VOA News has an article about the debate among some scientists as to whether there is just one universe or whether there are an infinite number of universes, like bubbles in an enormously vast bubblebath. It's an interesting question, I guess, but even more interesting is the reason why some scientists would seriously entertain a proposal that cannot be tested and which certainly contravenes the conventional preference for simplicity and parsimony in our explanations.
The driving motive for such speculation is that there are really only two live options from which we can select an explanation for the exquisite fine-tuning of the cosmos: Either there are a near infinite number of universes or this universe is the product of intentional design. If the latter option is metaphysically repugnant, which naturalists find it to be, then the first must be true.
Why are these the only two options? Scientists have realized over the last twenty five years that the parameters, forces, constants, and other physico-chemical and geo-physical properties of our cosmos are so incredibly precise that were just one of hundreds of values different in the slightest degree either our universe wouldn't exist, or, if it did, complex life would never have arisen. The universe looks as if it is a pre-planned home for living things like ourselves. This is called the Anthropic Principle and in the last decade a number of authors have been published in support of the argument that our universe is strongly teleological.
This, of course, is like finger nails drawn across a blackboard to materialist scientists who every morning before breakfast retreat to their prayer closets to meditate on the immortal words of Carl Sagan who assured us that "The universe is all there is, all there ever was, and all there ever will be." The problem is that the impression of apparent design is overwhelming, and unlike the case of biological design which can be dismissed with a wave of a copy of the Origin of Species, evolution cannot rescue the materialist from the appearance of a designed cosmos.
There's only one escape from the conclusion that there is an intelligent designer lurking about in the cosmic bushes. If there are an infinite number of universes then all possible universes would exist. Our universe is certainly possible, if highly, even ridiculously, improbable, therefore our universe must exist, regardless of how unlikely it is. Since this allows materialists to evade the conclusion that the religious rabble would have them accept, it appears to them, like an ugly woman to a sailor who's been at sea for six months, ravishingly attractive.
Since there's no evidence of other universes and no way to test the hypothesis that they exist, to talk about them is to speak the language of metaphysics rather than of science. This would incur the censure of such as Judge John Jones and the ACLU were it not for the fact that the "multiverse" serves such a noble purpose, i.e. it allows materialists an escape hatch through which they can wriggle away from the conclusion that the universe has a designer. There will, therefore, be no parents in Dover bringing lawsuits against teachers who discuss the multiverse in their science classrooms. Not all philosophical ideas, after all, are equally unsavory.
We'd like to pose some questions to those who promote the idea of a multiverse: If these hypothesized universes transcend our own does that make them supernatural? If so, then aren't the scientists who talk about these things actually dabbling in religion? And if not, then why must a designer which transcends our universe necessarily be supernatural? Just wondering.
