ments, photons must “choose”

whether to act as a particle or a

wave, based on whether you’re

watching them go through the

slit or not. It’s a strange con-

cept. But if the dual nature we

observe is actually due to the

“leakage” of photons from par-

allel universes into ours, inter-

fering with the results by acting

differently than the photons

that belong here, no strange

explanation is needed.

Cosmology has its own sepa-

rate set of multiverses, but

these may be physically sepa-

rated from us, beyond our own

observable universe. They’re

proposed to make the oddly

life-friendly physical constants

of our cosmos seem more plau-

sible, since there should pre-

sumably be countless other

universes that are lifeless.

Need even more universes?

String theory has its own set.

And since each version

allows an unlimited number of

universes, we’re endowed with

multiple infinities. Lucky us.

BROWSE THE “STRANGE UNIVERSE” ARCHIVE AT http://www.Astronomy.com/Berman.

Join me and Pulse of the Planet’s

Jim Metzner in my new podcast,

Astounding Universe, at

http://astoundinguniverse.com.